Psalm 7 – midweek Evening Prayer
Some of the Psalms are easy to make our own, such as last week’s Psalm, Ps. 6: “O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath.” If we do not fear God’s anger against our sins, we ought to. The Psalm obviously applies to us.
But other Psalms are the opposite, and very difficult for us to make our own. Such is the case with Ps. 7. It pleads innocence before God. “O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it…. Arise, O LORD, in your anger…. Awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.” The Psalmist even asks the LORD to judge him: “Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.”
If we are honest with ourselves, this kind of Psalm is impossible for us to pray. We have no innocence to present before God. Asking the LORD to judge us according to our own righteousness and integrity is asking to be damned. It is impossible for us to pray Ps. 7. That is, it is impossible to pray it from ourselves. The Psalms have their meaning and fulfillment in Jesus, and in the case of a Psalm like this, the Psalm can only be ultimately understood as spoken by the Lord Jesus, “Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when he suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.”
The passion of the Lord Jesus was the ultimate crime against humanity, for Jesus the God-man assumed humanity into His person. The One Man who did not deserve to suffer nonetheless endured all suffering in His holy cross and passion, His precious death and burial. To pray this Psalm and those like it, then, is to enter into the mind of Jesus as He suffers for us. As He trembles in Gethsemane, His disciples asleep, soldiers approaching, He prays, “O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me.” As He is accused falsely of rebellion against the temple and the empire, He prays, “O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands … let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it.” As the nails pierce His hands and His feet, He cries, “Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.” As His disciples cower and hide in fear, “Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous–you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!” As the rebels crucified on either side of Him speak, one reviling, the other asking for mercy, the Lord speaks, “If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword, he has bent and readied his bow.” As He breathes His last, He commends His soul to the Father: “My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.” And finally, on the third day, awakening from the slumber of death, He says, “I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.”
It is impossible for us to pray such a psalm of ourselves. But with God, all things are possible. We pray the psalm in Christ, as Christians. In this psalm we taste the bitterness and the sour wine; we experience somewhat the lashings and the thorns; we hear the lies and laughing wringing in our ears, we feel the spit dripping down our bloodied face. All this our Lord endured for our sakes, so that His righteousness could be imputed to us, giving us the power to take refuge in the LORD as innocents wrongly accused. It is fitting that Psalm 6, the first of the penitential Psalms, is followed immediately by Psalm 7, a Psalm of Christ and His righteousness. “If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword”; but if a man does repent, taking refuge in Jesus, God, who is righteous and just, will forgive all our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Related posts:
- Meditation on Psalm 18 As always, I am indebted to Patrick Henry Reardon’s Christ...
- Meditation on Psalm 13 Continuing our series on the Psalms at Wednesday Evening Prayer....
- Meditation on Psalm 17 Resuming our midweek series on the Psalms at Evening Prayer:...
- Sermon at Evening Prayer: John 13.33-36 “Where I am going, you cannot come.” With these words,...
- Meditation on Psalm 16 Continuing our midweek series on the Psalms… + + +...
