WORSHIP NOTES
Volume 19, No. 1 (January 2024)
Then He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” (Luke 24:44)
This month and next we consider several authors’ fascinating insights into Jesus’ familiarity with, usage of, and fulfillment of the Psalms.
To begin with, it’s intriguing to note two passages in Hebrews, where the writer is quoting from the Psalms but nevertheless says that these are the words of Jesus Himself to His Father:
That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying,
—Hebrews 2:11-12 (citing Psalm 22)
“I will tell of Your name to My brethren;
in the midst of the congregation I will sing your
praise.”
[for more on this amazing text, please see “Jesus, Our True Worship Leader“]
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, He said,
—Hebrews 10:5-7 (citing Psalm 40:6-8)
“Sacrifices and offerings You have not desired,
but a body have You prepared for Ne;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings
You have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of Me in the scroll of the book.’”
”The first time I came to understand this traditional method of reading the Psalms was in my first vesperal service of the Orthodox. The priest, as Psalm 1 was recited (which is usual on Great Vespers), stood directly in front of the icon of Christ and meditated upon the One who meditated upon the Law day and night. Like a flash, I understood! The Psalm was fulfilled in the Lord, and this Psalm is the introduction to the whole Psalter, which points to Him and is fulfilled in Him alone. In Christ, we can sing this psalm. As a reference to godly behavior alone, it is merely didactic and loses its power.”
—Edith Humphrey, Grand Entrance: Worship on Earth as in Heaven, 167-168
”Where Christ comes, song comes, for Jesus Christ is a singing Savior. “I will declare Thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation will I sing Thy praise” (Heb. 2:12).
—Edmund P. Clowney, “The Singing Savior,” 40
The writer to the Hebrews ascribes to Jesus these words taken from Psalm 22. That Psalm begins with the cry, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Jesus made that cry His own on the cross. But the Hebrews passage reminds us that the whole Psalm is Christ’s—not only the cry of abandonment at the beginning, but also the vow of victory at the climax (v.22).
Jesus had sung that Psalm often before He went to the cross. Indeed He knew and sang all the Psalms in the congregation of God’s people. Think of the meaning the Psalms had when He sang them! If you would open a new experience of worship, meditate on the Psalms as the Psalms of Jesus.”
”As Christians, we only go to the Old Testament because it pertains to Jesus. Otherwise, the Old Testament is, for us non-Jews, just another ancient book. We accept it as our Bible only because it is Jesus’s Bible. In truth, and strictly speaking, after all, it is only Christ that makes the Old Testament theologically pertinent to us. Without Christ, the Old Testament is not really our history. We have no continuity with it—it is not part of our memory—except through Christ. But that is more than enough!
—Patrick Henry Reardon, Christ in the Psalms, x, vii, viii
It is the profound Christian persuasion the Christ walks within the Psalms, and this is the reason that the book of Psalms is the Old Testament book most often quoted in the New Testament. When He opened their eyes to the meaning of Holy Scripture, the risen Lord explained to his disciples the things concerning Himself “in the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44).
Christians have always preferred to sing the Psalms (James 5:13). Properly to pray the Psalms is to pray them in Jesus’s name, because the voice in the Psalter is Christ’s own voice. Christ is the referential center of the Book of Psalms. Even in speaking to one another, Christians invoke the Psalms (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). Christian lips readily break forth with the words of the Psalter, because the Christian heart meditates on the Psalms day and night. Ultimately, the words of the Psalms are the mighty name of Jesus broken down into its component parts. Thus has it always been.