Day 61

Psalm 31. Reflection. 

Selah is a common word used in the psalms. It was a musical term that meant to pause and reflect. It would have been a device that poignantly paused the passage of music for the temple choirs. This is my Selah on what we have meditated on so far. I find it very powerful that the psalms are the most quoted book in the NT. It is obvious that Jesus and the writers of the NT were very familiar with this compilation by Ezra. The commanding imprimatur was the way psalms figure in the life of Jesus. Jesus laid his hand on the psalms, giving them a divine authority. There are 8 psalms that figure very strongly in the last 24 hours of his life, two of which we have meditated on already. It should be obvious to us that Jesus recited the 22^nd psalm to himself in the darkness, with the first and last verses becoming audible as part of the seven-sentence sermon from the cross. It should also be apparent to us that Jesus also ran psalm 31 through his mind while on the cross, quoting audibly a third statement from Psalm 31:5.  When we turn these two psalms around and see them from the vantage point of the cross and not just about the cross, they have so much more power. We should also see the importance of bringing scripture into the darkness of our lives. It was from the mid-day midnight of Golgotha that these psalms rang out. When we reflect on the six psalms used at the last supper, you will stand in awe at the magnificence of a mountain that felt the footsteps of its creator, and there saw Him lifted on a rough-hewn cross between heaven and earth as if He were not fit for either! When Jesus cried out v5 “Into your hands I commend my spirit (life)”, He gave us, among many other things, the example of bringing God into the darkness of our troubled times. However, we should also note, that this cannot happen if we have not programmed our lives ahead of time… continued tomorrow.