Mid-Week Music #35 - Death of a Son

Well, well, my first Mid-Week Music post since I’ve been back! And what an odd choice, you’d think. But as always, there is a reason for it.

You see, this Wednesday marks the final week for Bible study at our church. We finished one book, so Pastor decided to go through the Psalms, since there’s not really any obligation to finish all of that book.

For this last week, we ended up studying the 22^nd psalm. That is why I’m putting up this song—it’s a sort of adaptation of that psalm, by Michael Card (a great Christian musician). At least, it’s an adaptation of the first part of the psalm. There’s actually more to it than even this. And those parts, I will address after the song.

Eli, Eli, la ma sabach thani?

Eli, Eli, la ma sabach thani?

Why are you so far from saving me

So far from the words of my groaning?

By night and by day I cry out in pain

So why do you not answer?

Yet You are enthroned as the Holy One

In You our fathers trusted

They cried out to You and were saved

They were never disappointed

I am a worm, no longer a man

La ma sabach thani?

They have pierced My feet and hands

La ma sabach thani?

I looked for comforters, but found none

Oh how could You forsake Me?

Oh my strength, come quickly, come

Come now, o Lord, and save Me

For You would never despise or disdain

The suffering of the afflicted

In the congregation I will proclaim

That from the grave You lifted Me...

In the miry depths I sink

La ma sabach thani?

They gave Me vinegar to drink

La ma sabach thani?

La ma sabach thani?

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I could go into so many things, just based on this part of the psalm. A psalm that talks so directly about the Passion of Christ is sure to be interesting. However, many people are so preoccupied with the first twenty-five verses, they forget the rest of the psalm:

“The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for ever. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord’s: and he is the governor among the nations. All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.” Psalm 22:26-31.

If the first part described His Passion, the second part describes His Mission. That mission is to turn all the nations of the world unto Him. Or as the book of Matthew puts it, “Go ye therefore, and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”

And I don’t really think that means Jesus is going to come back and say ‘Okay, everybody out of the pool! I’ve had enough!’. That’s the more pre-millennium view: history will get worse and worse until Jesus comes back and brings everything to an end. Or, to use another analogy, Satan wins the Super Bowl, but then Jesus comes back and destroys the stadium, and His team has a party on the wreckage.

But not so, according to the psalmist. “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord” (emphasis mine). That sounds to me like the nations will turn to the Lord willingly, of their own accord. Every knee shall bow, because it wants to serve God.

If “the kingdom is the Lord’s”, it cannot fail. It shall win the world, because it must. It’s something that will take years upon years, centuries, maybe thousands and thousands of years. But it will proclaim its message unto the ends of the earth, and will not come back empty-handed.

That message is that none can keep alive his own soul. But Jesus, through all that was described in the first part of the psalm, through His excruciating, sorrowful death for sins and His joyful, victorious resurrection, keeps alive the souls of all who serve Him. Those who go down to the dust of death that are His shall be lifted from the grave, just as He was, and live to worship Him.

And we who serve Him shall come forth, and declare His righteousness unto the people. And not just those who are alive now, but also unto a people that shall be born—unto our descendants. This message will go out through our words and our work. All that He has done for us will endure, and His Words shall be fulfilled.