Seeing Jesus in the Psalms

  Psalm 88 “ He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.  We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.” Isaiah 53:3 The verse above from Isaiah is universally accepted as a messianic verse referring to Jesus the Christ and can be linked to a few gospel passages such as: “He told them, “ My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death . Stay here and keep watch with me.”” Mark 14:34 Two songs came to mind as I read Psalm 88 today. One is a hymn I have know since I was a child and I feel emotional when ever I sing or say the words even today. It deeply expresses the wrongness and yet rightness of the way Jesus suffered: Man of sorrows what a name for the Son of God, who came ruined sinners to reclaim: Hallelujah, what a Savior! If you don’t know this hymn and the story of the writer then I encourage you to enrich your heart and mind with both the music and story of P. P. Bliss. The other song mi...

Psalm 87 Citizenship is sometimes a confusing part of our identity. I have many foreign-born friends and acquaintances. And interestingly, some of my friends of foreign identity were born in Belgium but adamantly identify as Italian. Lyssa and I are Belgian. Don’t you believe me? My identity card says I am. But my passports from England and America both say I am a citizen of those countries respectively.  “When the LORD registers the nations, he will say, ‘ They have all become citizens of Jerusalem. ’” Interlude Psalms 87:6 It looks like I will (or already) have at least one more citizenship. Another close friend, when asked her country of origin, prefers to reply, “I am a European.”  Paul says that you can even be broader and more inclusive if you have faith in Christ. “In the new life there is no difference between Greeks and Jews, those who are circumcised and those who are not circumcised, or people who are foreigners, or Scythians. There is no difference between slaves...

  Psalm 85 MAIN POINT: Jesus has come as saviour and will return as saviour, and we are invited to listen to His words of peace and experience and expect His salvation. Sometimes it isn’t easy to get your bearings in the Bible. One reason is that the Bible speaks about time as things that have happened, are happening and will happen more fluidly than we might be used to. But since God is 100% sure what has happened, what will happen, and what is happening, He can reveal things with confidence. We on the other hand usually can only apply such confidence and interchangeability of time to the immediate or possibly the past. Another aspect of the Bible that you might find challenging in our individualistic society is the principle of representation. We do get this idea sometimes but we don’t always get it. We often think that all the uses of representation are suspect to a negative prejudice. What I mean is that an individual is painted with the same brush as the whole. All Americans ...