My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book. A while back, I realized this massively important psalm was coming up for our reading and, as is typical, worried about all the truth that is included in this chapter.

I am a kinda half glass empty type of guy, looking at a blessing and seeing something negative. (So unchristian!)

With this confession, I will simply delve into one portion for the present time.

Psalm 22:7-8

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!”

Sneering.

To sneer or to show scorn or contempt for the subject. A curled lip, an attitude of judgement. Ridicule and insulting pouring from the people upon the subject. To have derision towards the subject. To consider the subject a joke, a farce and not worthy of any consideration.

Mockery

All the people who see him mock him. The tide had turned and any surface popularity that may have existed has vanished. The people simply view the subject and wag their heads, jeering him as the look on. He had become, in the peoples eyes, a laughing stock, fair game for sarcasm and scoffing.

But let’s consider why all the people were acting thus. Why were the people mocking and sneering the subject? Upon what topic was the subject being mocked, and subjected to scorn?

His trust in the Lord.

David suffered due to his trust in the Lord many times, whether it be when hunted by Saul, or running from his own son, Absalom, as he was about to loose his kingdom. Many times David did not have his best life now, due to his trust in the Lord above, but he hung on to the promises and when sin came into the picture, relied on the character of God, his loving mercy and patient care of the people of God.

But you see, as David wrote this psalm, he may have considered his own shortcomings and failures. He had a heart for God, but in the midst of that heart, a weakness resided, a tendency to want his will instead of the Lord’s.

Not so with the Greater David, the One who was mocked by the very ones who needed His grace and forgiveness. His trust in the Lord survived when the entire populace turned on Him, when the popular culture became opposed to His life.

My friends, as we see our modern culture dropping the façade of righteousness, and we are standing with less popular opinion, standing against a tide of rising opposition, remember Him who trusted in the promises, and the character of the Father in Heaven.

Jesus was mocked and sneered at. He stood strong, when everything around Him was against Him, when everyone around Him was yelling for His death, when politicians crumbled to popular opinion, when all seems lost, hang onto the One who is True, to the One who has provided us all things for life and godliness.

To the One who has went before us and suffered more, much more than we will.

His name is Jesus, and there will be no more mocking and sneering soon enough.

---

Follow Considering the Bible on WordPress.com

Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.