Psalm 5

This psalm takes us down a journey, and it is not an easy journey to go down. It's the journey of a man with enemies. I don't have many personal enemies. I have people with whom I disagree, but many of them are among my best friends. I am a citizen in a country with enemies, so I might be able to claim enemies by extension. However, I do not know David's situation of having personal enemies who were actively out to hurt him. So I find this journey a tough one to relate to. But I'm sure that ancient Israel did not have a tough time relating- they always had enemies and (seemingly) were constantly at war with neighbors in the Old Testament.

This journey takes us right into God's court. This prayer is fairly simple- it lays out the requests and waits for God's action. Psalm 5 actively compares the righteous (psalmist) with the unrighteous (the enemies). It creates quite the us/them dynamic. And in our hearts, that might make sense. When we have enemies, it's very easy to see them in the us/them world. And it's easy to claim God's vengeance or wrath (or whatever) upon them. I read this Psalm after the cross of Christ, in which God's reconciling mission to the world is made pretty explicit. And as I read this Psalm, I admit that it is difficult to hold the Psalm with the cross.

Until I am reminded of the passage - "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). On the cross, the "enemy" was Jesus Christ. He was declared guilty, and was banished for the sins of others (Psalm 5:10). I hear that and am reminded that God stands by the enemy as well as the friend. This Psalm does not afford me the right to demand that God hate the same people I do, it reminds me that God has brought down the barriers of hate in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. May my prayers today be that God would peel away the hate in my heart and replace it with the love of Jesus Christ.