Psalm 22:22-25 “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you. 23 You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! 24 For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. 25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.”

Our heavenly Father does not need our words or praise to know how wonderful he is. Talk show host Phil Donahue was right when he said, “Somewhere along the way I concluded that God is not an egomaniac who constantly needs to be adored.” He was wrong to use this as an excuse not to worship.

Our Lord is delighted to hear our words of praise. It is a natural part of any relationship. We praise our children for their successes, our friends, spouses, or coworkers for a job well-done. If we truly come to know who God is and what he has done for us, praise will simply flow. We won’t be able to help ourselves. Failure to praise is a tacit admission that we don’t believe God has done anything worthy of praise.

After all that Jesus had suffered on the cross, that was not his position. These words of Psalm 22 are Messianic. They express the thoughts and experiences of Jesus on the cross by way of prophecy. All that God was accomplishing by this sacrifice produced in him this response of praise.

The inspiration for such praise becomes clearer in his retelling of God’s goodness. “For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him…”

Does someone’s suffering ever make you turn away? Why? Sometimes it’s too hard to look. We have seen what happened, and we can almost feel the pain. Twice I have seen pro football players get hit in part of the leg that should not bend, but the bone gave way as though there were a joint there. It made me wince. I didn’t want to watch the reruns.

Sometimes we look away because we don’t want to sympathize. We don’t feel sorry for the one who suffers. Make eye-contact, and we will have to acknowledge that they are human and worthy of at least some pity. Maybe we were angry with them. We believe they deserve what they are getting.

Didn’t Jesus’ heavenly Father look away from his suffering? Didn’t he despise him, hide his face in those agonizing moments when Jesus called out, “Why have you forsaken me?” How the Father could forsake his own Son is something we cannot understand. But why he did so is less difficult to see. The sight of the crucified Jesus writhing in the horrors of hell would be difficult for anyone to watch. But the countless sins of mankind he carried to the cross filled God with the holy anger that made him turn away.

How, then, could Jesus say, “…he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him…”? Though for a little while the Father had to turn his face away, he had not forgotten his Son. At the end Jesus found his Father’s approval. “The reason my Father loves me,” Jesus had said, “is that I lay my life down.”

And so, he must tell us of God’s goodness, too. He “listened to his cry for help.” The Father heard Jesus’ plea to receive his spirit, to let him die and put an end to the work of paying for our sin. At last he found his relief!  He did not let his body see decay, but kept it safe in the earth for the day of Jesus’ resurrection. At last he found the reward and recognition that were rightfully his! The Father did not desert him. He delivered him.

We are the ones who stand to gain. The Father may be pleased to receive such praise, but he doesn’t need it. Jesus himself is not changed by these words. But when Messiah prays to his Father, who did not desert him, this is a blessing for God’s people. “From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows.”

If Jesus was smeared in the filth of all our sins, if he suffered all that they deserved, if the Father even abandoned him to hell so that justice could be served; if after all that Father did not desert him, but heard his cry for help, delivered him from his anguish, received his soul into heaven, raised him from the dead and glorified his body, do we have reason to fear for ourselves? There is nothing left of sin, punishment, death, or hell. There is only a smiling Father who does not desert his children but listens to their cries for help. There is only blessing for God’s people, who hear their Messiah praise his Father.