Spoiler Alert
You may listen to this devotion in audio form via podcast here.
Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach,
especially to my neighbors,
and an object of dread to my acquaintances;
those who see me in the street flee from me.
I have been forgotten like one who is dead;
I have become like a broken vessel.
For I hear the whispering of many—
terror on every side!—
as they scheme together against me,
as they plot to take my life.
Jesus seems to me something of an introvert. Read the gospels again and notice how often he is trying to escape the crowds to pray alone in a deserted place. And what does he pray? The few times the gospel writers sneak the reader close enough to hear what he is saying Jesus is praying the Psalms. Now remember that David wrote the majority of the Psalms but the lines are Jesus’ lines. David was just an understudy practicing the part. Jesus is the star of the show. The lines are his lines. It’s his part. And he knows it. So when he enters into his Passion Week, it's showtime.
The Passion Week is a literal tragedy: a total turnaround of fortune. How quickly the crowd’s “Hosanna” becomes “Crucify”. But is this unexpected? After all David had leaked the script! The beginning of every Psalm should read: Spoiler Alert! David playing Jesus told us that he would “become a reproach,” “an object of dread”. David, playing Jesus, told us that his friends would “flee from him,” “forget him as one dead.” David, playing Jesus, told us that the leaders whose commission was to exalt the LORD would “scheme together against him” and “plot to take his life.”
To the disciple who is well read and familiar with the scriptures, Christ’s dying words call our minds to this Psalm, Psalm 31. This is deliberate, intentional; this is his prayer. But with his dying breath Luke tells us he bellowed in a loud voice, “Father into your hand I commit my Spirit.” This is an earlier lyric from the Psalm and it is couched between these lines:
“You take me out of the net they have hidden for me.”
“You have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.”
Spoilers again. Jesus is spoiling the ending. But we should have known. We’ve seen this show over and over again. We know the ending. We know that Noah will pass through the waters of the flood, Moses through the waters of the Nile, Israel through the waters of the sea. We know that the fish will spit Jonah back out. We know that Daniel will rise up out of the lion’s den.
So now as Jesus ventures into the waters, as he is swallowed up by the great fish, as he steps boldly into the lions’ den he is hinting at what comes next.