Zeal [Psalm 69]
All four Gospels tell the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple by flipping over the tables of the money-changers. I think it’s fair to say that it’s that act that gets him killed—it is extremely provocative.
Here’s how John tells the story:
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. [John 2:13-22]
Did you catch that? The disciples see Jesus flip over the tables, and they immediately think of a line from today’s psalm:
9 For zeal for your house has consumed me,
and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. [Psalm 69:9]
This is a good example of how the early Christians used the Psalms as a way of understanding the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They see Jesus as zealous for the Lord’s righteousness, and punished for it.
Friends, this is one reason why it is so important that we are reading through the Psalms—without understanding the Psalms, we won’t understand Jesus.
A second reason we’re reading the Psalms is that they teach us to pray through our emotions, thereby giving our emotions over to the Lord.
Psalm 69 is a prayer of desperate complaint. If you have ever been in a difficulty way, the 69th Psalm is for you.
“This is one of the longest prayers for help in the book of Psalms. Its petitions are complex, covering multiple themes. The prayer opens with a proclamation of personal trouble (vv. 2-3), followed quickly by cries about the enemies (v. 4). Next is a declaration of one’s own sin (vv. 5-6). The prayer also addresses problems with God’s inaction (v. 26). Another element is an expression of suffering because of dedication to God, a Suffering Servant motif (vv. 7-12). In and of themselves, none of these motifs are unusual in prayers for help. What is unusual is that they all appear in one prayer. The psalm shows just how complicated life can be and that one can suffer because of God’s action and/or inaction and that enemies can threaten because of personal pain, sin, or because of a person’s faithfulness—or in this case, all of the above at the same time. The remainder of the psalm is typical for a prayer. It offers petitions for God’s action followed by the praise that testifies to the promise of being heard.”