“God, where are you?”

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It’s become my most common prayer of late.  The desperation seems to drown me. Hopelessness and grief shake me as I wonder, “How could my God leave me here?” The cry slips through again, “God, why have you forsaken me?”

My breath catches, and suddenly I am broken as I remember who first uttered this cry. I am overcome when I realize these words were said long ago as my Savior hung on a cross.

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“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

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If you resonate with this then Psalm 23 holds promises for you.

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“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

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Psalm 22 leads right into Psalm 23, which holds some of the most comforting and well-known words in Scripture. The connection (or better put, the continuation) between these two psalms so clearly depicts the richness of the gospel message: the fact that because of Christ’s suffering and sacrificial work, we now experience intimate union with God.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”

Reading slowly through this familiar psalm, perhaps we might see our suffering Shepherd in a new light. This Christ—whose cries of pain we see so vividly expressed in Psalm 22—is depicted in Psalm 23 as the one who now leads us, restores us, and is with us always.

And the reality is, it’s because of what he endured that Jesus can now be our Shepherd. This Christ—the only righteous one who has ever been forsaken by God—bore the full weight of humanity’s sin so that we would never be forsaken in our wretchedness. Perhaps in this light his promise to never leave you takes on a new weight? His suffering secured our never-aloneness. Because of the bloody and painful death depicted in Psalm 22, we can experience the peace and pastures of Psalm 23.

We can experience intimacy with this Shepherd because on the cross Jesus functioned as the perfect sacrifice, the “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:36), in fact, the “lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8 KJV).

The Gospel Hope

The psalmist continues with this familiar line, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Ps. 23:4), and it is here that we see the connection between these two psalms—the song of lament and the song of comfort.

Because of Christ’s finished work, death is now described here as only a shadow. Because of his affliction, we can now truly not fear in death’s presence. In Christ, death is only a gateway to the experience of the fullness of Christ in eternity, where truly, as his children, we will “dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Ps. 23:6).

In even our darkest moments, we can remember this gospel truth: that because of Christ’s painful death and utter forsakenness we are now invited into his fold, cared for as his sheep, delighted in, and sanctified by his Spirit. And it’s because Jesus bore every ounce of grief in the most desperate situation that our seasons of grief do not have to be clouded with utter hopelessness.

In bearing our sin and our pain, in uttering these words, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,” Christ made sure that every single ounce of pain and grief we have on this side of heaven would be tinged with hope. He cried these words so that you and I could walk through the darkness with full confidence that there is life and light on the other side.