The Power of a Song

We've all had those nights. You wake up, after midnight, and an old favorite song is playing over and over in your head. You have a hard time getting back to sleep, because the song keeps playing.

Sometimes it's the last song you heard before bedtime. More often, though, it's a song from long ago. At one time, it had deep meaning for you.

I find that the songs I hear in the middle of the night have more meaning than they used to, because I'm actually hearing the words now. They used to be just a tune.

I was in a Bible study recently with other preacher buddies. We were looking at Psalm 22, the psalm with more references to the Messiah than any other. It starts out with words Jesus spoke from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It also has references to his being mocked while he was dying on the cross, the piercing of his hands and feet, and soldiers casting lots for his clothing.

The Psalms are songs, and the people watching the crucifixion that day would have been singing this particular song, and others, during the previous days of the Passover festival. Maybe they didn't recognize that their support of the religious authorities in calling for Jesus' death was helping to kill God's son.

Then again, when that song was stuck in their heads, sometime later, in the middle of the night, I'll bet it really hit home with some of them.

"All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads." Psalm 22:7

"For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have been pierced." Psalm 22:16

There is a good ending to the events that day. It's also in the same psalm, and maybe it also played in their heads: "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him." Psalm 22:27