Lyrics for His Life: Praying the Psalms with Jesus

Can you visualize Jesus standing with arms outstretched and head turned upwards? Can you hear him say in front of his disciples, “I love my Father because he has heard my voice.” The Son prays; the Father responds. Love passes between them. Their love sources the whole universe. Father and Son ever reach and reply to one another. We live in the magnetic field of their eternal attraction. In the midst of our hurting, broken world, the incarnate Son lifts his heart to say, “I love the LORD!” 

Throughout his life, this psalm would have uplifted Jesus in praise to his Father. In time, he would understand how it pointed toward his return in glory. He would have drawn hope from this future even on this day. For in Psalm 96, Jesus knows that the way things are right now is not the way things will always be.

Through his years of reading the Psalms in his prayers to the LORD whom he knew intimately as Father, Jesus realizes how Psalm 110 had been written for him! This prophetic song of David gives Jesus insight into his unique identity as a man born of Mary and the Son of God conceived by the Holy Spirit. He follows the Scriptural logic to know that only one person could be both the son and the Lord of David. Only one man could rule over Israel from the heavenly position of the Father’s right hand—Jesus himself.

We declare in the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus even now sits at the Father’s right hand and will come to judge the living and the dead. This is fair warning to us and to the rebellious world to be wise. There is no future apart from this King.

What a thrill it would have been for Jesus to pray this psalm in the days before he ascended. What anticipation of reunion! In the same prayers, he well might have rejoiced with Psalm 47:5-6: “God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises!”

We can imagine Jesus before his departure praying Psalm 67 and preparing this blessing. Or perhaps he even used this psalm in the blessing. We see that his shining presence and his radiant mission go together. Jesus prays for them, for us, a blessing with a purpose. May God be gracious to us so that his “way may be known on earth” and his “saving power among all nations.” A crucial reason for Christ’s people to experience his favor tangibly and richly is so that we can bear personal, experiential witness to the reality of Jesus. 

Jesus’ great passion is that he can bring together his Father and his disciples. He yearns for all those who belong to him to be taken into the love he has shared with his Father from all eternity. He came precisely to gather us. The glory of his triumph is the sharing of intimate fellowship. His resurrection has established the grounds of union with us. In the future, that communion will be fully realized in his Kingdom. No wonder Scripture speaks about what’s coming as a wedding: “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). The King’s desire is for his bride to be with him at last!

The Father did not leave Jesus’ soul in Sheol while his body rotted in the cave. He raised him. With this in mind, we can imagine Jesus praying Psalm 16 as he looks back with his Father on what has happened over the three years of his ministry on earth: "The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup.""The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful heritage.""O Father, in the trackless wasteland you made known to me the path of life. Sweeter now even than it had been in all eternity is our fellowship. In your presence, there is fullness of joy."

The sudden change described in Psalm 22:21 occurs for Jesus between Good Friday and Easter. Jesus dies in this world. His voice sounds no more. Then it does. Jesus departs into the silence of death on Friday and then blinks awake in new life on Easter. How soon, alive in that cave, does he finish the psalm he started on the cross? Perhaps he wonders, “What do I do now?” Then he prays in his joy, “I will tell of your name to my brothers!” Jesus prays Psalm 22 even now, "in the midst of the congregation, I will praise you."

When Jesus affirms that Yah, his Father, is his strength and song, he gathers together the whole story of redemption—past, present and future. This journey of his is the heart of bringing humanity home to dwell in the Father, Son and Spirit. In Yah! 

Imagine Jesus reciting portions of Psalm 107 knowing his death and resurrection have set free the captives who had longed for him: “He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart . . . and cuts in two the bars of iron.” The resurrection has cosmic significance! 

Jesus knows he will eventually be put to death. He also knows he will rise. He draws on Jonah as a type, a preview illustration of his own fate. We can juxtapose these two prophets. The LORD called Jonah to a mission; Jonah fled. The Father anointed Jesus as the savior; Jesus consecrated himself in ministry from his baptism through the cross. 

Songs allow us to exaggerate, to colorfully say more in order not to say less of what an experience means. The psalmist’s situation in Psalm 30 was so dire, so deathly, that he praised God in terms of being lifted out of Sheol, the dark realm of the dead. However, what was evocative hyperbole for David becomes literal experience for Jesus. These poetically overstated words give accurate lyrics for the unique journey of Jesus. So Psalm 30 serves Jesus perhaps in preparation for his passion, giving him hope that joy will follow the shame. Certainly Psalm 30 is a magnificent song to raise as Jesus gets up in resurrection transformation.

At the resurrection, the Father vindicated the innocence of his Son, overturning humanity’s unjust verdict that he was worthy of death. How do we imagine this occurring? Did the voice of the Father’s declaration thunder throughout the realm of the dead with a concussive “Not Guilty!”? Or did his Spirit rush towards the Son like the father in the parable hitching up his robes and running down the road to welcome home the prodigal? Did a raucous, heavenly party ensue? Or did the Father send his Spirit softly, as one wakes a sleeping child?

Jesus’ descent to the realm of the dead on Holy Saturday assures us that he stays with us through the darkest passages of life and death. This event offers hope to those who have felt “darkness is my only companion.” Depression, grief, disassociation, paranoia and anxiety can all isolate us in hopelessness. That Jesus prays Psalm 88 as one of us, with us and for us, is like someone taking our hand in the dark to lead us gently back to light.

The events of the cross and sojourn in Sheol are not just religious business transactions. The faith required of Jesus to commit himself to his Father at the last is not born of some easy sense that the end of the play was already a given. He is not merely acting out a character whose role did not touch his real being. His faith rises through the excruciating pain of true flesh and the shattered soul of a real man.

There's great spiritual encouragement from considering that Jesus remains under dereliction all the way through his death. Jesus' praying of Psalm 31 could be an act of sheer faithfulness which he flings against the wall of the Father's resolutely turned back. This would mean that facing utter nothingness, with no trace of his Father to be found, Jesus still surrenders himself in fidelity and trust.

"When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, 'It is finished,' and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit" (John 19:30). In Latin, Jesus' final words in John are consummatum est. One of the names for the fourth cup in the traditional Passover is "The Cup of Consummation." This sip from a sponge triggers the last moment. Jesus dies. This is the finish, the conclusion, where it has all been leading. Jesus has drunk the fourth cup.

Only what resides deep inside a person can come to mind under extreme stress. Jesus learned, discussed, prayed, sang and internalized Scripture all his life. We cannot know specifically how the rest of the words of Psalm 22 come to Jesus during crucifixion. But the gospel writers certainly bring this psalm to bear in their description of the vent. Perhaps Jesus medicated upon Psalm 22 in quiet hours before the passion.

Hung on the cross in physical agony, Jesus reaches with his soul toward his Father. But he can't find him. God seems gone. At high noon, darkness falls across the land. To the people on the ground, the sun has stopped shining. For Jesus, it is worse. His Father's face no longer shines on him in blessing. Rather, a place inside Jesus that has always been filled to overflowing has emptied utterly. Where is the Father?

We can imagine Jesus, the sinless one, praying Psalm 51 on behalf of all sinners. More passionately than even the convicted and grievously guilty David, Jesus our spotless Lamb confesses sin and prays for forgiveness AS ONE OF US.

Kneel beside Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Join your heart to his voice as he prays Psalm 56. Rejoice in the resolution he reaches. Give thanks for the trust he achieves.

As you read, kneel beside Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Join your heart to his voice as he prays these psalms.

Psalm 41:5-9 and Psalm 55:12-14, 20-21 pierce us. Our Lord takes them up as expressions of his own heart pain that an intimate has rejected him: "Even my close friend in whom I trusted. . . . For it is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it. . . . But it is you, a man . . . my companion, my familiar friend."

Psalm 116 helps Jesus prepare for the intensity of anguish, both spiritual and physical, that the cross will bring. It gives him lyrics for the sorrow of his rejection and the hope of coming out alive on the other side.

In the passion of his mission, Jesus prays that no one seeking God would be brought to dishonor through him (Psalm 69:6). He can't bear to fail those he came to save, yet he knows that he must bear shame. He identifies with the psalmist's lament: "I have become a stranger to my brothers" (Psalm 69:8).

Palm Sunday is the brief moment when the people acclaim their true Messiah. We know that all too soon they will turn "Hosanna!" into "Crucify!" Jesus knows that too. So, he finds in Psalm 118 a piece of the sacred script for his final week. He must be hailed. And he must be rejected. It's all part of a plan wherein the king himself becomes the sacrifice taken to the altar of the LORD so that the new humanity in Christ might arise.

This psalm gives voice to Jesus' concern that he doesn't step to the left or the right as he forges through the days of ministry. Jesus prays with David, "Lead me on a level path because of my enemies." We hear how this psalm resonates in the words Jesus teaches all his disciples to pray continually, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Psalm 95 gives Jesus historical justification for his yearning to warn people that turning away from him has dire consequences—not because Jesus is so ego-centric that like a tyrant king he punishes those who ignore him. No, it is because he has come to give abundant life (John 10:10). To choose to stay in spiritual death, unforgiveness, disconnection from God, Brokenness in relationships, daily bitterness and constant agitation.

We have no record of his quoting Psalm 23 directly, but we can easily see how David's greatest song informed Jesus' profound grasp of his role and sacrificial mission and the comfort, provision and protection the Father bestows on him.

Jesus knows from reading and praying Psalm 32 that a world burdened by innate sin and its persistent, destructive expression could only find relief through daring confession.

How can someone be truly human and yet now be predisposed to sin? How could one feel completely oriented toward the Father even as everyone around seemed focused on self? Jesus lives this freedom. He lives this loneliness. He lives this joy. He lives being odd.

The people of the LORD in Jesus' day languished under foreign oppression similar to when Psalm 80 was written. He grows restless with them for the arrival of the Messiah to restore them. He sings with the congregation, "Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved!"

In this episode, we consider the psalms that connect to various events in Jesus' ministry.