First Sunday In Lent PSALM SIXTY-NINE

This psalm speaks literally about the suffering of the Lord in His own person.
Save Me, O Lord, for the waters have come up to My soul (v. 1).
The waters were the sufferings, which the Jews inflicted on Christ.
Save Me. This general word gives expression to all misery. Therefore He seeks to be set free from all of them. It is to be noted, however, that Christ always has a simple response to us for our double request. For He was not in misery spiritually, but only literally; or, because He was never in the evil of guilt, but only in the evil of punishment, while we are in both in a double sense, namely, in the evil of guilt and punishment. Yet since He was innocent even of the punishment, His punishment was for our sin. Hence when He Himself prays to be freed from punishments, He is at the same time praying that we might be freed from sins and punishments, since He would have no punishments if it were not for our sins and our punishments. Thus the psalm is speaking about Him and about us at the same time, and it must be read with the most devoted love for Christ. Let us, I say, understand our sins and His punishment at the same time, expressed in the same words. –Martin Luther