As we continue to move through this Psalm, and continue to find that our Savior is able to take up the words of the Psalmist---not only as He endured the ordeal of His passion, but even before that, as He would search the Scriptures so as to better understand His vocation and what it was that it was in store for Him as He trudged the wearying path of Messiah-ship---we move from His battle with the enemy of death, to His tenuous engagements with adversaries much closer to hand. It is a relatively simple matter to discover Jesus, remembering His trial as we read “Violent men perjure themselves, and falsely accuse me. They repay me evil for the good I have done; I am overwhelmed with sorrow” (35:11-12).
This mention of “sorrow” vaults our conscience to a recollection of the “suffering servant” of Isaiah, thus providing us (and Jesus before He would come to His time of suffering) a more fully-rounded sense of what these sorrows would and did entail. The verses that follow remind us of the letter to the Hebrews and the great High Priest that is able to sympathize with our weaknesses (4:15), the Gospel of Luke and Jesus weeping over the city of Jerusalem (19:41), and the Gospel of John and Jesus weeping within the story of the raising of the one whom He loved (11:35), as we read “When they were sick, I wore sackcloth, and refrained from eating food. I mourned for them as I would for a friend or my brother. I bowed down in sorrow as if I were mourning for my mother” (Psalm 35:13a,14). Unfortunately, Jesus did not receive complete reciprocity in these matters, and because of that He could say, “when I stumbled, they rejoiced and gathered together; they gathered together to ambush me” (35:15a). As He would begin to undergo the various inflictions of physical brutality---the whip that would be endured as He made His way to His ultimate vindication---Jesus could maintain His reflection on this Psalm and its words in which “They tore at me without stopping to rest” (35:15b). As He stumbled under the weight of the beam that He attempted to carry to Golgotha, Jesus would remember “When I tripped, they taunted me relentlessly, and tried to bite me” (35:16).
Again, we pause to remember that this adversary is not death, at least not directly, but men corrupted by the power of darkness, as it attempted to assert its power over the One that would come to be called the Son-of-God-in-power (Romans 1:4). Jesus could cry out “O Lord, how long are you going to just stand there and watch this? Rescue me from their destructive attacks; guard my life from the young lions! Do not let those who are my enemies for no reason gloat over me! Do not let those who hate me without cause carry out their wicked schemes! They are ready to devour me; they say, ‘Aha! Aha! We’ve got you!” (35:17,19,21) Even if He did speak such words that were, in essence, “My Father, if possible, let this cup pass for Me” (Matthew 26:39b), the watchword over all of this, as Jesus endured on behalf of Israel and the creation, is “Yet not what I will, but what You will” (26:39c). The will of the Father, of course, is to be found in what follows in this Psalm, which is “take notice, Lord! O Lord, do not remain far from me! Rouse yourself, wake up and vindicate me! My God and Lord, defend my just cause! Vindicate me by Your justice, O Lord my God!” (35:22-24a) This vindication would be the Resurrection, as Jesus would march forth from the tomb into a new world, the inaugurated kingdom of God on earth, in which the hosts of heaven were marshaled to witness His victorious coronation as King, and in which Jesus would honor the faithful Father for His vindicating justice, saying “I will give you thanks in the great assembly; I will praise You before a large crowd of people!” (35:18)
His crucifixion and vindicating Resurrection, that evidenced the defeat of death and the dawn of a new age, was a battle in which we find the words “attack” and “shields” and “spear” and lance” (35:1-5). Together with that, the words of the Psalm ask for the destruction of the enemy (35:8). However, when it came to those who carried out the crucifixion, temporary adversaries and very much a part of the world for which Jesus was going into a cursed death in order to redeem, we again consider Jesus words of forgiveness, and find a different demeanor. Rather than asking for attack and destruction, instead we find only a request that “those who want to harm me be totally embarrassed and ashamed! May those who arrogantly taunt me be covered with shame and humiliation!” (35:26) This can be viewed in two ways. In the first way, it can be viewed on the surface level, with the understandable desire for these adversaries to experience the same type of embarrassment and humiliation (35:4) which is requested for those who fight and attack (35:1). In the second way, we are forced to dig deeper, to remember Jesus’ intercession on their behalf, to consider the prevalent cultural equating of embarrassment, shame, and humiliation with going down into death, and to see a desire for these men to join Him in His death so that they too can be experience redemption. With this, we think of the words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians and being “crucified with Christ” (2:20), sharing in His shame and humiliation in order to truly live.
By the trusting allegiance of the gift of faith that makes Jesus our King and representative and enables us to join with Him in His crucifixion, we are also enabled to join with Him in His Resurrection and in the expectation of the great resurrection and renewal and restoration of creation to come. As subjects of His kingdom, we await His final vindication, and find ourselves as “those who desire my vindication” and in so doing “shout for joy and rejoice” (35:27). That shouting for joy and rejoicing will take the form of preaching His Gospel and proclaiming His present kingdom and His ongoing rule, though the presentation of that message may bring temporary shame and humiliation. We gladly endure such things, as through the Spirit of God, our glorified Lord Jesus works through us to make us lights for God’s glory, saying “I will tell others about Your justice, and praise You all day long” (35:28).
No comments:
Post a Comment