Hit the heart. Restack it.
Jim Caviezel sat in a chair on a film set and wept.
Not for the camera. Not for the scene. Between takes. Alone. Layers of fake blood and prosthetic wounds on his body. He was playing Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, and they were about to shoot the crucifixion.
He looked up from that chair and saw hundreds of people. Cast. Crew. Directors. Mel Gibson barking orders. Extras laughing. Caterers hauling trays. A hundred conversations happening at once.
And he was alone.
Nobody near him. Nobody talking to him. Just a man in a chair covered in fake suffering, watching a world spin around him like he wasn’t even there.
He said a little girl walked up to him. Took his hand. Said something in her language. That she would be with him.
And he said the thing that broke him wasn’t the girl.
It was the realization that Jesus didn’t even have that.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? — Psalm 22:1
David wrote that a thousand years before it happened.
A thousand years before the nails. Before the cross. Before Rome even existed as an empire. A shepherd king sat down and wrote the exact words that God in the flesh would cry out while dying naked on a piece of wood.
This isn’t poetry. This is prophecy with blood on it.
I’ve been alone.
You have too.
I’ve been in places where I looked for a friend, and there was no friend. I’ve been in rooms full of people and felt invisible. I’ve been in seasons where the phone didn’t ring, and the inbox was empty, and the silence was so loud it had a sound.
But I’ve never been naked on a cross.
I’ve never had soldiers gambling for my clothes beneath my feet. Never had a crowd spitting in my face. Never had the people I came to save screaming for my blood.
I’ve never looked at my mother from that position.
Woman, behold thy son. Son, behold thy mother.
He said that while dying. While his bones were pulled out of joint, and his heart was melting inside him like wax. While every breath was a decision to push up against the nails one more time just to fill his lungs.
He said that while God turned His face away.
But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.— Psalm 22:6
A worm.
The Son of God. The one who spoke the oceans into existence. The one who hung every star by name. The one who was there when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
A worm.
He left the throne. Left the angels singing holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. Left it all. Came down here. Walked in dirt. Slept outside. Ate with sinners. Touched lepers.
And His own people looked at Him the way you look at something on the bottom of your shoe.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.— Psalm 22:7-8
Laughed to scorn.
Not laughed at. Laughed to scorn. There’s a difference. Being laughed at stings. Being laughed to scorn is designed to destroy you. It’s the kind of laughter that says you’re not even worth taking seriously. That your faith is a joke. That your God is a prop.
They shoot out the lip. They shake their heads.
And they say the cruelest thing possible: If God really loved him, He’d get him out of this.
Sound familiar?
That’s the comment section. That’s the text your brother sent you when your marriage was falling apart. That’s the voice in your head at 3 AM. If you were really saved. If God really cared. If your faith was really real.
You’d be laughed at for holding up a poster with profanity on it. But hold up a Bible and preach the gospel on a street corner? You’re a lunatic. You’re a worm. You’re no man.
My son-in-law was at a rally recently. Street preaching. Holding the Book up in the air. And the same people holding obscene signs for children to see looked at him like he was the problem.
Because when you practice what you preach, and you believe what that Book says, and you believe we’re living in the last days, and you shine as a light — you will be despised. You will be rejected. People will laugh you to scorn.
And they should.
Because your Lord was despised first.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.— Psalm 22:14-15
Read that slowly.
Poured out like water. Bones out of joint. Heart melted. Strength gone. Tongue stuck to his jaw. Brought into the dust of death.
That’s not a metaphor. That’s a medical description of crucifixion written a thousand years before crucifixion existed.
For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. — Psalm 22:16
Dogs.
He called the religious people dogs. The ones with the robes and the prayers and the phylacteries. The ones who had Abraham as their father and rejected their King. The ones who looked holy from a distance and were barren up close.
The fig tree people.
They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.— Psalm 22:18
They stripped God naked and gambled for His clothes.
Think about the women who sewed those garments. The hands that wove the fabric. The hours of labor. Ripped apart and tossed on the ground while soldiers threw dice.
But here’s the thing about Psalm 22 that nobody talks about.
It doesn’t end on the cross.
They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this. — Psalm 22:31
That’s you. Right now. Reading this. You are the people that shall be born. And what David wrote a thousand years ago and what Jesus fulfilled on that cross — you are the reason it happened.
For the joy that was set before him. — Hebrews 12:2
The joy wasn’t the cross. The joy was you. The joy was the man reading this at 4 AM who thinks he’s too far gone. The joy was the father who failed again yesterday. The joy was the man sitting in his truck right now wondering if God even sees him.
He sees you. He became a worm for you. He was despised for you. He was forsaken for you.
So you would never have to be.
This is Holy Week.
This is the week that should make every man alive stop scrolling, stop arguing, stop performing, and sit in the weight of what was done for him.
You have two choices.
You can keep living like the cross was a historical event that happened to somebody else.
Or you can pick up your Bible and read Psalm 22 tonight and let the weight of it crush every excuse you’ve ever made for not living like a man who was bought with blood.
He didn’t die, so you could be comfortable.
He died so you could be free.
This work is reader-supported. No ads. No sponsors. No corporate backing. Just one man with a KJV and too many things to say.