One of the things I love about the Psalms is that they show us the heart of Jesus. The writer of the book of Hebrews tells us that “in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears.” (Hebrews 5:7)
Some of those prayers were undoubtedly the Psalms. As we read the Psalms it’s really helpful to ask, what would this have meant to Jesus to sing/pray. Psalm 109 may well have been a prayer that Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane before the anguish of the cross. Here we see something of what it cost Jesus to face the cross for us.
Think of him crying out in the garden. His sweat is like drops of blood, he cries out to God not to be silent (109:1), but He knows He will have to face a silent heaven as He is forsaken on the cross. He will face men speaking lies about him, speaking words of hate (109:2-3).
Robert Godfrey in his excellent book “Learning to love the Psalms” suggests that v6-19 may have been some of the lies and words people spoke about Jesus and then in v20 Jesus prays that those people would be repaid according to the words they had spoken.
In v21 onwards we see more of the anguish Jesus faced for us, and His desire that people know that behind all their evil actions, God is at work, it is God who has done this (v27), this is God’s salvation plan. The Psalm ends with the expectation of resurrection, but the true victory is seen in the next Psalm (110).
As we see Jesus’ heart in this Psalm, we should be amazed at His love for us, that He willingly faced this for us to secure an eternal weight of glory for us. What should we do in response? Our reading from Ephesians 6 tells us, stand firm! Stick with Jesus no matter what people throw at you, knowing that the true battle is not against people but powers, and in Jesus we have the victory.
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