Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 22.22-31: Courage leads to praise

The Garden Tomb in Jerusalem

Psalm 22.22-31

²² I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters;
    in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
²³ You who fear the Lord, praise him!
    All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
    stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
²⁴ For he did not despise or abhor
    the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me,
    but heard when I cried to him.

²⁵ From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
    my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
²⁶ The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
    those who seek him shall praise the Lord.
    May your hearts live for ever!

²⁷ All the ends of the earth shall remember
    and turn to the Lord;
and all the families of the nations
    shall worship before him.
²⁸ For dominion belongs to the Lord,
    and he rules over the nations.

²⁹ To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
    before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
    and I shall live for him.
³⁰ Posterity will serve him;
    future generations will be told about the Lord,
³¹ and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
    saying that he has done it.



Holy Saturday. The dead centre between crucifixion and resurrection. Hope mothballed. A void behind a heavy stone. Life on hold. Creative suffering. What’s going on in that tomb? Can the dead praise God, let alone be raised by God? Those lying in dust, can they speak again? Can silence be broken, by the Word?



Today, was different, there is no doubt about that. Lock down does not mean we can’t move around. Nor are we are entombed. But the waiting, helpless, without an end in sight – that is a feeling that is growing. ‘How long, O Lord, how long?’ That is the question in this out-of-control feeling-helpless world we now inhabit. There is a dragging sensation as we carry on slowing down, trying to be present just to each hour.


The women who cared for Jesus’ body would have wanted to do that was necessary according to the custom. But they had had to wait for the Sabbath to run its course. Sabbath started at sundown on the Friday and would run through to sundown on the Saturday. But it being dark and all, they would have to wait until sunrise on the day after the Sabbath, Sunday, to do that was necessary. So Saturday was a day of waiting, collecting spices later that Saturday evening to be ready, early on the next day.



Meanwhile, in the last third of Psalm 22, emerging out of the tomblike loss of meaning which has haunted the first 21 verses, lament is replaced by joyous praise; praise which began in the tomb and led to a raising, a resurrection, an overturning of reality.



These surprising and explosively exultant last 10 verses are so utterly unexpected. The pleading of an afflicted and tortured individual are transformed. Something has shifted in the outlook of this person. We know it began in the second part of verse 21 – for suddenly there is an awareness that God has answered the cry for help. Now, quite extraordinarily, this lone and solitary afflicted one becomes a witness to a great crowd, a congregation of fellow sufferers, who are invited to join in the song of praise to God. What is the reason? In vs24 we are told, plainly, that it is because ‘God did not despise or abhor the afflictions of the afflicted.’ What’s more, nor did he ‘hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him’. Life defies death. And all the ends of the earth shall hear of this and be amazed. National boundaries will be cross by this good news. It will become contagious, across the generations and even to those yet to be born. The exuberance of these last verses and the weighty theology of hope they carry demands attention, for us who perhaps find we can identify far more with the first 21 verses than the last 10.



As a Christian, I read back into Psalm 22 something that is being prophetically imagined by the poet way before Christ’s birth, death and resurrection. And that prophetic imagination is fired up by ‘resurrection’ hope. Jesus chose the opening desolate lines of this psalm to be on his lips in his agony and despair. But he did so with expectation that the last note of praise and hope would not go unsung.



We are not to rush from Good Friday’s darkness to Easter’s bright morning – which is why Holy Saturday is such an important day. It helps to shape a slow dawning courage.



In his gentle and insightful book Creative Suffering, the Swiss doctor Paul Tournier, speaks of how his courage is revived when he comes into contact with courageous people who have lived through and beyond trials of immense suffering. He talks about how courage comes to people only within the trial itself. ‘There are people who constantly worry over whether they will have the courage to face this or that deprivation – old age, a painful illness, or the death of a husband or wife. I have always tried to reassure them, for as long as the trial they fear is not there, the courage cannot be there either. And they are probably the ones who will bear it most courageously if it does come. Over and over again, I have marvelled at the resources of courage these worrying people reveal themselves to have when they have to face the real thing and not the phantom of their imagination.’ [1]



Courage leads to praise. Trust leads to hope. Understanding God hears us is the spur to courage, prayer, trust and hope. As the sirens wail across our night-shrouded city and as the birds sing their morning song of praise, may we all find the courage to face the trials we do in the knowledge that God is right there with us in this time of Covid19. For the stone will role away from the void and a loving voice will call our name.

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[1] Creative Suffering, ©1981 Editions Labor et Fides, Geneva, Translation © Edwin Hudson 1982 SCM Press. p98