New Order

Psalm 22

This Psalm is especially precious to Christians because Jesus used on the cross the same words with which the Psalm opens.

We don’t detect the specific event or condition that leads to the outpouring of the Psalmist, but it seems it is not so much the physical suffering itself, however great, that has brought the psalmist to such depths, as the anguish of mind and heart caused by it. That anguish has at its heart a spiritual questioning concerning the presence and care of God.

There are two distinct parts. There is the prayer of lament (verses 1-21) with all its emotional turmoil and highly charged, sensory language; and a section of thanksgiving (verses 22-31) with a more ordered feel to what is now an outpouring of joy. Apparently there has been an answer to the prayer of the first part spoken into the heart of the psalmist, and so the last part is a response to that answering of prayer.

Prayer:
God, thank you that I don’t need to put my thoughts together in flowery language to come to you, that instead I can just pour out my heart, even confronting you with thoughts about you! Lead me then to new insight, assurance, reverence and strength, so that I too may bring some peace and order to any confusion in my life, and praise you to others. Through Christ. Amen.