Psalm 118

The Lord's covenant love lasts forever. We need to gather in covenant assembly and say so. First Israel needs to confess that love, then all the religious leaders of Israel need to confess that love, and finally all the worshipers of the God of Israel need to participate in the public affirmation of the steadfast covenant love of the Lord. God has not forgotten the Jews, and He will never abandon the church of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. Look at the cross and discover His love again. His steadfast love endures forever.

Through the cross of Jesus Christ this love of the Lord has become very personal. I have received Him as my King. He is my Savior. He has paid my debt. Surely He will give me all things. He will see me through every distress.

But this love of God is also communal. The community of faith throughout the ages is surrounded by a frightening array of enemies. Yet the Lord of the cross will protect His beloved bride. He will cut off these adversaries in a moment with a vast array of men and angels alongside Him in His mighty host.

When Israel and the church are persecuted, Jesus Himself is persecuted. He will finally rise up and make an end of those who trouble His beloved people. There will be glad songs of salvation in the new worldwide tabernacle of the Holy Spirit!

Look at the personification of Israel on the cross again. Look to the One who stands in the place of the many. Surely Israel is a communal suffering servant, but look to the One Suffering Servant and embrace the pattern that God has for our encouragement in our deep distress. Though He died, He lives. In Him we live, and recount the mighty deeds of the Lord in the land of the living. We have been disciplined, but we are not utterly lost.

It seemed like He was lost. He did die. Yet what happened next? Even before the resurrection, the gates of heavenly righteousness opened for Him, and in Him those gates have opened for us. He has entered through the gate of the Lord.

He was the Stone that the builders, the leaders of Israel, the guardians of the temple of God, rejected for a time. But He has become the cornerstone of a new worldwide temple consisting of Spirit-claimed Jews and Gentiles.

The cross, the opening of the heavenly gates, the resurrection, the bodily ascension of Christ to the right hand of the Father; all of this is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in His eyes. This is the day that He has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

But how can it be that the Lord God made the day of such a horrible cross? How can we rejoice in that kind of brutality? Only when we see the Son of God as the necessary Passover Lamb. Only when we see that cross as the ultimate display of the steadfast love of the Lord. Then we cry out to the Son of David, “Hosanna! Save us!”

Look to the God/Man/Lamb on that cross. He has come in the Name of the Lord. We bless the Name of Jesus from the temple of the Holy Spirit. God has made His light shine on us, and now we see who Jesus is! He was the festal sacrifice in our place. He was bound with chords to the altar as the sacrificial victim.

When we see this rightly and know that our debt has been fully paid, when we embrace not only the cross, but also the resurrection, Israel and the church will worship the Lord God Almighty through our great Mediator of the New Covenant, Jesus. We will sing together, “You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you.”

This passover psalm has a glorious fulfillment in the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, the righteous Substitute. He has redeemed us from sin, death, and hell. “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever!”