The Cross and the Crown of Christ, Part 1

Jim ButlerPsalm 22:1–11

Psalm 22 is the suffering Messiah speaking in his own voice — a depth of self-disclosure that the prophet Isaiah 53 approaches but does not match. This sermon works through the first two of three laments in verses 1–11: Christ's desolation under judicial desertion by the Father, and the reproach heaped upon him by his enemies. The cry of dereliction is neither a rupture in the Trinity nor a dissolution of the hypostatic union, but a penal desertion in which the Father withdraws his favorable countenance from the one who has been made sin as mediator. Throughout each lament Christ models the pattern of honest complaint before God followed by confident recourse to the Father's holiness, covenant faithfulness, and sovereign purpose — a pattern the church is called to imitate in its own far lesser sufferings.