Jesus' Song While on the Cross
They are called The 7 Last Words of Christ
His last 7 utterances while hanging on the cross
Have you ever considered that most of them were lyrics from a song?
As He was hanging in agony on the cross - Christ was worshipping
A crucifixion, in part, killed through asphyxiation. Using the nail through His feet, Jesus was able to push Himself upward to exhale and bring in life-giving oxygen. It was entirely likely that during these periods that He uttered the seven short sentences that are recorded.
The first - looking down at the Roman soldiers throwing dice for His seamless garment, He said: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do." (Luke 23:24)
The second - to the repentant thief: ""I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43)
The third - looking down at Mary His mother, He said: "Woman, behold your son." Then turning to the terrified, grief-stricken disciple John, He said: "Behold your mother."
And here is where the song begins.
Psalm 22 - a song of worship - is also a Messianic prophecy.
Read it and you see a crucifixion on display - again, Psalm 22 was written hundreds of years before crucifixion was devised.
Take for example:
16 Dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evil men has encircled me,
they have pierced my hands and my feet.
Psalm 22 is the song the Savior spoke (sang) on the cross - the song of worship.
The fourth of the seven last words (utterances) is from the beginning of Psalm 22 - verse 1:
"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
He suffered hours of limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, and searing pain as tissue was torn from His lacerated back from His movement up and down against the rough timbers of the cross. Then another agony began: a deep crushing pain in the chest as the pericardium, the sac surrounding the heart, slowly filled with serum and began to compress the heart.
The prophecy in Psalm 22:14 was being fulfilled:
"I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted away within me."
The end was rapidly approaching. The loss of tissue fluids had reached a critical level; the compressed heart was struggling to pump heavy, thick, sluggish blood to the tissues, and the tortured lungs were making a frantic effort to inhale small gulps of air. The markedly dehydrated tissues sent their flood of stimuli to the brain. Jesus gasped
His fifth cry: "I thirst." Again we read in the prophetic psalm:
"My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death." (Psalm 22:15 NIV).
A sponge soaked in posca, the cheap, sour wine that was the staple drink of the Roman legionnaires, was lifted to Jesus' lips. His body was now in extremis, and He could feel the chill of death creeping through His tissues.
This realization brought forth His sixth word: "It is finished."
Even this cry, whether a tortured whisper or a cry of victory is the end of Psalm 22:
"They will proclaim his righteousness
to a people yet unborn—
for he has done it"
"It is finished" -"Tetelestai!" In the Greek it implies that something has come to an end, it has been completed, perfected, accomplished in the full and that something has consequences that will endure on and on.
His mission of atonement had been completed. Finally, He could allow His body to die. With one last surge of strength, He once again pressed His torn feet against the nail, straightened His legs, took a deeper breath, and uttered His seventh and last cry: "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit."
I have wondered... is it possible that Jesus said more than is recorded here? Is it possible He recited the entire Psalm 22. He 'sang' the first verse as well as the last. Isn't it possible He 'sang' the whole song? Maybe internally with bursts coming out verbally as He pushed Himself up to breathe.
His sacrifice on the cross was worship. It was full and complete obedience to the Father's will.
Was He reciting this Psalm to say to the arrogant Pharisees (who should have been very familiar with Psalm 22), "Here I am - the fulfillment of David's line and prophecy!"
Or maybe to remind Himself that God had not turned His face away...
" For he [God] has not despised or disdained
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help."
(Ps. 22:24)
and that His mission, the redemption for mankind was being fully accomplished?
Isaiah 53 tells us that God's servant was "cut off" (killed) before He had any descendants, but that because of His suffering sacrifice, he would have many spiritual descendants.. that He would see them and be satisfied AND that He would rejoice with them in the inheritance or the spoils that He would receive for what He had done.
Even in His most agonizing hour, Jesus worshipped.
No wonder we are told that it was for the "joy set before Him" that Jesus endured the cross.
The joy!
This is why we celebrate today and call it Good Friday
So as we worship today,
"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Heb 12:2 NIV)
Let us fix our eyes on; let us worship the One who Himself worshipped while on the cross.
'Suffering Servant' music by Gary Cherone (singer from Extreme, Van Halen & Tribe of Judah)
lyrics - Isaiah 53
NOTE* - some of the above medical descriptions excerpted from:
"A medical explanation of what Jesus endured on the day He died"
By Dr. C. Truman Davis
A Physician Analyzes the Crucifixion.
From New Wine Magazine, April 1982.
Originally published in Arizona Medicine,
March 1965, Arizona Medical Association
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