Forsaken (Psalm 22)
Summary
Pastor Dominic Jackson returns to the Psalms by way of Good Friday, asking one of the hardest questions in the gospel story: why did Jesus cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" After working through five common explanations for the cry of dereliction, Dominic opens Psalm 22 to show that Jesus wasn't voicing abandonment but quoting the first line of a psalm that foretells his crucifixion in striking detail and ends in triumph. The cross, he argues, is not a picture of God at war with himself, but God at war with sin, death, and evil — and on the cross, Jesus wasn't asking a question. He was declaring victory.
Questions for reflection
Dominic shares that the cross, not the resurrection, was his biggest struggle as a new believer. Which part of the Good Friday story has been hardest for you to understand or accept? Has that changed over time?
Of the five explanations Dominic walks through for Jesus' cry of "Why have you forsaken me?", which have you heard before? How did they shape the way you picture God the Father?
Dominic contrasts two images: "sinners in the hands of an angry God" and "God in the hands of angry sinners." Which image has most shaped your understanding of the cross, and how does that affect the way you relate to God?
Psalm 22 begins in anguish but ends with the declaration, "He has done it." Where in your own life do you find it hard to see past the first half of the story to the second?
Dominic asks, "What does it mean to live on the other side of the cross?" If you truly believed you were adopted, cherished, and made alive in Christ, what would change about how you live this week?
-
Now, you might be wondering, why are we reading the Good Friday story in the middle of summer? You also might be wondering, why aren't we reading a psalm in the middle of our series on the Psalms? Great questions. We'll get to that in a moment.
But real quick, a Surgeon General's warning here. This one is—depending on the circles you grew up in—this one might be on the little more controversial side. Maybe. Some of you will walk away and be like, "What's controversial about that?" Others, depending on the church circles maybe you grew up in, if your experience was anything like mine, maybe it will fall into that category. Maybe not. Not to scare anybody, but still. And then also, one more warning: this one's a little more heady than usual. So hopefully you guys got some good sleep, drank some good amount of caffeine. Maybe. If not, we'll see. I think it's important. We'll see how this goes.
But first, a confession, if I may. When I first came to faith many years ago, this story, the story of the cross, was one of the biggest struggles that I had with following Jesus. And what's funny about this is, even as a logical, somewhat intellectual—at least I thought I was—pretty pretentious former atheist, when I first came to faith, I didn't struggle with this impossible idea of the resurrection. I didn't. I felt like a new creation. I felt like something in me had died and was reborn. And so though I didn't understand and I couldn't explain this idea of Jesus defeating death, I could believe it.
But for me, my hang-up was actually everything before that. My hang-up was the cross. Not because of historical records—there were plenty. Not because of the brutality in the story—I had known enough violence in my life. I knew what human hands were capable of. For me, what I struggled with in this story was two things. The first was why Jesus needed to die. And also, the second was everything that was happening as he was dying. All that was happening on the cross, his death.
For the former, I heard all the explanations. I listened to sermons. I read commentaries, hoping to get my mind to wrap around this idea, to get understanding of why the cross even needed to happen. And much of what I heard was actually more—it seemed like—more about me than it was Roman soldiers or corrupt religious leaders. Even sometimes Jesus himself—the focus seemed to be about me.
Jonathan Edwards explains it in his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. He explains it this way. He says, "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire. He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight. You are 10,000 times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful, venomous serpent is in ours."
Welcome to church, everybody.
I remember reading this and thinking, is this true? Does God actually… me? Is that the reason for the cross? Does he hate me, loathe me, all because I'm not perfect? Because if so, what do you do with verses like "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son"? The verse doesn't say God so hated the world that he murdered his only Son. Yet the more I heard preachers describing the cross, it wasn't really about love at all. But instead, it was just an example of God's bloodthirst and his wrath needing to be fulfilled.
And so I was confused. Was the Good Friday story about sinners in the hands of an angry God? Or was it simply, to quote Gavin Bennett, God in the hands of angry sinners? Or maybe a combination of the two.
Additionally, my other theological struggle—why I felt like I was only 90 percent a believer, I couldn't fully check the Christian box, though I wanted to so badly; I had seen and experienced too much not to believe—but why I couldn't fully get on board was not just why the cross happened, but the conversation that took place on it. Our text again says, "From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?' (which means 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?')."
And I remember reading this and thinking, wait, why is God talking to God and feeling tricked, left out, even worse, abandoned or forsaken by God? The Trinity was already confusing before this, but here we have Jesus crying out to his Father, his God, in anguish. Here Jesus is literally questioning and what sounds like doubting, and worse of all, being abandoned by God, which doesn't exactly seem like a unified Trinity here.
So what's going on? Was Jesus forsaken? Punished? Was this an example of cosmic child abuse? Or was something else happening altogether? That's where we're going this morning. Let's pray, and then we're going to hop back into our text.
Spirit of the living God, my prayer is for a newness this morning. For you to do a new thing here. For any of us who showed up as just another Sunday, just another service, just another day on this planet, help us to see the beauty and majesty and gift we have here. Not just in this world, though, but also in the Word. Lord, I confess that I have read this story so many times that I forget just how incredible and beautiful and tragic and gracious and grueling it is and must have been. Lord, for any of us who have been around the church for a while, Holy Spirit, soften our hearts so that we may experience this text for what it is—not a Bible lesson or a Sunday school story, but the living, changing, death-defeating gospel. Help us to hear this again for the first time. In Jesus' name, amen.
If you have been around church for a little while, perhaps if you had a similar experience—at least for me—and maybe you had similar questions about the cross. I was that annoying kid who asked a lot of questions. But if you had questions about this, maybe after a Good Friday service or something, and about what's happening between God and God? What's happening between the Father and the Son? Why was Jesus forsaken? If you ever asked these questions, chances are you were more than likely given one of the following explanations. We'll go through these quickly, then we'll hop back into our text. These are probably the five most popular theological answers that I've heard.
The first was that Jesus was truly abandoned by his Father. Pretty simple, looking at the text, right? The explanation is usually something like: in order for salvific atonement, forgiveness, to be offered, Jesus was sent to the cross, and he was temporarily abandoned by his Father so that his Father could pour out all of his wrath onto someone, and Jesus jumped in the way. Hence him saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
The problem with this isn't that it isn't true. It isn't, in my opinion, the fullest extent of the truth. It isn't a completely full picture. The problem with this is the Bible. John 16:32 says, "A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered"—Jesus talking to his disciples—"each to your own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me." In John 8, he's clearly talking about his crucifixion. It says in verse 29, "The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him."
These are just a few of the verses that have inspired numerous paintings over the years—this famous motif that you'll see in faith and art, which is called the Throne of Mercy. We have a couple photos here. And in these paintings, just as the Scriptures describe, we see the Father not only seeing what's happening to the Son, to Jesus, but he's holding up Jesus. He's experiencing everything that Jesus is experiencing. And so we see this Trinitarian unification on the cross. And just as Jesus said, he and the Father—and, of course, the Spirit—are one. Which, side note, you'll notice in some of those paintings that there's usually like a dove or like light shining in, which represents the Holy Spirit, which I think is pretty interesting.
But so this explanation that the Father abandons the Son, even for a moment—based on these passages which inspired these paintings, it doesn't really seem like it explains everything going on. At least not to me. Again, not that there isn't truth in some of these, but is it the fullest extent, the fuller picture? That's what we're looking at.
Second explanation of what might be happening on the cross: God the Father could not look at sin, so he turned away from Jesus, who became all sin. So it's not that Jesus was abandoned in relationship; he was abandoned in presence, in proximity. So here's another example of where we start to pull apart the Trinity, right? This teaching comes from a single—as far as I know, and I have looked deep and wide—as far as I know, this entire theological view comes from one verse, which is found in the book of Habakkuk, which says, "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing." Right? Which is why God the Father could not look at what was going on—looking at something evil happening.
"Why then," it continues, though, "why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?" If you read the entire context, and also, you know, like the rest of the book, you'll read that this is actually about God's mercy. This is about justice and seeing injustice happening. The prophet is saying, God, your eyes are so pure, you can't watch injustice happening. And yet there is tons of evil happening all over the world. And so how long will you wait to step in? This is a lament. It's not a theological argument for atonement theory. At least that's how I read it.
The third explanation that I heard when asking questions about Good Friday: Jesus' cosmic sacrifice is a result of his divinity, while his question is proof of his humanity. Any human would have felt rejected by God, by their father, right, if they were sent to death. So Jesus asking, "Why have you forsaken me?"—this was just the human part of Jesus talking, right?
And I could spend an hour just reading, rattling off verses, pointing to what theologians call the hypostatic union, which is the idea that Jesus is fully God and fully human. It's not that Jesus turns off the human part of himself, like he pushes a button, and then all of a sudden he could go do divine things, like heal people and cast out demons. And then when he wants to do a very human thing, he clicks that button again, right? And so he wants to do something human like, I don't know, eat guacamole or whatever it is. I mean, that's pretty divine. But still, like, anytime he wants to, he switches. He has to choose: okay, Tuesday I'm going to be God, Wednesday I'm going to be human. But no. If Jesus is who he said he actually is, then this doesn't really explain it either.
All right, number four explanation I've heard of what in the world is happening on the cross: Jesus actually believed his Father would rescue him at the last minute. So when that didn't happen, he felt rejected, abandoned, forsaken. Never mind the fact that up until the journey to the cross, Jesus is saying over and over and over that he is marching towards his death. Even on the cross, he says to the guy next to him, "Today we will be in paradise." He knows where he's going, right? He knows what to expect. He's not surprised by this. But if you believe this, either Jesus was led astray or he was a liar, which doesn't really fit the biblical story.
All right, one more. This one's gaining more traction, I've heard, in some circles. This is how it was explained to me what is happening on the cross: Jesus was speaking for all humans in that moment who deserve to be forsaken. So it was actually you and I speaking on the cross. We are sinners deserving to be hanging from the cross. And if we were, we would clearly feel God's absence and his wrath. And so on the cross, Jesus kind of taps into this a little bit. Or by becoming death and sin, he also sounds like the ones who should be experiencing it.
And there are plenty of questions I have with this. Why is Jesus temporarily having this, like, out-of-body experience? Or why does Jesus choose this moment to become a ventriloquist for you and I? And if so, why is he speaking Aramaic? I don't know Aramaic, right? Not to mention, if we have sinned—which we have—and that sin needs to be justified or forgiven or atoned for—which it does—then why would we, through the mouth of Jesus, be asking the Father why he would forsake us? It's pretty clear why, right? Jonathan Edwards already told us why. So that explanation doesn't really make a lot of sense, at least to me, either.
Okay, so those are just a few of the responses I've heard from wonderful, Jesus-loving, well-meaning youth pastors and preachers and theologians over the years. And as I stated before, they didn't really answer a lot of the questions that I had. Well, this morning, I would like to offer perhaps a different view. And you might disagree. That is always welcome around here. You might actually connect more with one of those other views. If so, let's grab coffee. I'd love to talk about it and hear your perspective. But this—whatever is happening on the cross—that, as well as the resurrection, are single-handedly the most important things to ever happen on earth. And so I believe it is worth at least exploring and trying to understand what is happening here, with what little time we have left. Longest introduction ever. I apologize. I got excited.
But if you have a copy of the Scriptures, turn with me to Psalm 22. Psalm 22—I told you we'd get back to the Psalms eventually. Psalm 22, and if not, the words will be on the screen there. Psalm 22 opens, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Wait a minute. That sounds familiar.
It probably should have stuck out to us, at least as a little bit peculiar, that Jesus would call God "God"—call Yahweh "God"—when he is constantly referring to him as his Father. In fact, on the cross is the only time ever that Jesus refers to the Father as God, probably because he's quoting somebody else. Which leads to the question, why would he be quoting Psalm 22?
Well, remember, Jesus was Jewish. And he practiced Jewish traditions his entire life. And he also took these traditions all the way to his death. And in the Jewish tradition, dating back hundreds of years before Jesus was born in the manger, when a prominent leader or rabbi died or was dying, they would—we have tons of records of this for hundreds of years—this dying rabbi or leader would quote the first line of a psalm. And it was always a psalm, and it was a way to be remembered. There was, like, a handful of the most popular psalms that most of them would quote. And so if they wanted, let's say, their life, their legacy, to be remembered as a rabbi who was seen as wise, for example, they would say, "Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked"—Psalm 1. Or if they wanted their legacy to be as someone going out singing God's praises, they would say, "Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"—Psalm 8. This was a way to be remembered.
But notice, in this practice, they would only quote the first line of the psalm. And by doing so, they were attaching themselves to the entirety of the message or theme of the psalm. Chapters and verses didn't exist at this time. They couldn't say, "Hey, when you think of me, think of Psalm 23." There was no Psalm 23. They would say, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." And Jesus, who was Jewish, who was a rabbi, also carried out this tradition.
And which psalm did he attach his life and legacy to? A psalm that we have no record—and there's plenty of them, I'm happy to share them—we have no record of any rabbi or religious leader ever quoting on their deathbed. And by saying the first line of this, he's once again attaching himself to the entirety of the psalm.
It continues, "Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest." So in these opening two lines, David is quoting himself, where he is in a low place and essentially asking God, where are you? Then he goes on to answer that question. You'll see it throughout the Psalms. This was a very, very Jewish way of writing poetry. You would ask a question and then you would go on to answer that question, which usually is like asking a question and then explaining why that question is misguided to begin with. We'll get to that in a moment.
Verse 3: "Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the one Israel praises." And so even in the worst situation, God is still holy. It keeps going: "In you our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried out and were saved; in you they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people."
So a worm is obviously lowly, despised, seen as less than human. It is less than human. The common word for worm in Hebrew is rimmah, and that is like a creepy, crawly thing in your garden, right? However, in Psalm 22, verse 6, David doesn't use that word. He uses a different word for worm, and that's the word tola'at, which is used 46 times in the Bible, and always, always, always, except for here, that word is used specifically when it comes to color—specifically the worm used to make garments. So Psalm 22 could have used the former but, interestingly enough, uses this specific kind of worm. Why? Why would this detail be included?
Well, the tola'at worms are commonly referred to as the scarlet worm. Again, look this up on your own if you're nerdy like me. It's fascinating. The tola'at worm, scarlet worm, when it is ready to lay its eggs, which only happens once in its life, it climbs up a tree. It attaches its body to the tree, and it turns its shell super hard to protect its eggs. But the shell is so hard and so connected to the tree that the only way for the baby worms to escape is to kill their mother. Nature, everyone, right? This whole thing also—it takes three days for it to happen.
But here's where the name comes into play. In order for the babies to move on and have, you know, a full life ahead of them, after killing their parent, the final act of the mama worm is to excrete a scarlet dye that not only stains the wood—I think we have a picture of a tree here, the aftereffects of it—it not only stains the tree, it attaches to the babies. And they take on a scarlet red color their entire lives. After this is all said and done, the worm transfers the dye to the little ones. And then the worm itself turns white.
In Isaiah 1, amongst other places, the author uses textiles and fabrics to make a theological declaration. He says, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." We in the Western world form our worldview on data and statistics and information. In the ancient Near East, the world and faith in God—all of it was often described in pictures and metaphors and stories. And so here we have Isaiah and David describing one who is to come, who would be like a worm. But not just any worm—a worm who clings to a tree, takes three days to die after sacrificing itself, and whose scarlet color is replaced by becoming white as snow.
You can stay in Psalm 22, but on the screen we'll have Matthew 27, a familiar story: "When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. 'I am innocent of this man's blood,' he said. 'It is your responsibility!'" But hear this part, verse 25: "All the people answered, 'His blood is on us and on our children!'" Does that sound familiar?
Not convinced? Let's keep going. Verse 7: "All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads. 'He trusts in the Lord,' they say, 'let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.'"
Again, glancing back at the crucifixion story—you could stay in Psalm 22—but you'll notice the soldiers mocking Jesus, just like this psalm describes. And in verse 28: "They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. 'Hail, king of the Jews!' they said." Verse 39: "Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, 'You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!' In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 'He saved others,' they said, 'but he can't save himself! He's the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, "I am the Son of God."' In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him."
Is this starting to sound familiar? Even identical? Psalm 22, written a thousand years before Jesus was born, describing not just what was going to take place on the cross, but the conversations, the actions, the responses of all the people surrounding it.
Back to Psalm 22, verse 9: "Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you, even at my mother's breast. From birth I was cast on you; from my mother's womb you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help." Notice this person described here would have to be born, meaning they would have to be human. Also notice a mother is mentioned, God is mentioned, no father is mentioned in this. Interesting.
Verse 12: "Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me." So most of this is obviously being poetic. But as far as the bones—during crucifixion, what would commonly happen is a person's limbs, specifically their arms, would become dislocated. So they would not be able to—it felt like they were drowning. They could not lift themselves and catch their breath. It felt like, again, they were drowning. And of course, not to mention, Jesus was literally being poured out all over the place. He was marched all over Jerusalem after being beaten, whipped, dragged. His blood was pouring out all over the city.
Verse 15: "My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet."
Here's a prophecy about the one who would be circled by a group of enemies. And what do they do to him? They pierce his hands and his feet. The psalm was written a thousand years before Jesus was born. Crucifixion had not been invented yet. In fact, it wasn't invented until the 4th century by the Persians, and then a little bit later it was perfected by the Romans—how they found a way to make this even more grueling and awful and an agonizing, slow death. Here is David perfectly describing crucifixion that didn't even exist yet.
Verse 17: "All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment." Remember that in the crucifixion story. What a strange and accurate detail.
Verse 19: "But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you." There's references to Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel in here.
Verse 23: "You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows."
And we'll finish it out here. Here is the prophecy of what will happen as a result of the one fulfilling this vow. The one will not be abandoned or forsaken or have God's face hidden from him. Remember, Jewish writers and poets would often start their poems with a problem, and then they would go on to explain why that problem wasn't actually the truth or the reality, right? And preachers do this all the time. I might next week come up here and say, "Have you ever thought about how much better your life would be if you won the lottery?" And then I'll go on to spend the next 30 minutes explaining why winning the lottery actually won't fix a lot of your problems, right? This was a very Jewish way of writing. I'm going to ask a question, propose an idea—and then he spends the next 20 verses explaining why he could never be forsaken, or at least the one he's describing prophetically. He speaks about one who will be attacked, ridiculed, and crucified, and then this is what happens after. This is what results from this horrible, terrible death. And if it wasn't clear before, it's obvious David isn't talking about David here, because none of these things happened to him—but also this was about someone who was to come.
Let's finish it out. Verse 26—this is a result of that crucifixion: "The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the Lord will praise him—may your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him." This is straight out of Revelation. "For dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—those who cannot keep themselves alive." Language of paradise and judgment here. Verse 30: "Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!" Or your translation might read, "It is finished."
Come on. Like, this is so wild. A thousand years before Jesus was murdered on the cross, David perfectly, prophetically describes it. And he adds a declaration of what this death would mean for the entire world. And Jesus on his deathbed quotes the first line, and by doing so insinuates the entire thing is not just for him, but about him. Jesus wasn't asking a question. He was declaring victory.
Now, typically, this is the part of the sermon—we usually end our sermons with how we can take this passage from the page to our heads, to our hearts, and then our hands, right? Typically, the bulk of the sermon is the what, and we follow it up with a so what, right? How can we take this, and what do we do with it? Today's is simple. I won't offer a bunch of homework, as I've been known to do, or assignments on how to live out some biblical truth or New Testament way of life. Instead, I'll just close with a question—maybe a couple of them.
What does it mean to live on the other side of the cross? What does it mean to live in light of the resurrection? When you look at the cross, what do you see? Do you see all the things that Psalm 22 closes with—this event changing the entire world? Or do you only see the first half of it, the awful, bloody, gruesome act that took place?
In a moment, we're going to take communion, and I think if we aren't careful, communion can easily turn into an add-on, or a box that we check, or a bookend between services, or a segue to get the band up here, right? But what I'd like to do is reflect on the cross and our part in that. We should see our sins on the cross. We should see our part in the death of Jesus. Yes, we are sinners. And it was our sin that sent Jesus to the cross. That is true. But it's not the whole truth. And it's not the end of the story.
The Bible also tells us that we have been adopted into God's family, that we have been made with intention, that we are valued and cherished by our Creator, that we are described as God's handiwork. We are blessed. We are empowered. We are loved. We are victorious. We are alive because Jesus defeated death. This is who we are on the other side of the cross.
When we look at the cross, we see the lengths that God would go to to pursue us, to save us, to love us. When we see not a picture of God at war with himself, but God at war with death and sin and evil—when we recognize this, we can't help but do likewise: to live a life of self-giving love, to be a vessel of justice and reconciliation, and an agent of renewal on earth as it is in heaven, right?
When we look at the cross, we should see our sin, yes, but more importantly, we should see the one who defeated it. And even though he didn't know his name, or when he would be born, or even half the events that he was describing that would take place, David knew that God would keep his promise. That God had not forgotten him and his people, and he had not forsaken them. But one day the Savior would come—not because he hated us or because he thought we were vile, but to live with us, to heal us, to comfort us, to teach us, to die for us, but also to show us what it means to live.
Would you guys pray with me?
Jesus, thank you for the cross. Thank you for your self-giving love. I long for that future described 3,000 years ago. And for now, it is where we put our hope, because of the cross. As the text says, the poor will eat and be satisfied. Those who seek you, Lord, will praise you. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to you, and all the families of the nations will bow down before you. And dominion belongs to you, and only you, and the rich and poor alike will feast and worship, and we will all proclaim your righteousness, declaring to all, "He has done it. It is finished." Lord, because of your death, we can live. We can live lives fully and victoriously, but also humbly and faithfully. And so, Holy Spirit, when we look at the cross, help us to see pain, yes, but also help us to see freedom, too. I pray this in Jesus' name.
A few things to check: the transcript only gives the reader's first name, so I left a [Last Name] placeholder for Addie. "Gavin Bennett" is kept as transcribed, but I couldn't confirm that attribution for "God in the hands of angry sinners," so it's worth verifying against the audio. The Hebrew words were standardized to rimmah and tola'at, and a few Scripture and Edwards quotations were corrected where the transcription had garbled them ("Hail, king of the Jews," "if he wants him," "potsherd," "kneel before him," "of purer eyes than to bear"). I also changed "ideal" to "idea" in the three spots where the context clearly meant "idea."