Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Saturday, January 18, 2014 Read Psalm 69:1-5 When we were discussing John’s story of the cleansing of the Temple we omitted commenting on the fact that John does not use the quotations for Isaiah and Jeremiah that Mark, Matthew, and Luke use but in their place John quotes from Psalm 69. Psalm 69 is an important Psalm for John and for early Christians as a whole. As they attempted to understand and explain the death and resurrection of Jesus, the early Christians found the OT and particularly the Psalms to be helpful. Over the next few days we are going to listen to Psalm 69 and see how this Psalm may have been helpful to them. Psalm 69 is a lament psalm. The psalmist makes his plea before God. He is up to his neck in trouble. He is weary of his struggle. He is surrounded by a multitude of people who seek to destroy him without cause and accuse him falsely. Such was the experience of Jesus as he went to the cross. As the early Christians read Psalm 69, the saw Jesus in the experience of the psalmist. These first five verses draw us to the cross and the injustice Jesus faced.