19th Day of Lent
Dear friends in Christ! Today we continue our look at this most amazing Psalm which not only prophesies our Lord’s suffering and death but also gives us a glimpse into what our Lord Jesus was feeling, suffering and thinking while on the cross. And, of course, this psalm was written by our Lord’s penman, King David, about 1000 years before the events.
As we look at our text this evening we are again brought to the crucifixion, to Jesus on the cross suffering the wrath of the Father for the sins of the whole world, for our sins, which He willingly took on Himself. Not only is Jesus cursed by God on account of sin, but He is rejected, despised and forsaken by men; and on top of that He is surrounded by His enemies. Our text: You know My reproach, My shame, and My dishonor; My adversaries are all before You. Jesus has suffered insult, shame, dishonor as a result of the sin He was charged with and which He willingly assumed to bring salvation to all people. In the other great psalm in which Jesus, through David, tells of His crucifixion, Jesus describes His enemies surrounding Him at the cross this way [Psalm 22.12]: Many bulls have surrounded Me; strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me. They gape at Me with their mouths, as a raging and roaring lion.
The holy Evangelists tell of the scene: And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, "You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross." Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, "He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, 'I am the Son of God.'" Jesus’ enemies, the devil and his minions—the religious leaders of the Jews—are well known to the all-knowing God: My adversaries are all before You.
Our text also contains the prophecy of Jesus on the cross being given vinegar to drink: They also gave Me gall for My food, And for My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink. Again the holy Evangelists record [Lk. 23.36; Jn 19.28]: And the soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine; and right before Jesus’ death, in order to fulfill prophecy He said, “I thirst!” Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. Again, this very act of suffering, of being given an astringent right when His body was racked with the most unbearable thirst, points to Jesus being the Savior because He already speaks and prophesies of it centuries before. This psalm, by the very sufferings and taunts it portrays, perfectly describes to the OT believer the Savior’s work.
These jeering slanders that struck Jesus from all sides as He was on cross crushed His soul. As His distress increased, His lament grew in urgency. Our text: Reproach has broken My heart, And I am full of heaviness; I looked for someone to take pity, but there was none; And for comforters, but I found none. His disciples, who had promised Him they would never leave or reject Him, fled when He was arrested in the garden. Jesus, who was for our sin suffering the rejection of God, His heavenly Father, who was surrounded by His enemies—the devil and his minions—and who was suffering also great physical pain was waiting for some sympathy and some condolence; He was waiting for some show of kindness to alleviate His anguish, but there was none. Jesus suffered alone for our salvation; He alone is our Savior; it was a way, a path, a work only He could go on and do. And He did it--alone!
Just because He is the holy sinless God, did not make Jesus’ suffering and being forsaken by both God and man any easier. Is it any wonder that what follows is Jesus’ plea for vengeance? Our text: Let their table become a snare before them, And their well-being a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see; And make their loins shake continually. Pour out Your indignation upon them, And let Your wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their dwelling place be desolate; Let no one live in their tents. For they persecute Him Whom You have struck, And talk of the grief of those You have pierced. Add iniquity to their iniquity, And let them not come into Your righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, And not be written with the righteous. Our text, then, contains a prophecy of the judgment from the Savior’s mouth.
This part is what is called an imprecatory psalm—that is, here in the psalm are curses or prayers for the punishment and damnation of Jesus’ enemies. But how does that fit what Jesus Himself told us to love our enemies [Mt. 5.38 ff.]? How does that fit with Jesus Himself says when He is crucified [Lk. 23.34]: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do? Here we find Luther’s words handy: he said that we cannot pray the Lord’s Prayer without cursing because every time we pray Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, we are praying that the plans of the devil and all those who serve him will fail and they will get the judgment they deserve. Yes, we should/ must pray that God would lead our enemies to repentance and forgiveness, but as Christ does in our psalm, we must also pray that all who defy God will get the justice they deserve. We oppose God’s enemies with prayer.
It is clear that as Jesus prays these words of the psalm while He is on the cross, He is pronouncing this judgment on the Jews who against better knowledge, who had heard Him preach and had seen His miracles, not only rejected Him but brought Him to be crucified and shouted [Mt. 27.22, 25] Crucify Him and His blood be on us and on our children. As greatly as God had blessed this people in grace, how shamefully they then despised this grace. Christ’s enemies, those who were in league with Satan, were His very own people according to the flesh, just as the Evangelist says of Christ [Jn. 1.11]: He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. His own were the ones who would show Him no mercy—so did they reject the Savior, and sadly this people also for the most part, except for a small, faithful remnant, remained in its unbelief and rejection. God’s judgment, for all to see, happened after 40 years of grace when He sent in the Roman armies to destroy Jerusalem and the temple. Christ’s prayer on the cross was heard and answered: Pour out Your indignation upon them, And let Your wrathful anger take hold of them. 25 Let their dwelling place be desolate; Let no one live in their tents. Because the people did not want the blessing but rejected the Savior, it instead had to have the curse.
This curse, though, was not just spoken on the people then and there but this threat of judgment applies to and was spoken over all others who reject Jesus and their salvation. Whoever rejects Jesus, rejects their salvation, has no hope and falls into God’s judgment. Here is Lent’s call to us as well. We have been so highly blessed and graced by the Lord, just as the Israelites had been who had Christ in their very midst. Just as they rejected Christ, so too can we.
Let us, then, hear Lent’s call and recognize that now is the time of grace. Now Christ comes to us in His holy word and sacraments and offers and gives us the forgiveness of sins and eternal life—the very things He brought about for us by His life, suffering and death. In holy baptism we were connected with Christ and His death and resurrection and clothed in His righteousness; in Holy Communion we receive in our very mouths the body and blood that brought about our salvation. Let us examine our hearts and lives and see that faith is still there, faith that receives Christ and His gifts and blessings. If there is no faith and yet Christ in Word and Sacrament, has visited us so richly in grace, we have then joined the crowds that day that shouted Crucify Him! and how can we expect to be exempt from that curse that Christ pronounced on the cross that day over His enemies.
2. Of what, then, does that judgment, that curse, that Jesus pronounced from the cross consist? Let their table become a snare before them, And their well-being a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see; And make their loins shake continually. We see here that it is a spiritual curse of spiritual hardening. The image is of Israelites sitting at a well-prepared festive table, filled with and enjoying all kinds of blessings from God. Here is a wonderful picture of the preaching and doctrine that had been entrusted to them: a preaching and doctrine that told of a gracious God; of a coming Savior from sin, whose life and work was wonderfully foretold by the OT prophets. But now, because of their rejection of God’s love and this Savior from sin, Jesus Christ, this well decked out table becomes for them a snare, as St. Peter writes [I Peter 2.7,8]: but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,’ and ‘a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed. Rejecting Jesus, the very One to whom God’s graces point and rejecting the word and doctrine entrusted them, they become more stiff-necked in their unbelief.
As they harden themselves in their unbelief, the curse continues: Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see; And make their loins shake continually. Wantonly and knowingly closing their eyes to the Light, Christ Jesus, they will be unable to see spiritually; they will be in spiritual blindness unable to see the bright light of the Gospel and so will be unable to come to faith and have forgiveness. They will be spiritually darkened and deceived so that their spiritual strength is gone unable either to see or to go on the way of salvation: their loins [will] shake continually. Any spiritual strength and direction will be gone; they will be unable to learn anything concrete about their salvation but will move back and forth in constant uncertainty and fear. Unbelief results in greater darkness and spiritual deception.
When we see Jesus cursing His enemies from the cross, when we see here Jesus pleading for vengeance, He is calling upon God to punish as the hardness of heart deserves; no amount of seeking and calling will bring the enemies to their senses as they will persist in rejecting Him and the Gospel. They have hardened themselves first; God then gives them up into their perverted, hardened mind and withdraws His Spirit and grace. The person, forsaken by God and His Spirit is completely incapable of knowing the truth, of repentance, of faith, of obedience. They sink deeper and deeper into sin and corruption and their end is eternal damnation. Add iniquity to their iniquity, And let them not come into Your righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, And not be written with the righteous.
Dear Christian! How seriously we must take our suffering Savior! Our text is a powerful corrective to the notion that God thinks little of our sin, of thinking that Christ is some milquetoast who lets anything go, of thinking that what we think of Christ isn’t important, of thinking that there is some other way to salvation. Our salvation all depends on Christ and His work and faith that looks to and receives the blessings of forgiveness of sin. May we use the present Lenten season not only as a time to examine our own hearts and lives but also as a time to take comfort from our Savior’s curses—He and His work do indeed mean something and are the vital thing. As we hear our Savior’s curses on those who turn away from Him and reject Him, let us, instead run to Him and there see and receive His blessings and graces that we so desperately need. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in your way when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all who put their trust in Him. The same One who curses is the same One who blesses; and, in fact, only He who curses can truly bless. INJ Amen.