The Psalm Jesus Prayed: Psalm 22

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?

The cry rips from the throat of the sufferer. My God—twice, desperate, possessive even in abandonment. Why? The question every sufferer asks. Why the silence? Why the distance? Why the forsakenness?

A thousand years after David wrote these words, Jesus would scream them from a cross.

My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.