The first Messianic prophecy

Pastor Max Lyons opens by recapping Genesis 3:15, where God tells the serpent that a descendant of the woman will crush his head while being bruised in the heel. That is the story of Jesus in the third chapter of the Bible. After Isaiah 53 the previous week, the church turns to the passage Jesus quoted twice from the cross, standing to read all thirty-one verses of Psalm 22 together.

Psalms and Isaiah are the Old Testament books most quoted in the New Testament, and Acts 2 confirms that David foresaw the Messiah coming from his line. Psalm 22 describes the crucifixion in such detail that it reads like the Gospel eyewitness accounts; Pastor Max counts twenty-three prophetic details confirmed in the New Testament. Of Jesus' seven statements from the cross, the first and last lines of this psalm are two of them: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and "It is finished."

Why have you forsaken me?

Throughout the crucifixion Jesus focused on others: the weeping women, the soldiers He forgave, the thief beside Him, and His mother. But when He quoted Psalm 22:1, something shifted. He cried out in His own anguish and used the impersonal "Eli," my God, instead of His usual "Abba." God made Christ, who never sinned, the offering for our sin, and since the wages of sin is death and separation from God, Jesus was feeling the full weight of our sin in that moment.

Loved because He is loving

Verse 3 says, "Yet you are holy," and that is why the cross was necessary: God is holy and we are not, yet He loves us anyway. Pastor Max tells of sending his four-year-old, Levi, to time-out and asking him two questions afterward: Why does Daddy discipline you? Because you love me. Why does Daddy love you? Because I'm your boy. His prayer is that his son will glimpse how the heavenly Father loves us, not because we behave but because we are His. God does not love us because we are lovable; He loves us because He is loving.

I am a worm

Alongside the seven "I am" statements in John, Pastor Max suggests Psalm 22:6 offers an eighth: "I am a worm." The Hebrew word tola can mean worm or crimson, because the tola worm was the source of red dye in ancient Israel. To give birth, it fixes itself to a tree, lays its eggs, and dies, leaving a crimson stain; after three days the remains turn white like wool. He connects this to Isaiah 1:18, "though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow," and to Jesus, who was fixed to a tree, died so we could live, and rose after three days to make us clean.

An eyewitness account written in advance

Pastor Max pairs the psalm with Matthew 27 and John 19: mockers shaking their heads and saying "let the Lord rescue him," bones pulled out of joint as a crucified body dislocates, a tongue stuck to the roof of the mouth as Jesus says "I thirst," clothes divided by casting lots, and most strikingly, "they pierce my hands and my feet," written centuries before crucifixion was invented.

A new family to the ends of the earth

At verse 22 the psalm turns from agony to praise: "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters." Hebrews 2 says those who are made holy belong to the same family as the One who makes them holy, so our first marker of identity is being a child of God. The praise widens from the assembled people to all Israel, to the ends of the earth, and to generations not yet born, mirroring Acts 1:8. Even the non-Christian Greek writer Phlegon recorded the midday darkness and earthquake Matthew describes at Jesus' death.

It is finished

The psalm ends with "he has done it," which Jesus echoed with "It is finished." Pastor Max explains lividity, the pooling of blood at the lowest point of a body after death, which for a crucified man would be the feet, a literal echo of Genesis 3:15. Jesus crushed the serpent's head, defeated sin and death, and rose bodily from the grave, turning our scarlet sin white as snow. The only fitting response is worship, and the message closes with the church rising to praise Jesus together.