Where Are You, God?

Well, seven verses Jesus loved is our series leading up to Easter. And we're going to wrap it up today. But before I dig into the word, I'm very excited about this. I want to emphasize two more things about Easter weekend. I just got the menu for the Continental breakfast that's going to happen on Easter morning. So there's going to be little mini cinnamon buns, donuts, mini frittatas, yogurt and granola, decorate your own cupcake stations for you and your kids, fill your own egg stations for you and your kids, mini peeps. I mean, there's no reason to even come inside the auditorium on Easter. This is fantastic. But the reason I mentioned that is I know you want to invite your friends, and you can just mention some of that stuff to them because it's going to be a lot of fun. And there's some other surprises we've got for you as well.

Now, I just also heard from Miss Yolanda, and she says we really need kids' ministry helpers for that weekend. In fact, she says we need about 90 more to help with the hundreds of little kids who will be here. Now, don't worry. The programming part is all taken care of. We just need people to help with kind of herding kids around. So please consider attending one service and helping at another. And let me show you how easy it is. As Adrian said, you just go to TLC dot org slash Easter, and then you scroll down to where it says volunteer to help. Find where it says help with kids, and you click on that, and then guess what comes up? All the different service times, all the different ages. You can click on the age and the time that you want, and that goes to a very simple little form. You click on sign up, you get an email confirmation. So it's like four steps, and you're there. So that I'm not saying you should do this, but this is something you could do in about 20 seconds right now on your phone if you really want to do the Lord's will next weekend. So it's going to be great.

Here's another thing you can tell your friends. We're going to have amazing jazz saxophonist Andre Schmoot in all of our Easter services. He has played on Grammy Award-winning records, toured and recorded with Bob James, legendary jazz artist, and he's going to be here. The music is going to be fantastic. The food is going to be amazing. The message will be mediocre. I hope you come out to the services next weekend.

Well, let me ask you a question. Has anybody ever said anything to you that really rattled your faith? I mean, it's happened to me several times, but probably the first time it made a major impact for me, I was a freshman in college, and my intro to philosophy teacher, who I really respected and I still respect to this day, I learned a lot of good stuff from him. But he said this to the class, and this probably won't surprise you. And because you were a college teacher for years and years and years, he stood in front of us and he said, if Christ had survived his crucifixion, he would not have been a believer. Because on the cross, Jesus had a crisis of faith. Christ himself realized it had all been pointless. He had been wrong. God doesn't care. And he said, I can prove it to you. Because why else would Jesus have screamed, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And he just let that echo in the classroom, and none of us knew what to say.

Now, in case you need a little refresher, here's what he was talking about, that the agony of the crucifixion of Jesus, starting with the torture and the trials and the mocking and then the cross itself. In both the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, they say that darkness fell upon the land from about noon till about 3 p.m. And then they both contain this eyewitness detail. And at 3 in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lemme sabach tani, which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So in that moment, did Jesus lose faith as my professor insisted? And if you're saying, no, no, no, no, of course not. Well, then what does this mean? Are you ready to do some discovery today? Grab your message notes, and you'll find them in the middle of your bulletins today. As we wrap up this series, seven verses Jesus loved. This has been fun. We've looked at verses from the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, that Jesus quoted at key moments in his ministry. You always seem to underscore whatever was happening in his life with a verse. He clearly had it memorized. Well, you know, he had inspired it.

And here just a quick recap. Here's the verses we've looked at so far from the start of his ministry where he said, quoting Isaiah 61, The spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And then famously, when asked the greatest commands, he quotes Deuteronomy 6, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. And then quoting Leviticus, Love your neighbor as yourself. Challenging the temple authorities, he said, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. Challenging the religious leadership, he said, Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. And then in the last week of his life, he proclaims, The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. So look at all the words you see in those verses. You get a sense of the personality of Jesus and the emphasis of his ministry. There are marvels and love and good news, which makes what he says on the cross all the more shattering.

Back in that college classroom, I was honestly so blown away by this. It echoed in my head for days. And finally, I asked my stepfather, who was a pastor himself, to go for a drive with me where we could talk about this. But then on the drive, I hesitated to bring it up. I almost didn't want to tell him what I was struggling with. You know why? Because I was afraid he would say he didn't know either. And so finally, I blurted out, Why did Jesus say, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' And my stepdad looks at me and just says two words. Psalm 22. And I said, Well, you know, I was 18 years old, and at 18, you don't really think your dad or your stepdad has it all together. You know, you're clearly more brilliant than them. And I said, Dad, that's not in Psalm 22. That's in the Gospels, not in the Old Testament. And he just kind of smiles at me and says again, Psalm 22. And I said, Well, what do you mean by that? What are you talking about? And he didn't say another word to me for the rest of the drive. Why? Because he didn't want to over-explain the mystery, and he wanted to give me the thrill of discovery that the emotion that I think the very first disciples also experienced in that moment. And let me explain why.

After we got back from the drive, I went up into my room, grabbed my Bible, did a little Bible study, looked it up. And here's what I discovered that afternoon. Psalm 22 was written by King David 1,000 years before Christ. That's very important. How many years before Christ? One thousand. Say it again. One thousand. A millennium before Jesus Christ was alive. And by the time of Christ, the Psalms, which were the hymnbook of Israel, they weren't known by their number. Like we now talk about Psalm 1, Psalm 23, Psalm 100. In those days, they were known by their title. And this is how we refer to songs today, right? We don't say, I really love Stevie Wonder number 13, or whatever. We say, Oh, I love you are the sunshine of my life, or whatever the title of the song is. Same thing here. They were known by their title, and their title was always the first line. For example, Psalm 23 was known as The Lord is my shepherd. Psalm 42 was called As the deer, because these are the first lines of those songs. Psalm 22 was known as My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It was the title of a song.

But you might be saying, Well, no, why would Jesus in His agony have been shouting out the name of a song to His watching disciples? That doesn't make any sense. But let me take a little detour into songs and memory. Song lyrics, when you think about it, and research has proven this to be true, they're one of the most remarkably effective ways for people to remember anything. Our human memory of song lyrics is almost incredible. It's miraculous. Check this out. Psychology Today had an article about this called Why We Remember Song Lyrics So Well. And it says, Research has proven that the single most effective way to get people to remember something perfectly, like word for word perfect, is to teach it to them in a song, and they'll remember it often for the rest of their lives. And to just kind of prove it to you, I want to play a game with you. I call it Finish the Lyrics. I'm going to start with the first line of a song, and if you can finish the lyric, you just shout it out. And I don't even want to go to recent songs. I want to go to some songs you have not probably heard in years, maybe decades, and probably you never memorized the lyrics to these songs at all. Some of these were written before some of us were born. Here we go. How do you solve a problem like, You are correct. I am 16 going on. Doe a deer a... Right? We just remember these songs perfectly. One more. And this is a song that has to my knowledge never even been recorded. It's, I don't think it's ever been taught to anyone. I've never seen these lyrics written down anywhere. Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, Robin. How do we even know that song? And there are thousands of these up here in our brains. You know, once when our youngest son, David, was just a tiny toddler, he had just turned three. His older brother and sister were having some kind of an argument around the dinner table. No, you don't. No, you are. No, you are. No, you are. And finally, my wife, Lori, just yells, Stop! And there's sudden silence. And three-year-old David pipes up, In the name of love before you wake my heart. How did he know that? One word and the rest of the song comes out. And I think that same phenomenon, I mean, how many times has a friend on purpose or accidentally quoted the start of a song lyric and you just finished it, right? That's happened hundreds of times for you. I think that is what is happening here. Because when Jesus says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? they would have automatically thought of the rest of the lyrics of Psalm 22, and they would have gotten goosebumps. Why? Remember Psalm 22 was written how many years before Christ? A thousand years. Yet look at the parallels between Psalm 22 and what's happening on the cross. I mean, it starts with the first line, which Jesus Christ says from the cross. But if the disciples would have activated the song lyric memory, look at what else they would have remembered, like verse 16. They pierced my hands and feet. And what was happening to Jesus? They had led Him away to crucify and piercing His hands and feet. Now, the really amazing thing is that crucifixion had not yet been invented when David wrote Psalm 22. And nothing like this ever happened to David. So why did he write this? Later in the book of Acts, Simon Peter says that David prophesied about Jesus. That's the way the early church began to understand Psalm 22.

How about verses 6 and 7 of Psalm 22? All who see Me mock Me, they hurl insults, shaking their heads. He trusts in the Lord, they say. Let the Lord rescue Him. A thousand years later, those who passed by hurled insults at Him, at Jesus, shaking their heads, He trusts in the Lord. Let God rescue Him now if He wants Him. There's one parallel after another. Verse 17, David writes, People stare and gloat over Me. They divide their clothes among them and cast lots for My garment. Over in Matthew 27 at the cross, they divided up His clothes by casting lots. It's just astonishing, isn't it? Psalm 22, verse 14, I am poured out like water and all My bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax. It has melted within Me. Physically, this never happened to David. He's just describing how Jesus died by crucifixion. Jesus died much too soon for a crucifixion. Most victims took days to die. So what killed Him? There's a clue in John 20, verse 34, One of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. By that description, modern doctors know what happened to Jesus was His heart burst, filling His chest cavity with blood and fluid, which came out when He was pierced, establishing that He was dead.

So I want you to put yourself in the disciples' places for a minute. They're remembering, like this, ancient lyrics to the rest of the song Jesus has started that describe what is happening before their very eyes. In fact, several scholarly commentators I read said that they wonder if Jesus didn't sing the whole psalm because of the last phrase Jesus says on the cross. It is finished, meaning that Scripture was now fulfilled. Guess what the last line of Psalm 22 is? He has done it, which could also be translated, It is fulfilled. Listen, I don't know whether you're in church today, you know, as a believer, whether you came as a guest. I don't know whether you believe in the Bible or God or Jesus, but you have to admit all this is amazing. Again, Jesus quoting thousand-year-old song lyrics that prophesy what is happening to Him in that moment. Now, why would Jesus take the trouble to do that? Well, I can think of three reasons that are very relevant to you and me today, and you can jot these down on page three of your notes.

In quoting Psalm 22, Jesus is saying first, I think very clearly, There is a plan. Right? This is not a tragic accident. Disciples who are watching all this happening, there's a purpose behind it. He was referring his disciples to undeniable proof that every detail of what they were witnessing had already been in God's plan. You know, a friend of mine and I, we were asking about Christianity. We were saying, you know, we love our faith, but do we believe it just because it's so beautiful? You know, God sent His Son because He so loved the world, and He paid the penalty due to all of us for our sins, so we would not perish but have everlasting life. That is so beautiful. That is, is there any evidence that it's true? Well, I believe Jesus is saying here, Well, here's some proof that all this is no tragic accident. This was planned by God. Here are prophecies from a thousand years before. Now, in some ways, He's saying the same exact thing to you and me about our pain. Life when we go through tough times can seem so purposeless, so absurd, as did the cross to any observer, but there is a plan. Your suffering is not absurd. God promises He will bring something beautiful even out of tragedy, and next weekend on Easter, I'll be starting a brand new series called Hope Rising, all about this, about how there's hope because there's a plan.

And secondly, I think Jesus is communicating He feels the pain too. Jesus was feeling pain. Sometimes we can get this idea that Jesus was like Superman. Bullets just bounced off His chest. Nothing fazed Him. But of course, Jesus was not only a hundred percent divine, He was also one hundred percent human. At times in the Gospels, He felt tired, disturbed, angry, sleepy, grief-stricken, hungry. He felt pain. He felt thirst. And here He feels utterly forsaken, and He says so. And when you feel like this, this doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. That's part of being human. That's part of being like Jesus. But in Christian culture, sometimes we can misunderstand this. One of my favorite examples is when I was a little kid at church, they used to play us records by Little Marcy. Little Marcy was this… Little Marcy wasn't her. Little Marcy was this ventriloquist doll. Did anybody else ever listen to records by Little Marcy? I'm apparently the only one who went to a weird church. Okay, well, you might… She actually had a one-sharding hit called Let the Sunshine In. Do you remember that song? So let the sunshine in, take it with a grin, open up your heart and let the sunshine in. That was Little Marcy. Well, as a kid I loved that, but have you ever looked at the verses to Little Marcy's songs? I looked up the lyrics to Let the Sunshine In this week just to see if my memory was accurate. It was weirder than I remembered. This is so bizarre. So here's the first verse. Mommy told me something that a little kid should know. It's all about the devil, and I've learned to hate him so. She said he causes trouble when you let him in the room, and he will never, ever leave you if your heart is filled with gloom. Now listen to this line. I know he'll be unhappy because I'll never wear a frown. See, if we keep on smiling, he'll get tired of hanging around. Little Marcy was committed to the — no, I — now don't get me wrong, I like Little Marcy. Don't email me about how much you love Little Marcy, how she changed your life, and how I offended you. Here's the point I'm making. A lot of us learned something like, Being a really good Christian means I'll never wear a frown, and I will just keep on smiling. That's not being a good Christian. That's being a good puppet. Here's what it means to be like Jesus. Sometimes you feel forsaken, and you can say it. Being fully human means being low sometimes. That's not being unfaithful. That's literally being Christ-like. One of the reasons I love our faith is the story it tells us about God, how He came into our world of suffering, not into luxury, but into a real hard life all the way to death on a cross. And that means, as somebody said, There is no place so low God has not been lower still. I love that. Because life hurts sometimes, grieving, being rejected, made fun of. And the depths of despair, Jesus has been there. So different from the Greek or Roman gods who just looked down from Olympus. And this means He can envelop you in His arms today, not out of pity, but out of sympathy. That is awesome.

And finally, there's a third reason I think Jesus says this from the cross. He was communicating, This is temporary. In fact, the best is yet to come. See, Psalm 22 does not stay bleak. The first half, you could say the first verse, contains all those predictions of the crucifixion, but about halfway through, there's a turn. It flips. And the last half is triumphant. It's all about the glory on the other side of suffering. In fact, this, I'll tell you kind of a pet peeve. Sometimes people, I think theologically and accurately, use the first verse, My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? to say, Oh, well, see, God the Father turned His face away from the Son on the cross. Because after all Jesus said, Why have You forsaken me? But look at how this Psalm ends. With David realizing and foretelling, He has not despised or detested the torment of the afflicted. He has not hidden his face from him, but has listened to his cry for help. I will praise You in the great assembly. I will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who worship You. The poor will eat and be satisfied. Those who seek the Lord will praise Him. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nations will bow down before Him. Now where else in the Bible is there a scene like what this is just described? Pardon me. For all the ends of the earth and all the families of the nations bow down and worship the Lord. The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, right? A giant feast with all the people and all the nations praising God. Every tribe, every language, every nation in the new heaven and the new earth. I believe that by prompting recollection of the Psalm and the song lyrics, Jesus is directing His disciples who are watching as their world seemingly collapses to a Psalm that promises that's not the end of the song. It's like He's saying, No, remember those ancient lyrics, 'It gets better.' This won't last. This is temporary. In fact, it gets really good. That song is about what the world will look like thanks to what I'm doing here conquering sin and death through my sacrifice on the cross. One day all sin and death will be gone forever. Amen?

Verse 29 says, All the rich of the earth will feast and worship all who go down to the dust. That's another way of saying, The lowest of the low will kneel before Him, even those unable to preserve their lives. Even those who can't keep themselves alive, even those who are dead are going to worship Him together. This is a promise that the resurrection is ahead. Jesus is saying He doesn't just promise trouble, He also promises glory. Oh, and by the way, you're a part of this. Did you know that? Psalm 22 goes on, Posterity will serve Him. Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim His righteousness declaring to a people yet unborn that He has done it. That's you and me, future generations. In a way, you are in the lyrics of a song sung by Jesus on the cross. So Jesus was directing His disciples to a song that would echo in their memories and inspire them for the rest of their lives. And He sang to them, Don't stop on the first line. Sing the song through to the end. And maybe you feel it today, forsaken, confused. Jesus is saying, But there's a plan and I feel the sorrow too. I am sympathizing. I'm there with you. And this is temporary. In fact, wonders await.

Now part of the plan that God has is how we serve Him, how we proclaim Him. It's living now with those kingdom values that the Psalm talks about. Remember it says, The poor will eat and be satisfied. This is in the kingdom of heaven. Everybody will eat and be satisfied. And part of our calling as believers, as ambassadors of the kingdom, is to foreshadow this coming reality, to give people kind of a sneak peek as God enables us. So in that spirit, we had an idea. Here's what I'd love for us to do. On Easter weekend, I'd love to see our barrels in the lobby for people's pantry overflowing with food. You might know that recent funding changes right now mean that food banks have lost a lot of funding. And at the same time, in the last two years, they've seen typically a 20% increase in people needing food because of inflation and so on. And you can wring your hands over news headlines or whatever, or get paralyzed by that. Don't do that. That's counterproductive. Let's just do our job. Let's do what Jesus' followers have always done through the centuries at our best. Let's pitch in so that the poor will eat and be satisfied. There are some very, very specific items that we need. All the details are in your notes. I mean, very specific, like cold cereal in boxes, not in giant bags. You know, jars of peanut butter, little jars, not Costco-sized tubs. You can start to see a theme here. And please, of course, be new. Make sure they're new and not expired. But on Easter weekend, let's bring in bags of this stuff. Let's have the world's biggest pile of food right outside here on Easter morning. What do you say? That's part of following Jesus. So that the poor will eat and be satisfied.

I also want you to know, this is also just in. You might remember that we're building our Hope Center building as a permanent home for our food ministry and support groups and so on. It's going to go where the old portables are now. Here's what's just in. Demolition begins May 8th, and groundbreaking is June 8th. Isn't that exciting? So please be in prayer about that. Also remember my old college professor who said, This cry is proof that Jesus suddenly saw it all as totally without purpose, without design, without meaning. I hope you see that the truth is the exact opposite of what he said. In fact, with this cry, Jesus was reassuring the disciples that there was a far greater design, greater purpose, greater meaning than they could have imagined, a history spanning purpose, a rich meaning. And when you feel this way, your life is not without meaning. It's rich with purpose when its meaning is centered on what Jesus Christ did on the cross. So put your trust in Him for that kind of hope today. Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads with me?

With our heads bowed, if you feel abandoned or in despair right now, you know Jesus truly understands because He has been there. And so now I invite you to believe in Him. Put your trust in Him. Receive Him as your Lord, as your Savior. And for those who already have done that, would you believe Him when He says it gets better? Would you believe Him when He says even when it seems like a total disaster, He has a plan? Believe Him when He says you're part of that plan. Thank you so much, Lord, that you are with us in every situation, even when we feel forsaken and that you've gone ahead to the end of it all. So we put our trust in you today, and we pray this in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.