Psalm 118:27, “YHWH is God, and He has made his light shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar!”
I was reading through Psalm 118 this morning and at about verse 10, I began to think how powerful these words must have been for Jesus as He learned as a man the songs that His own Spirit had inspired in the mouth of the psalmists. The psalms are–as Tim Keller has said–the “songs of Jesus,” they are about and for our Lord first and foremost. He is the true servant of YHWH, the true Faithful Israelite, the true Righteous Sufferer, and the True King…and the psalms are about and for the people of God only by virtue of their union to the incarnate Son of God.
WHile considering these things, I was reminded–via ESV footnote–that Psalm 118 would have been the climactic psalm sung during a traditional Passover meal (Matthew 26:30). This means that, in all likelihood, Psalm 118 was the final song that Jesus sang with His disciples before He descended into the furnace of Gethsemane and the inferno of Calvary. What a new perspective that casts on this Psalm! And how awesome to consider our Lord and God–the man Jesus–singing these words, knowing what was before Him….
I encourage you, if you have the time, read through Psalm 118 and try to hear it being sung by Jesus and the disciples in the lamp-light upper room with the cross less than 12 hours before Him….in this light, some of the verses are staggering in their profundity.
But, what I landed on this morning was verse 27. Coming nearly at the end of the psalm, the psalmist rejoices that YHWH has made “His light to shine upon us.” This is an allusion to Aaron’s priestly blessing and, in its original context in Numbers 6:25, the “light” is the light of YHWH’s face. This celebration of the light of the Lord is followed up by a call to “Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar!” Being sung at Passover, these lines would likely have been applied to the Passover sacrifice…but what must Christ have thought as He recited these words? He Himself was about to become the True and Final “festal sacrifice,” a sacrifice who would–in His death and resurrection–cause the gracious light of the countenance of YHWH to shine on all who would receive Him….
Where do we see the light of the glory of God? In the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor.4:6). And nowhere does the saving and revelatory light of the Lord shine more brightly on His people than when YHWH incarnate, God the Son, ascends to the altar of Calvary (John 13:31-32).
Hallowed be His name!
