Psalms 35-41

Psalms 35-41

            The persecution of the righteous seems to tie a lot of today’s readings together. The betrayal of friends, the injustice of success, the final judgment of the faithless—we see these themes in several of today’s psalms. Of course, they reflect David’s own experience, and in some ways they reflect our experiences, but here is a case when we do well to focus them in Christ.

            Jesus is the true righteous sufferer, because He is the only truly righteous man. When Jesus protests that the wicked have risen against Him, that His friends have betrayed Him, that His suffering is unjust—those protests are true. (In our cases, there’s always some sense in which we have to ask, “How did I contribute?” because we are not perfect.) So, when Jesus prays, “Vindicate me, O Lord,” (35:24), He is perfectly right.

            Run this through Jesus’ experience. The Pharisees become increasingly agitated with Him. The chief priests and Sadducees fear Him. Both collaborate with the Romans to turn the people against Him and to have Him crucified. His disciples abandon Him, despite Peter’s insistence that he would die alongside Jesus rather than ever renounce Him. Luke records the centurion’s words at the foot of the cross as, “Surely this was a righteous man,” and that centurion was right. One of the themes of Jesus’ resurrection is that his resurrection was exactly the vindication He was longing for, the Father’s declaration that His Son had not deserved what He got.

            When we’re feeling the injustice of it all, we do well to remember not to protest our innocence too heartily, but to remember that we are “in Christ.” He’s suffered it all already and in perfect innocence. By faith, we are Christ’s and what is true of Him is given to us. Consider Romans 8:17, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” We share in His suffering now; we will share in His vindication forever.