Why I Should Rejoice In Today
.24 This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Save now, I pray, O Lord; O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity. 26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. 27 God is the Lord, And He has given us light; Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. 28 You are my God, and I will praise You; You are my God, I will exalt You. 29 Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Psalm 118:24-29 NKJV
The Psalmist saw the greatness of the day that was coming. The day that for you and me (on the other side of Jesus’ victory) is truly every day in Him! The Psalmist saw that it was the day the Lord Himself had prepared and made possible just because of His great love for us. He was already rejoicing for what he would never fully enjoy and yet he rejoiced. How much more ought we rejoice daily for what we have in Jesus! No matter what is before us, we remember that sacrificial work He did for us so that we would have liberty in Him, deliverance in Him, and victory always in Him; no matter what we might face.
According to verse 25 the Psalmist saw the day of salvation. And see it he did. I wonder, was it in a vision? Did he see Jesus making that entrance into Jerusalem just before His willing sacrifice? It would certainly appear so. He even quotes the praises of those who laid down the palm branches and their coats as Jesus entered in on the donkey and colt. In verse 26 the Psalmist quotes them directly “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
In verse 27 he sees Jesus as the light which He is, but then look at the next thing the Psalmist says in this verse, about the one who is the light:
“Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar”
The Psalmist saw that Jesus, the light, was going to be a sacrifice and sure enough, within days of Jesus entering into Jerusalem amidst the shouts of Hosanna, He is taken and bound as the sacrifice lamb whose blood was on the horns of the altar. He saw all of this and what a vision that must have been!
The result was his final words, words offering praise to the Lord and exalting His name. He leaves us with his words encouraging us as his readers all these generations later to give thanks to the Lord. In everything in our lives, even when it appears to be in disarray or upheaval, Jesus has provided the victory for us so that we can say every day, “This is the day the Lord had made, let us rejoice and be glad in it”.
The Psalmist could realize and even see this reality before it had occurred. How much more should we rejoice today and praise Jesus from hearts overflowing with love and gratitude, because we have seen and daily experience what the Psalmist could only see in a vision.
J Todd Hostetler