A Broken Heart
“Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless ...” Psalm 69:1-21(v.20)
When we look at the cross, we see thous ands of years of preperation in prophetic words that many did not understand until weeks and even years after the event. If you have seen the film "The Passion of Christ" you will have I am sure, been moved by the long drawn out agony that our Lord suffered for us. It was an occasion that I have not expereinced before, as people just sat there after the film had ended, and all you heard was sobbing. I was one of those who cried and was deeply impacted and reminded of our Saviours love for me.
If we look at an Old Testament writer, here anticipating the sufferings of Christ and feeling in his heart something of our Lord’s pain long before the event. Here the psalmist speaks of several forms of suffering that can be compared to Christ’s agony on the cross, but the one on which I want to focus on today is that of a broken heart. Did the psalmist sense as he talked about his heartbreak that there would come into the world One who, though perfect, would have His heart broken in the course of bearing mankind’s sin? I think that somehow he did.
Although what the psalmist talked about figuratively Christ experienced literally. A.M. Hodgin in his classic Christ in all the Scriptures claims that the one factor above all others that contributed to the early death of Christ on the cross was a broken heart: “Death from a broken heart is very rare. It is caused by intense mental emotion. The loud cry, the fact of death coming so soon, the effect of the spear-thrust, all point towards this being indeed the cause of our Lord’s death.”
When one of the soldiers approached Jesus to accelerate His death by breaking His legs he found that Jesus was already dead. The soldier then pierced His side, which brought forth a sudden gush of blood and water. Why water? Because the pericardium, the sac sur rounding the heart which contains water, had burst - evidence, say physicians, that our Lord’s heart had broken. The bearing of our sins, and the hiding of the Father’s face on account of it, literally broke His heart.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, I see this psalm not just as the cry of a man who was hurt but a prophecy of the way Your own dear Son would be hurt. You became possessed of a human heart in order that it might be broken. I stand in awe of such amazing love. Amen.
By courtesy of Tim Pearsonof - www.theway.co.uk
|
