In connection with our text for this morning, I invite you to open Holy Scripture with me to Psalm 22. Now Psalm 22 is a well-known Lord's Supper Psalm, as it is so very clearly connected with the sufferings of our Lord. That first verse is quoted by Him on the cross, but there are so many more connections throughout. as well as something very interesting, very key, that has to do with the shift in the psalm from lament to praise. Let's read Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted. They trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued. In you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind, despised by the people. All who see me mock me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord, let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him. Yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breasts. On you I was cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, be not far off. You, my help, come quickly to my aid. Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion. But here is that shift. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him. And stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel. For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. And he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard when he cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation. My vows I will perform before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship. Before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn that he has done it." Thus far our reading. Now our text for this morning comes from Matthew chapter 27. Please turn there with me. A very short, very full text. Matthew 27, verses 45 through 47. Now this is our Lord's Supper sermon on the words of our Lord from the cross, and we've come to that fourth word. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So let's read this word in a very short context. Matthew 27, verse 45 through 47. Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, which means, that is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, this man is calling Elijah. After the sermon, we will sing our Amen song, continuing on in Psalm 22, the stanzas eight and nine. May God bless the preaching of his word. Beloved in Christ our Lord, every two months when we celebrate the Lord's Supper together, are you unsure of how you should walk to the front of the church? Should, when you walk up, should your head be down? Should your face be downcast, focusing on the cost of all of this? That for you to eat this supper, you made your Savior go through hell. That you, your sins, made him cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Or, should you be joyful as you come forwards? Joyful with the biggest smile on your face, should you instead of focusing on the cost, should you focus on the result. That because of what happened on the cross, thousands, millions, maybe even billions of people are saved from hell. That you have a glorious future ahead of you. That you have been adopted into the family of God. That this, what we celebrate this morning, is a foretaste of that great marriage feast of the Lamb. How should we approach the table? How should we approach the Lord's Supper? Well, the fourth word from the cross can provide us with some clarity on this point. We will see that it wasn't a cry to Elijah, it was the cry of David, it was his cry, and it was a cry for us. So the fourth word from the cross, it wasn't a cry to Elijah. This morning, we meet our Lord on the cross. We meet him right near the end of his suffering. Now, from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani. That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is here, minutes away from the end. This is the worst of his sufferings. This is the worst of his anguish. Light had fled. There was darkness over the land. Light had fled as the light of the world was being extinguished on that cross. Creation itself was being undone. The first creation, light, was turning back into darkness. It was turning back into chaos because the creator was being killed. He is the sustainer, so what happens when you kill him? Well, this is a foretaste of that. There's nothing left but chaos and darkness and evil when God isn't there. Satan is rejoicing as Jesus is suffering, as he is in anguish. And yet, even in his anguish, these words that he speaks are so meaningful, they are so wonderful, they are so rich, and they are so valuable. And first of all, we see that these words are misinterpreted. Have you ever thought of this, beloved? Have you ever noticed Matthew 27 verse 47? And some of the bystanders hearing it said, this man is calling Elijah. This man is calling Elijah. What is that about? Well, this confusion, it's partially due to Jesus' suffering. He has these bleeding, dry, cracked lips. It's hard to understand what he's saying. And in the Aramaic, Eli, Eli, my God, my God, can sound, perhaps, a little bit like Elihu, Elijah. Eli, Elihu, perhaps. But if these words are so hard to understand, if they're not sure what he's saying, why would their minds jump to Elijah? Why Elijah, what is his name doing here in our text? Well for this we have to know a little bit of the Hebrew tradition at the time. Moses, he was known as the man who represented the law. Moses represented the law, this is familiar to us. Moses was the law, and Elijah, well he did a double duty. He represented not only the prophets, but he also represented the end. And Malachi, right at the end of the Old Testament, he says this, he speaks in this way, he says, behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. Malachi is telling us that Elijah is going to come before the end. And so the teachers of the law and the scribes, they took this up. In their writings, in the Mishnah, in the Talmud, they regularly write time after time, these things will continue until Elijah comes. Do these things until Elijah comes. Stop doing these things until Elijah comes. And the disciples too. Peter, James, and John, you may recall, after their experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, when Jesus is transfigured, when his heavenly glory is shown, that his face shines, his clothes are bright white, and he's revealed definitively as the Messiah, he speaks about his imminent death, and they ask, then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come? Jesus is speaking about the end. Where's Elijah then? Are the scribes wrong? Was Malachi wrong? But Jesus, he told them a terrible truth. He said, Elijah has already come. Elijah has already come, and he came as John the Baptist. John the Baptist, he came in the spirit of Elijah, he came doing what Elijah did, railing against the corruption and the evil, even wearing the same clothing as Elijah, a tunic of camel hair, a big leather belt, eating the same food as Elijah, locusts and wild honey. John the Baptist came with his baptism, with his preaching, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, but they killed him. They refused to listen, and so now the end of that verse is coming. Malachi says, Elijah's coming. Elijah will come, lest I come and strike the land with the decree of utter destruction. Elijah is the thing standing between the people and destruction. He's coming to restore. And then the Jews seal their destruction by refusing to listen, by arresting and executing John the Baptist. Elijah came, and you killed him. So now there's only destruction waiting for you. But the crowd at the foot of the cross, they didn't know this. They thought that Jesus was calling out to Elijah. They thought that Jesus was longing as they were longing. That Jesus on the cross, he was longing for Elijah to come and restore things, for Elijah to make things better. But it wasn't Elijah that Jesus was calling. And it wasn't even Elijah that Jesus was referring to. Because these words, they were Old Testament words, not the words of Malachi, please come Elijah, but instead these were the words of David. These were the words not of Malachi 4, but of Psalm 22. That's our second point. Jesus, He's taking the words of David, of the psalmist David, on His lips, but He gives them new meaning. He gives them new meaning for you and for me. And we can separate Psalm 22 into two different parts. That's what we're doing this morning with how we sing this. And in many psalms, including Psalm 77, that we sang at the beginning of the service, there is a shift, there is a change. A psalm that begins in sorrow, that begins by crying out to God, it ends in celebration. It ends in worship. The psalmist, he cries out to the Lord, and then the Lord answers. Psalm 22 is no different. In scripture, we see the shift in the second half of verse 21. I noted that for you. Save me from the mouth of the lion. Then there's the shift. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. In our rhymed version in the Book of Praise, this shift happens in stanza 8. And so Jesus, he takes these words, he takes this message, he takes this theme of the first 21 verses on his lips, so that we can sing the final 10 verses ourselves. And he doesn't do this flippantly. He doesn't just lightly say, I'm just like David. But rather, these words in Psalm 22, they were written with a double meaning. Psalm 22 was the experience of David, it was, but also, David, inspired by the Holy Spirit to write these words, he unknowingly prophesied so clearly, so powerfully, to the experience that Jesus would have a thousand years later. Look at that, verse six, but I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. Our Lord was despised and rejected. He was a man of sorrows. The people that he preached to, the people that he healed, cried out for him to be crucified. Or the next verse, verse 7. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. He trusted in the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him. Is this not precisely what the mockers at the foot of the cross said? He saved others, he can't save himself. Let him come down from the cross and we will believe in him. He trusts in God, let God deliver him now if he desires him. These same words. Or verse 15. My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. Jesus is dying, the very next word that he speaks from the cross after this is, I thirst. Again, continuing to fulfill this prophecy, my tongue sticks to my jaws, I thirst. They pierced my hands and my feet, so clearly crucifixion. Verse 18, they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. Exactly this happened, they divided the garments, there was one left, and for that one they cast lots. So the first 20 and a half verses are about Jesus. He has taken this psalm, this experience, this suffering upon himself so that the final 10 and a half verses can be our experience. It's so beautiful how even in the depths of despair, he was thinking about you. He was thinking about me. He was fulfilling our salvation. Because how does our part of the psalm start? You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. We are rescued because he wasn't. I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation, I will praise you. He suffered to gather together his body, the church, to make us brothers and sisters. He suffered to save us, to transform us, so that we would praise the Lord. And just a few more. Verse 27, all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. Jesus died not only for the Jews, but for Jew and Gentile both, for all tribes and tongues and nations who will praise his name forever in glory. Verse 30, posterity shall serve him. That's children, that's family, that's brothers. He was the firstborn among many brothers. Because of His work on the cross, He was forsaken by the Father, and now His Father is our Father too. Then verse 31, they shall come and proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn, that He has done it. Jesus Christ would be preached. The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Salvation through Christ and Christ alone. It would be preached. It is being preached right now, right here, for generations, for hundreds and thousands of years after this happened, that God would gather to himself a church from all times and all places. Our Lord knew Psalm 22. Our Lord, through His Spirit, inspired Psalm 22. Our Lord, by his suffering, he experienced, he fulfilled that first half of Psalm 22 that we might fulfill the second half in our worship. So it wasn't about Elijah as they thought. It was about David, but this was also his genuine cry. That's our third point. Even though our Lord was taking the words of David on His lips, they were still genuinely His words. This was still genuinely His cry. Since He inspired them, you could say that they were originally His words anyways. And so let's go through these words, because each word, even the punctuation at the end, it matters. It reveals the heart of the gospel to us. Let's go through this phrase, and we'll do so in reverse order, just briefly. So we have, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And this fourth word of our Savior on the cross, it ends with a question mark. This is a question. It doesn't end with an exclamation mark, excitement, or power. It doesn't end with a period, finality, but it ends with a question. And Jesus came asking our questions. In asking this question, Jesus shows us that it's okay for us to ask questions of God, for us to even question what He is doing. to look out at the suffering in this world, to look inwards at the suffering in our own lives and cry out to God, why? Where are you, God? Have you forsaken me? Because that's what it feels like right now. It ends with a question mark. And going back, before the question mark, there's the word me. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It is like Jesus is calling out, it's me, it's your beloved son. We have always had fellowship since eternity past. I know that you reject and you forsake evil people, but I am your beloved son. In me, you are well pleased, but now you have forsaken me. And then forsaken. What a word this is, what a dreadful word. And there are those who try to soften it. They say, no, Jesus was never forsaken. He felt like He was, but He never was. And we can have comfort that not even Jesus on the cross was forsaken, but that's not true. We have comfort because He was forsaken. Our confession is right. Lord's Day 16, our Lord was forsaken by God. He descended into hell right there on the cross, experiencing that proper hellishness of hell, God not being there anymore. Not only did light flee, but His Father fled. And this hurt our Lord more than anything else. Judas betrayed Him, and that cut Him deeply. Peter denied Him, and that hurt Him. The other disciples fled. And Jesus, even though he is hurt, he understands. You're human. Judas is possessed by the devil. Peter is so afraid. The others, they're afraid and they're confused. But his heavenly Father, I understand that the others have forsaken me, but you, my Father. And then the question here is why? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why is the deepest of questions, they say. Who, what, where, when questions, they're easy. But why? We ask a lot of why questions too, don't we? Why cancer? Why death? Why war? Why depression? Why abuse? And Jesus, even though he asks this question, he knows the answer. He knows that this is the only way to save his people. He knows that this is the only way that we can experience the end of Psalm 22. But he struggles. He struggles as he struggled in the garden when he prayed, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. He doesn't want to die on the cross, at least part of it. And then the first words. In these first words, he shows us the perfect example of faith. My God, my God. The God who isn't there. The God whose presence he cannot feel for the first time in forever. The God who was always with him, even in the garden when he struggled, the Father was there. In the garden, the Father sent an angel to comfort him, but now, God isn't there. Jesus still cries out to him. Jesus is teaching us what exactly faith is. Faith is believing in God when you think he isn't there. Faith is holding on to him when you think that he has let you go. Why does he say it twice? Well, we don't know exactly, but John Calvin puts it very well. He once mused, Jesus says it twice because it's at this point that Jesus is taking hold of God with both hands of his heart. This was his cry, but it's also a cry for us. It's our final point this morning. Jesus wasn't crying out for Elijah. Elijah came and was rejected and killed. Elijah wasn't gonna come again. Our Lord, He was crying out to fulfill the prophecy of David in Psalm 22. Our Lord was crying out His own words, but He was also crying out for me and for you. This is what's known as double imputation. The high schoolers, they're learning this in Bible right now, that idea of double imputation. Very simply, it means that salvation is a two-way street. Very simply, it means that salvation is a trade. Jesus is forsaken so that we won't be. And our Lord's Supper form. Listen for this very soon as we read the form. It has six of these trades. It has six of these contrasts. bound so that we might be free, insulted so that we might never be put to shame, innocent but condemned so that we sinners might be acquitted, nailed to the cross so that our bond might be cancelled, cursed so that we might be blessed, forsaken so that we might be accepted. Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He cried out these words in despair so that we might cry out in praise and say, my God, my God, why have you remembered me? We say, why, why have you remembered me? I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy of your notice. I'm not worthy of your love. I'm not worthy of your salvation. I'm not worthy of your glory. My God, my God, why have you remembered me? What a great God we have. What a mighty, majestic, glorious, and gracious God we have, beloved. And so returning now to our question in the introduction, when we come up, when we come to take of this holy food and drink in a few moments, how should we come? Should we come in sorrow? Yes, we should come in sorrow to the table, knowing that our Lord was forsaken. He wasn't calling out to Elijah, for desolation was already secured. He was calling out in the words of David and in his own words. The Lord's Supper is the worst, it remembers the worst tragedy to have ever occurred. It remembers the worst trade in the history of forever. And yet we should also come in joy. Because even though Elijah had not come to restore, our Lord has. That desolation was suffered ultimately by Him and not by us. We have someone better than Elijah who will not only restore, but he has already restored and he continues to restore. We come to the table in joy because we no longer have to suffer as David suffered. We receive the end of the psalm. And we come in joy because of that double imputation. We mourn for what he has suffered. We rejoice because of what he has accomplished. And so this morning, come to the table, somber, knowing what cost was paid, but also joyful, knowing that it was paid for you. Amen.