The primary phrase shared between Jesus on the cross and Psalm 22 is “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Psa 22:1; cf. Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34). I could see how Jesus had the whole psalm in mind during the event of the cross, since much of it is specifically connected with events that surround the cross. Knowing this makes me think that Jesus probably identified himself with the psalmist, seeing and experiencing at the same time both the troubles of that day and the strength, trust-, and praiseworthiness of the Lord. The traditional interpretation that the Father abandoned the Son would not be as strong here, since the psalm speaks of the ultimate nearness of the Lord (Psa 22:10-11, 19-21, 24). Bauckham sees the quoted words of Psalm 22:1 as Jesus’ experience on the cross, but recognizes that the entire psalm lends context to understanding the quotation (Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 255).
As with Bauckham (see Jesus and the God of Israel [2008]), I see Psalm 22 as Christologically rich. In John 19:28, Jesus’ admittance to being thirsty seems to be connected to Psalm 22:15. Like the psalm, the account of the crucifixion event in John 19 also has reference to the mother of the speaker. Psalm 22:6-8, 16, 18 are referred to very specifically in the New Testament as fulfilled by the cross experience. The first set (mocking) is seen in Matthew 27:39-44, Mark 15:29-32, and Luke 23:35. Verse 18 is found fulfilled in Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, and John 19:23-24. Further, we see a very human Jesus—one “taken from the womb” and “on [his] mother’s breast” (Psa 22:9)—who has to trust in the Lord as all human beings do. Lastly, we see in the Psalm—as we see in Jesus—someone who points others to the Lord and encourages them in their worship of God: “I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters . . . I will praise you” (22:22); “You who fear the Lord, praise him!” (22:23).
the archives near Emmaus 
Bonhoeffer touches on this idea of Christ identifying with the Psalms in Chapter Two of “Life Together”.
“A psalm that we cannot utter as a prayer… is a hint to us that here Someone else is praying, not we; that the One… who has come to such infinite depths of suffering, is none other than Jesus Christ himself. He it is who is praying here, and not only here but in the whole Psalter.”
@JohnDave: I often connect Jesus’ words with the idea that the Father was absent, but you are correct in noting that if the whole Psalm is being echoed then this is likely not the case. Jesus is merely experiencing the human feeling of abandonment while knowing the Father is still worship and faithful.
Not every one agrees with this and I guess it depends on if the Psalm was being read Messianically by the time of Christ but I see it as a sign post for the Jews pointing them back to the Psalm indicating that he was fulfilling it and that he was the long awaited Messiah. Whether this happened or not for any Jews I don’t know but I think that was the intent.
@Nate: Bonhoeffer was such a Christologian! I always find insight in his comments on Scripture. I wonder how that quotations looks in the German. Thanks for sharing that!
@BrianL: Yes, I think this reading does two things. It doesn’t take away from Jesus’ solidarity with humanity but instead connects Him even more fully with us to our sinfulness. It shows the faithfulness of God even in the depths of despair and abandonment.
@BrianF: True, this is often disputed. I think the many points of contact that I mention there hold both in tension that the Psalm was understood in a Messianic sense and also pointing the Jews back to the fulfillment of the Psalm in Christ.
I tend to lean toward Jesus referring to the broader context of Ps 22 because that tends to be how most of the OT in NT quotations that I have studied work. They don’t merely proof text. Rather, that do what we now call “metalepsis”.
@BrianL: Could you clarify what you mean by broader context of Psalm 22?
@JohnDave: Broader than just the words quoted: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
@BrianL: I get you now. I agree with you.
@JohnDave: I hope you agree with me since my comment was essentially agreeing with you! 🙂
I think it is hard to account for such a ‘forsaken’ saying getting into the early record except for that ‘christological richness’ of the psalm as a whole which you mention, JohnDave. In an older commentary, Vincent Taylor (1952) traces the modern use of the idea that Jesus was conscious of the reference of the psalm as a whole to himself back to John McLeod Campbell, the Scots preacher who in 1830 started the modern rebuttal against substitutionary atonement (I’m guessing the idea showed up among the early Fathers as well).
BrianF’s thought about conscious self-proclamation ‘in code’ is interesting but less likely I think. The coded self-reference, if significant, would not have been so secret that Luke didn’t know about it (nor John).
Of course Luke might have laid off the phrase because it offended his sensibilities or required a familiarity with the psalms that was problematic for evangelism with non-Jews. This latter possibility also supports my view that its presence in Mark makes it harder to claim that the earliest gospel was written expressly for non-Jews. With John’s silences it’s harder to tell for me – since I hold that John knew the synoptics and often leaves things out of his account that have already been at least double-attested.
I posted a Lenten meditation this year on Mark 15:34ff in which I suggested the old devotional idea that Mark has recorded words of Jesus over-heard from the cross while he was reciting Psalm 22 ‘aloud’ to himself – in the course of reciting the whole ‘Davidic’ corpus as a help to get through his ordeal. I throw in the added suggestion that Luke has dug up for us the word-content of that second, final loud cry in Mark (15:37, after the hub-bub caused by the Ps 22:1 quote). Luke’s last words of Jesus – “Father into thy hands I commit my Spirit” are also echoed in the Psalms (Ps 31:5). In my post I conjectured (for devotional purposes only) that if we meditate on those Psalms between 22:1 and 31:5 we may imagine we are sharing the last conscious string of thought and prayer which passed through the human mind of the dying Savior of the world.