Main Point: Jesus is the earth-shaking king who produces life-giving water from the rock that is Himself.
When I was in my early twenties I visited my dad’s hometown, a place he had been working a bit again as a builder. I went with Lyssa, my wife of just a year or so and stopped in a restaurant connected to a large retail place built by the company my dad worked for. When I walked into the restaurant the person at the counter very warmly greeted me with, “Hi Don!” I’m not Don, I’m William (actually Bill or even Billy to the folks in Howard City and Lakeview but that’s probably another story about names; rest assured my name is William even if I have been called many other names through the years. But I digress.). Don, my father is 20 years older than me. But apparently he looks young and I looked older. It was not an isolated incident. I unsurprisingly look like my father. I still do.
Monday I asked some young theological students about the name of God used in Psalm 112 and its references to the Father or the Son. One student replied in summary, “(Jesus) he is not Ja in this Psalm (112). but surely, Jesus is YHWH”. I’m not sure I was convinced by the answer I received. But does it matter? Distinguishing who in the Trinity did what is not always easy. Many times we do not have the clarity of the scene of the baptism of Jesus, where the narrator tells us what each member of the Trinity said, did or looked like. So you may wonder why I go to the trouble of looking for Jesus in the Psalms when it is clearly written in an Old Testament context and Jesus had not even been born yet. I do it because I think Jesus Himself wants us to search for Him and find Him and see Him in all of the scripture.
“7 If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
9 Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. 11 Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.”
These words spoken to Philip by Jesus do not on the surface make Jesus-spotting easier. If anything it seems more difficult because according to Jesus, to see Him is to see the Father.
I think we struggle to understand the Trinity because we are so unlike God. We do not understand sinless perfection and complete unity. It is obvious that when a community of people work closely together in harmony and singleness of purpose, it will be much like trying to determine what part of my body walked to work. And still even that exercise in observation and deduction will suffer if that same body becomes partially paralysed or injured and, for example, my ankle doesn’t do its job properly so the whole body has to behave differently to accomplish the same task. God doesn’t suffer such maladies and so the work of God is always done in unity. Even the cross is a work of unity. I’ll not now try to plumb that deep well of trinitarian knowledge.
So today a long introduction and rabbit trail to say I have found it particularly difficult to distinguish Jesus from the Father in Psalm 114. Here are my observations that lead me to think I see Jesus.
Jesus is the king. In fact Jesus is the ultimate king and we express that with the phrase King of kings (1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 17:14, 19:11–12, 16) So when we see a kingdom (dominion) of God in verse 2 being mentioned we can point to the King of that kingdom, Jesus. That is not to say the Father does not rule as a king from a throne, but He has given all authority to the Son to rule as King.
“Jesus came and told his disciples,
"I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.”
I also see Jesus in the earth-shaking nature of His person. I admit this may be a stretch for some of you but this is how I see it.
“Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,
at the presence of the God of Jacob.”
Have you noticed all the times there is an earthquake or people falling down in the presence of Jesus? There was an earthquake during the crucifixion and one at the resurrection (Matthew 27:51-54, 28:2).
And in the book of Revelation there are at least five different earthquakes related to what Jesus is going to do. Amos the prophet speaks of the Day of the Lord and describes earthquakes a lot (Amos 1:1; 2:13; 3:14-15; 6:11; 8:8; 9:1, 5). People just sometimes fall down in the presence of Jesus (Revelation 1:15, 17, John 18:6). There are more instances and things to say about the earth-shaking “people-knocking-over” nature of Jesus’ presence, but you’ll have to do some of the work for yourself.
Lastly from Psalm 114, Jesus is the rock which produces water mentioned in verse 8
8 He turned the rock into a pool of water;
yes, a spring of water flowed from solid rock.
Paul helps us see that it is Jesus who is the water-giving rock, and it is no coincidence that the rock is split or broken to produce this life-giving water.
“1 I don't want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. ... 4 and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ.”
Jesus is a rock, and we can see that in many passages; and that He is the rock that was struck and gave water is foreshadowed (predicted through an example of metaphoric circumstance) can be seen in Exodus 17:1–7 and Numbers 20:1–14.
So maybe it wasn’t so hard after all to find Jesus in Psalm 114. What do you think?
Conclusion: I love the Bible and I love the way it weaves things together. I will keep looking and I hope you will keep joining me looking for the references to Jesus our king who shakes things up and gives life through the water that is Himself.
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| Handwritten Psalm 114 |
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