January 16
“You, O Lord, do not be far from Me; O My Strength, hasten to help Me! . . . You have answered Me. I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You. You who fear the Lord, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and fear Him, all you offspring of Israel! . . . My praise shall be of You in the great assembly . . . Those who seek Him will praise the Lord. Let your heart live forever. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord. And all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For the kingdom is the Lord’s and He rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship . . . A posterity shall serve Him. It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation, they will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, that He has done this,” Psalm 22:19, 21-23, 25-31.
In Psalm 22:1-18, our thoughts are directed to the mocking multitude assembled before the Roman rulers and to the crucifixion on the cross at Mount Calvary. In those events, we see the fulfillment of the heavenly Father’s love for sinners, as expressed in those familiar words written by the evangelist John: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved,” John 3:16-17.
In spirit, we journey to Calvary and behold the price that was paid by the Son of God to save all people. All who hear the Gospel are invited to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We can express our faith beautifully in the words of Luther’s explanation to the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.”
With such faith and hope in our hearts, we join the multitudes to whom reference is given in the concluding verses of Psalm 22. The multitudes praise and glorify God for hearing and answering the prayers of His Son while hanging on the cross at Calvary. In this psalm, the Messiah expresses the answer of the Father with the words, “You, O Lord, do not be far from Me; O My Strength, hasten to help Me! . . . You have answered Me.”
We who seek and praise the Lord assemble with fellow Christians to give all glory to God for His grace, mercy, and forgiveness, gained and sealed for us through the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus. We who believe and trust in Jesus as God’s Son and our Savior are also determined to fulfill the words of the psalmist to proclaim the glorious message of the Gospel throughout the world. The psalmist speaks of this being done with the words, “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord. And all the families of the nations shall worship before You.”
That takes place when we are witnesses, to which we were commissioned by Jesus just prior to His ascension into heaven: “You shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth,” Acts 1:8.
“Hark! The voice of Jesus crying,
‘Who will go and work today?
Fields are white and harvests waiting,
Who will bear the sheaves away?’
Loud and long the Master calleth,
Rich reward He offers thee;
Who will answer, gladly saying,
‘Here am I, send me, send me’?” Amen.