There’s a difference between confidence and arrogance.
As the Israelites make their pilgrimage to the Temple in Psalm 129, there’s a reminder to all who walk upward: ‘evil has not prevailed against us’.
I always get a little twitchy when the psalmist calls down damnation on the enemies of the Israelites (seems a little contrary to loving your neighbour), but in the context of Easter and the empty tomb, 129 takes on a fresh perspective.
Jesus wins.
Death dies. Sin is defeated. Both are rendered impotent.
The tomb is empty. And yet…
And yet there are still afflictions. Paul calls them momentary afflictions, but in the transient humanity that the psalmist is describing, they feel eternal.
Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth.
(Let’s all sing that together again, he says).
In Jesus though, the tomb is empty. We can have confidence in Him (not arrogance in ourselves) because the power of sin and death, it is finished.
It doesn’t stop the occasional or persistent ‘ploughing of our backs into deep furrows’. It doesn’t stop painful things, people and experiences coming our way. But it does promise that their power to do eternal harm, is rendered impotent. That we can be set free from their power of us. Because of what Jesus has done, they will not prevail against us because in Him, we have the victory.
Take your burden to the Lord, and leave it there.
– Simon Elliott (April 28, 2014)