My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
The Prayer Jesus Chose
Of every word available to him in the ninth hour, Jesus chose the first line of this psalm. To quote a psalm's opening line, in Jewish practice, is to invoke the whole psalm — its descent and its turn. The cry of dereliction is real dereliction; it is also the first verse of a prayer that ends in praise among the nations. Both truths must be held, in the order the psalm holds them.
Honest to God
The lament alternates between agony and memory: 'Why have you forsaken me?' — yet 'you are holy'; 'our fathers trusted, and you delivered them' — yet 'I am a worm and not a man.' Biblical lament does not choose between honesty and faith. It throws the contradiction at God and stays in the room. The psalter teaches the church to pray its darkness rather than deny it.
The Details
Then the psalm turns uncannily specific: mockers who wag their heads and say 'he trusted in the LORD; let him deliver him' (quoted at the cross, Matt 27:43); bones out of joint; a tongue stuck to the jaws; 'they have pierced my hands and feet'; garments divided, lots cast for clothing (John 19:24). The evangelists did not decorate the passion with psalm-language; they recognized the psalm happening. Written centuries before crucifixion existed, Psalm 22 reads like an eyewitness.
The Turn
At verse 21 the prayer pivots in mid-line: 'Save me from the mouth of the lion — you have answered me.' From there, praise cascades: 'I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you' (quoted of Christ in Hebrews 2:12). The forsaken one is not finally forsaken: 'he has not despised the affliction of the afflicted... but has heard, when he cried to him.'
All the Families of the Nations
The ending bursts the psalm's own banks: all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; all the families of the nations shall worship; posterity shall serve him; 'they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that HE HAS DONE IT.' The last line is one Hebrew word away from 'it is finished.' The psalm Jesus began on the cross, the church has been finishing ever since.
Go deeper: The Cross (Symbol Index) · Dikaiosyne — his righteousness proclaimed (Lexicon) · The Lamb (Symbol Index)