What do you do when you are ridiculed? Where do you run when your heart is full of shame? How do you continue to love when your love is refused?
David writes, “Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul? They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: “
In this Psalm 69, David writes of Christ’s humiliation and rejection. A very telling Psalm opening for us the heart of the Savior as He bore shame and ridicule during His last days of earthly ministry.
His entire ministry was built around showing those He encountered who He was and what He came to accomplish for us. He was God incarnate and He would accomplish our salvation. No one else. Him and Him alone. The Bible tells us that Jesus “went about doing good and healing all those who were oppressed of the devil.” He went about doing good and healing…
How do you act when you go about doing good and others rise up against you? Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, lamenting that He would have “gathered them under his wings like chicks, but they would not.” Jesus loved His people, cared very deeply for their souls. But they would not have any part of Him.
O, let Him serve them, let Him heal them and answer their prayers, but no more. They did not want to enter into a relationship with Him. They expressed no real love for Him. They used Him while they could but when He no longer served their purpose, when His message did not tickle their ears, they marked Him as a heretic and went to great lengths in order to mock and ridicule Him. They tried hard to reduce all He had said and done to nothing more than the ranting of a madman.
Crucify Him! They shouted. Take away His clothes. Shame Him. Beat and destroy Him. Mock and ridicule Him. After all, who does He think He is?
We see through this Psalm the broken heart of Jesus as He pours it out before the Father. “I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.” “Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies. Thou hast known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor: mine adversaries are all before thee. Reproach hath broken my heart; I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none.”
Have you served Jesus with a heart of love for His people and for the lost only to have your love refused and your years of service reduced to one moment of ridicule? I encourage you to follow in Christ’s example and take it to your Heavenly Father.
“But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation. Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.”
“Hear me, O Lord; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of they tender mercies. And hide not thy face from thy servant: for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.”
Take all of your brokenness and heaviness of heart to Jesus. He understands more than we may know. Your suffering is but for a moment, but the eternal reward for following Jesus is “glory” forever and ever.
The Apostle Paul expressed his desire to turn away from all the temporal things of this life and pursue Jesus. He said, “I suffer the loss of all things, and do count them as dung, that I may win Christ…That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings…”
It is not unusual for us to want to know His resurrection but we shy away from His sufferings. We would rather not know suffering, especially if that suffering involves ridicule and shame. However we want to deny it, ridicule and shame were part of His suffering for us. He endured the cross, despising the shame, for us.
So how do we act when we are ridiculed and shamed? We continue to do the good thing. We continue to serve in the face of ridicule. We continue to love despite the shame. We continue to honor the Christ who cried to the Father at his most broken moment, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”
It is a tall order, I know. But the power resides in us. The Holy Spirit gives us power to overcome and to be a mighty witness of Christ’s unfailing grace.
Dear Lord, When we are despairing of a broken heart, lift us up in new courage to face our accusers and continue to show mightily your love and goodness working in and through us. Give us the strength this day to continue to labor in love for you and we ask that you receive our labor as an offering of thanksgiving for your grace and mercy to us. —Amen
Thanks for referring to Psalm 69 as a picture of Christ. I am not always mindful of the fact that the Old Testament points to Christ in a lot of different ways. Your post was edifying.
Thanks for referring to Psalm 69 as a picture of Christ. I am not always mindful of the fact that the Old Testament points to Christ in a lot of different ways. Your post was edifying.