Psalm 118:22-24
This Is the Day!
This morning in my quiet time, my
thoughts were directed to Psalm 118. We
often quote and sing verse 24. However,
this morning I was taken with the triad of verses that it completes. Verse 22 speaks of a Rejected Stone. This verse
is actually Messianic in its scope.
Christ is the rejected stone. His
entire earthly life was one of rejection.
The word reject actually denotes- despising, loathing, trashing. The word rejected is a verb and is in the
perfect tense, meaning it is an action already accomplished. [1]
Isaiah 53 speaks of this despising of Messiah. Peter confirms the identity of
the stone as Jesus in Acts 4:11 in the wake of the healing of the man who was
lame from birth. The rejection of Jesus
helped pave the way to my being right with God.
Verse 23 speaks of a Redemptive
God. The action of making the
rejected stone the chief cornerstone is clearly attributed to the LORD. The psalmist adds that this action of God is
marvelous in our eyes. Marvelous means that we are astounded by this action
outside the realm of human capability[2]
– God had planned all along to use the rejection of Christ as an occasion to
draw us into a relationship with Him. Verse 24 speaks of a Rejoicing Saint. We are
called to rejoice in the day, because of the action of God in the previous
verses. The words rejoice is in the imperfect,
indicating that our rejoicing is an ongoing action as we give glory to God. The reason for our rejoicing is noted in the
previous two verses: One, Jesus is
exalted and Two, God has accomplished His purpose. Therefore I can rejoice in pain; I can
rejoice in the face of loss; I can rejoice in any circumstance because of God’s
actions on my behalf. Verse 24 is more than a feel good verse that has been
popularized by a song. We rejoice
because of Who He is in this day!
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