Can you visualize Jesus standing with arms outstretched and head turned upwards? Can you hear him say in front of his disciples, “I love my Father because he has heard my voice.” The Son prays; the Father responds. Love passes between them. Their love sources the whole universe. Father and Son ever reach and reply to one another. We live in the magnetic field of their eternal attraction. In the midst of our hurting, broken world, the incarnate Son lifts his heart to say, “I love the LORD!” 

Throughout his life, this psalm would have uplifted Jesus in praise to his Father. In time, he would understand how it pointed toward his return in glory. He would have drawn hope from this future even on this day. For in Psalm 96, Jesus knows that the way things are right now is not the way things will always be.

Through his years of reading the Psalms in his prayers to the LORD whom he knew intimately as Father, Jesus realizes how Psalm 110 had been written for him! This prophetic song of David gives Jesus insight into his unique identity as a man born of Mary and the Son of God conceived by the Holy Spirit. He follows the Scriptural logic to know that only one person could be both the son and the Lord of David. Only one man could rule over Israel from the heavenly position of the Father’s right hand—Jesus himself.

We declare in the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus even now sits at the Father’s right hand and will come to judge the living and the dead. This is fair warning to us and to the rebellious world to be wise. There is no future apart from this King.

What a thrill it would have been for Jesus to pray this psalm in the days before he ascended. What anticipation of reunion! In the same prayers, he well might have rejoiced with Psalm 47:5-6: “God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises!”

We can imagine Jesus before his departure praying Psalm 67 and preparing this blessing. Or perhaps he even used this psalm in the blessing. We see that his shining presence and his radiant mission go together. Jesus prays for them, for us, a blessing with a purpose. May God be gracious to us so that his “way may be known on earth” and his “saving power among all nations.” A crucial reason for Christ’s people to experience his favor tangibly and richly is so that we can bear personal, experiential witness to the reality of Jesus. 

Jesus’ great passion is that he can bring together his Father and his disciples. He yearns for all those who belong to him to be taken into the love he has shared with his Father from all eternity. He came precisely to gather us. The glory of his triumph is the sharing of intimate fellowship. His resurrection has established the grounds of union with us. In the future, that communion will be fully realized in his Kingdom. No wonder Scripture speaks about what’s coming as a wedding: “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). The King’s desire is for his bride to be with him at last!

The Father did not leave Jesus’ soul in Sheol while his body rotted in the cave. He raised him. With this in mind, we can imagine Jesus praying Psalm 16 as he looks back with his Father on what has happened over the three years of his ministry on earth: 

"The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup."

"The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful heritage."

"O Father, in the trackless wasteland you made known to me the path of life. Sweeter now even than it had been in all eternity is our fellowship. In your presence, there is fullness of joy."

The sudden change described in Psalm 22:21 occurs for Jesus between Good Friday and Easter. Jesus dies in this world. His voice sounds no more. Then it does. Jesus departs into the silence of death on Friday and then blinks awake in new life on Easter. How soon, alive in that cave, does he finish the psalm he started on the cross? Perhaps he wonders, “What do I do now?” Then he prays in his joy, “I will tell of your name to my brothers!” Jesus prays Psalm 22 even now, "in the midst of the congregation, I will praise you."

When Jesus affirms that Yah, his Father, is his strength and song, he gathers together the whole story of redemption—past, present and future. This journey of his is the heart of bringing humanity home to dwell in the Father, Son and Spirit. In Yah!