Though I know I need to remind myself of the gospel every single day, there's just something special for me about this day.
I am thankful for the church service I attended today that faithfully proclaimed the majestic beauty of a God who would love sinners so much as to die a brutal death in their place, bearing divine wrath in the greatest act of injustice ever known to man.
As great as the message was, it is the songs we sang that have been filling my mind and flowing through my lips this day. (seriously, props to whoever chose so many songs from Handel's Messiah!)
How thankful to the Lord I am for those hymn writers who have composed songs to help us express our worship of Jesus in words that are both theologically fitting and experientially rich.
It's interesting how the gift of song is one of the most powerful ways we can express our love to someone else. When we were singing, In Christ Alone, I couldn't help but cry. But it was a good cry. A cry of joy. A cry of amazement. A cry of love.
When I first met Christina, my heart was filled with songs, because my heart was filled with love. I remember whistling, humming, and even composing many songs...quite naturally.
This is precisely what happened in Psalm 45.
I love the inspired heading:
To the Choirmaster: according to the Lilies.
A Maskil of the sons of Korah; a love song.
A love song.
Listen to how these verses seem to naturally bubble out & usher forth from a heart that is absolutely captivated with the beauty of Another.
"My heart overflows with a pleasing theme;
I address my verses to the king;
my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe."
The verb translated "overflows" by the ESV is used only once in the OT. It is associated with a "cooking pot", and so a good translation would actually be, "my heart is being stirred". Like a good 'ol pot o' stew (for all you KJV-ers, "a mess of pottage") whose tantalizing aroma beckons us to return often to stir it, so is the psalmist's heart. It is constantly being stirred by a "pleasing theme" (literally, "a good word").
As the verse goes on to say, and as the psalm will make abundantly clear, the pleasing theme that occupies the affections of the psalmist is the beauty of his king.
So enamored and ravished with the king's splendor and majestic beauty, the words of this love song flow from the author's tongue just as they would from a scribe's stylus.
Verse 2:
"You are the most handsome of the sons of men;
grace is poured upon Your lips;
therefore God has blessed You forever."
This is the verse that got me. Over and over, as I found myself singing throughout the day, the image burned indelibly upon my mind was of my precious Savior, hanging naked upon the cross, bearing the wrath of God for my sins and rebellious deeds.
Yet, this is the One of whom Isaiah said:
"As many were astonished at You -
His appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
and His form beyond that of the children of mankind."
"He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him,
and no beauty that we should desire Him.
He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised,
and we esteemed Him not."
I find it amazing that the theme of both the Psalmist and Isaiah is indeed "pleasant". The One whom those at Golgotha hid their faces from is indeed "the most handsome of the sons of men" - that is, to those who have been given eyes to see Him as He really is (see 1 Corinthians 2:8-10).
Furthermore, in v. 3 the Psalmist continues,
"Gird Your sword on high, O mighty One,
in Your splendor and majesty!"
The psalmist is not only enraptured by the beauty of the king, but also of the king's might and power.
Again, when many people think of Calvary, they imagine a weak, helpless, impotent Savior hanging upon a tree.
And yet the Bible makes it very clear that the very One hanging on that tree is the King of kings, who as the Commander of Heaven's Armies, could with great ease not only come off the cross, but with a single word decimate the world He created with a single word (see for e.g. John 10:18; 19:10-11).
Paul makes it abundantly clear that in His apparent defeat on the cross, King Jesus carries out the greatest rout of His enemies ever in one fell swoop, not only triumphing over them, but even throwing in a bit of humiliating mockery for good measure:
"[Jesus] disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them in the cross" (Colossians 2:15).Not only was the cross the greatest demonstration of Jesus' might, but as the Psalmist hints at in verses 6 & 7, it was also the most glorious demonstration of His kingly love and justice.
Jesus went to the cross because of His great love for us (1 John 4:10). But He also went to the cross because the "scepter of [His] kingdom is a scepter of uprightness", and because "[He] has loved righteousness and has hated wickedness."
Because of His great love for a world that has gone haywire in its sin, He came into that world to set things straight, to mete out justice and restore order and righteousness, to restore shalom.
And because God the Father's burden is the same as His Son's, He was pleased to anoint His Son to accomplish this mission in the fullness of time (cf. Galatians 4:4; Ephesians 1:10)
As the Psalmist closes, he says that the remembrance of this King will endure throughout all generations, and the nations would all one day sing His praises for ever and ever (see Revelation 5).
As we sang in church today,
E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme [i.e. song], and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
In Christ, and for His glory to the ends of the earth,
Pastor Ryan
P.S. another great theme in Psalm 45 is the King's bride being prepared for marriage
