The Cornerstone

The following is one of the lessons for the fifth week of Lent from the small group study we are doing at our church entitled Christ in the Psalms. You can purchase the entire study for 99 cents on Amazon.com at this link.

Read 1 Peter 2:1-10

            Like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts, 1 Peter also makes use of Psalm 118:22. However, 1 Peter ties this verse into an entire “stone” motif; quoting it along side other verses which speak of stones.[1] Also like the other passages we have already explored, this one in 1 Peter uses these “stone” verses to speak of Christ as a stone rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s sight. 1 Peter, however, adds a twist.

            It is not only Christ who is a chosen and rejected stone. Christ’s followers are also living stones being built up into a “spiritual house”, “a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.” In other words, 1 Peter envisions Christ’s followers being built into a new temple. Peter declares that the churches of Asia Minor to whom he writes, not the temple in Jerusalem, are actually the temple of God. They are the place where God’s presence dwells and where God’s forgiveness is available. As this new temple, Christ serves as their cornerstone; the one who provides the basis for a sturdy foundation and serves as a guide for the spiritual building that they are.

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[1] Isaiah 28:16 and 8:14

The Reproaches of Those Who Reproached You Fell On Me

The following is one of the lessons for the fourth week of Lent from the small group study we are doing at our church entitled Christ in the Psalms. You can purchase the entire study for 99 cents on Amazon.com at this link.

Read Romans 15:1-7

            In Romans 15, Paul is admonishing those within the church at Rome to think of each other first; building up others rather than thinking only of one’s own needs. Those who are strong in the Roman church, Paul says, should not use their strength to build themselves up and put others down. Instead, they should be using it to strengthen those who are weak. Christ himself is the model for such action since he was stronger than all of us but did not use that strength to his own advantage. He laid his strength aside, becoming weak for us, so that we might become like him.

            Paul could have simply left it at that; referring solely to Christ as an example. Instead, he chooses to back up his understanding of Christ with the words of Psalm 69:9. Similar to what we saw in John, Paul understands the words of Psalm 69 as referring to Christ. He then adds an interesting word of explanation about his use of this Scripture, saying “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

            There are very few statements about Scripture in Scripture so we should take note here when Paul tells us what he believes about the nature and purpose of Scripture itself. Paul states here that whatever was written before Christ was written for our instruction. This is why Paul can quote Psalm 69 as referring to Christ in the way that he does. He believes that even though it was written by David long ago it was also written for those who came later. Paul tell us that it serves not only for our instruction but also for our encouragement and hope. 

David's Son or David's Lord?

The following is one of the lessons for the third week of Lent from the small group study we are doing at our church entitled Christ in the Psalms. You can purchase the entire study for 99 cents on Amazon.com at this link

Read Mark 12:35-37

            Psalm 110 is described as a Psalm “Of David.” In the lesson on Psalm 110, it was noted that this Psalm was about King David.[1] That is, someone else wrote a song praising Yahweh (“the Lord”) for sitting King David (“my Lord”) at God’s right hand. We can gather from Jesus’ words in Mark 12:35-37 that “Of David” was understood differently in the first century. Instead of being about David, Jesus speaks of this Psalm having been written by David about the coming Messiah.[2] Other writings from the time period suggest that this was not merely Jesus’ interpretation of Psalm 110 but one that was widely accepted by Jews in the first century. That means those whom Jesus is teaching in Mark 12 would have simply taken it for granted that Psalm 110 was talking about the promised Messiah.

            It also seems to have been widely accepted in the first century that this Messiah, the deliverer of Israel, would be a descendant of the great King David. When the crowds welcome Jesus into Jerusalem as their deliverer they shout “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” Likewise, the early Christians seem to have accepted this premise and spoke of Jesus as the “Son of David.” Matthew and Luke, for example, both go to great trouble to trace Jesus’ lineage through King David.

            In his quotation of Psalm 110:1, Jesus seems to accept the first of these premises but reject the second. That is, he agrees that “my Lord” in Psalm 110:1 is about the Messiah but he rejects the idea that the Messiah is David’s son. He says “David himself calls him (the Messiah) Lord. So how is he his son?” No one calls his son “Lord” so if Psalm 110:1 really is about the Messiah then the Messiah must not be David’s son if David calls him Lord.

            Why would Jesus reject the notion that the Messiah would be David’s son? And if he did, why did the gospel writers still bother to present Jesus as the “Son of David”? These are difficult questions for which there are not easy answers. However, it seems significant to me that Jesus makes this claim in the midst of his controversy with the religious leaders while he is still at the temple. Much of that controversy arises because the religious leaders do not believe that Jesus has the authority do the kinds of things he has been doing, especially his wild and reckless acts in the temple. I think that by posing this enigmatic question from Psalm 110 Jesus is communicating to the religious leaders that he is the Messiah but that they don’t completely understand what that means. They think that means a descendant of David who will rule as David did. Jesus is essentially saying that his identity as Israel’s Messiah is much greater than that. He is not merely David’s descendant. He is David’s Lord. Jesus’ authority is greater than David’s and that is why he can overturn tables in the temple and declare that its days are numbered.

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[1] Or possibly one of David’s descendants. Although the Psalm is “Of David,” most scholars don’t think it was written that early. Instead, it is usually considered to be “Of David” in the sense that it speaks about the promise God made to David now fulfilled in one of David’s descendants as he fills David’s kingly office.

[2] Your translation may have “Christ” rather than Messiah. Christ is simply the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah which means “anointed one.” 

A Body You Have Prepared for Me

The following is one of the lessons for the second week of Lent from the small group study we are doing at our church entitled Christ in the Psalms. You can purchase the entire study for 99 cents on Amazon.com at this link

Read Hebrews 10:1-10

One of the primary concerns in the Epistle to the Hebrews is to argue that Jesus is our sacrifice and our high priest who has inaugurated a new covenant with us by his blood. By his own sacrificial death, he has ascended into heaven thereby entering the true heavenly tabernacle or Holy of Holies where he intercedes for us continually. As a result of Christ’s continual intercession as our priest, animal sacrifice has been rendered unnecessary as a part of our new covenantal relationship with God. Instead, we are called to offer the sacrifices of faithful obedience and praise. By the time we reach chapter 10, the author of Hebrews is coming to the climax of this argument.

Given that Hebrews wants to emphasize that faithful obedience and praise are more important than animal sacrifice, we can see why the author would turn to Psalm 40. We saw in our previous lesson that Psalm 40 is focused precisely on these two things; faithful obedience and praise, even to the point of denigrating the role of animal sacrifice. As a faithful Jew, the author of Psalm 40 surely was not encouraging others to stop offering animal sacrifices at the temple. His point is simply that its not really the sacrifices themselves that God wants but the trust and obedience represented in the offering of those sacrifices. The author of Hebrews takes the argument further than the Psalmist probably intended and argues that faithful obedience renders animal sacrifice completely unnecessary.

What is even more interesting is that Hebrews takes these words attributed to David and says that it is Christ who speaks them (10:5, when Christ came into the world, he said...). Hebrews presents Psalm 40 as words spoken by Jesus to God. In this speech to God, Jesus acknowledges that it is not animal sacrifice the Father wants. Instead, God has prepared a body for Jesus which will become the proper sacrifice through Jesus’ own faithful obedience.6 Hebrews declares that by Christ speaking the words of this Psalm, he has set aside the first covenant involving animal sacrifice and established a new covenant based on Jesus’ faithful obedience.

Out of the Mouths of Infants

The following is one of the lessons for the first week of Lent from the small group study we are doing at our church entitled Christ in the Psalms. You can purchase the entire study for 99 cents on Amazon.com at this link.

Read Matthew 21:12-17

            It would be difficult to overstate just how important the temple was in first century Judaism; both practically and symbolically. It was the place of sacrifice, forgiveness, a house of prayer, the central place of worship for every faithful Jew, and a symbol of the presence of God with his people. But it wasn’t just a religious building. It was also connected to Israel’s kings, a place tied to God anointed authority. Its history went all the way back to the great King David who had first asked if he could build a house for God. The first temple was built by David’s son, King Solomon. The temple in which Jesus stood in this passage was built by King Herod the Great as a symbol of his power.

            So when Jesus, a peasant from Galilee, enters the temple and starts turning over tables and driving people out, the religious leaders naturally want to know who he thinks he is and why he has the authority to behave this way. Likewise, when the children in the temple start shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David!” thereby speaking of Jesus as a messianic deliverer in the line of King David, the chief priests and scribes become indignant and ask Jesus if they hear what the children are saying. The implication is that if Jesus had heard the words of these children, he would silence them immediately to prevent them from making such a blasphemous claim about him.

            Instead, Jesus quotes Psalm 8:3.[1] The remarkable thing about this is that Psalm 8 was addressed to God. The praise from the mouths of infants and babies was to be for Yahweh alone and Jesus now says it is appropriate for that same praise to be directed toward him. Rather than rebuking the children for hailing him as the Davidic messiah, Jesus has actually upped the ante. He has essentially said that it is not only right for them to call him “Son of David” but even to praise him as they would praise God. Just as the Psalmist marveled at the wonders of the heavens and praised God for it, these children have seen the wonderful things that Jesus has done (v.14-15) and sing his praises for it.

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[1] You might have noticed that what Jesus quotes is a little different than what you read yesterday. Most translations of Ps 8:3 say that God established “strength” out of the mouths of babies and infants whereas Jesus says “you have prepared praise.” This is because most translations of the Psalm follow the Hebrew version of the Psalm whereas Jesus’ quote in Matthew comes from the LXX (Septuagint), the Greek version of the Old Testament. Since the NT authors wrote in Greek rather than Hebrew, it was very common for them to quote from the LXX rather than the Hebrew text. 

You Are My Son

The following is the lesson for Ash Wednesday from the Lenten small group study we are doing at our church entitled Christ in the Psalms. You can purchase the entire study for 99 cents on Amazon.com at this link.

http://www.amazon.com/Christ-Psalms-Lenten-Journey-ebook/dp/B00AWGELDO/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1360773600&sr=1-2&keywords=christ+in+the+psalms

Psalm 2 was a song of promise concerning the rule of Israel’s king. It may even have been written for the day of the king’s coronation. It celebrates the reign of Israel’s king and the close relationship that the king enjoys with Yahweh.
The Psalm begins by acknowledging that there are other powers in the world. Indeed, the Psalmist says that the kings of the earth plot and fight against Yahweh and his anointed king. The promise of this Psalm, however, is that whatever the other nations and kings do, it is God who ultimately reigns supreme. God, in all his sovereignty, sits on his throne and laughs at the weak attempts of earthly kings to overthrow his rule. 

In contrast to these kings, Israel’s king is the very means of God’s righteous purposes in the world. As a result, God promises to work on behalf of Israel’s king. In fact, Israel’s king enjoys such a favored status with Yahweh that Yahweh declares of the king “You are my son. Today I have begotten you.” Given Israel’s stringent commitment to monotheism (belief in only one God), this is not a declaration that the king of Israel is actually divine. It is to say that God’s anointed king enjoys a relationship with Yahweh unlike any other. Yahweh and king are like Father and Son. As a result, God tells the king that all he has to do is ask and all the nations will be given to him as an inheritance. Psalm 2 envisions God’s sovereignty being embodied in Israel’s king as he reigns over every nation on earth. 

Given what the first Christians believed about Jesus, its not hard to see how they began to see this Psalm with Jesus in mind. They believed that Jesus was the Christ (Greek equivalent of the Hebrew “Messiah” which means “anointed one”), the king who would one day rule the nations and that the people had, indeed, plotted against him. They confessed that Jesus enjoyed a uniquely close relationship with Yahweh; one they described as Father and Son. 

However, it is just as easy to see that Jesus does not fulfill this Psalm in an obvious or simplistic way. One would already have to be convinced that the titles of Messiah and Son of God should be applied to Jesus in order to think that he could be found in Psalm 2 in any way. There is no room in the kingly imagery of Psalm 2 for God’s anointed to experience crucifixion. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find an image more against the grain of Psalm 2 than Jesus on the cross. For most first century Jews, Jesus’ shameful and disgraceful death would have been the surest sign that he was not who he had claimed to be. 

With this in mind, we can see that it is an especially bold move that Mark makes when he links the promise of Psalm 2 specifically to Jesus’ crucifixion. The Psalm first appears in Mark 1:11. Jesus has just been baptized by John and coming up out of the water, the heavens are torn open, the Spirit descends upon Jesus and a voice from heaven echoes Psalm 2, saying “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” This is a promising beginning to Jesus’ ministry but we will see that it is also a foreshadowing of the cross that awaits him. A voice speaks from heaven with the same words again in chapter 9 after Jesus’ transfiguration, declaring “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” The very next words that Jesus speaks warn the disciples not to tell anyone what they had seen “until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” The disciples wonder what Jesus could possibly mean by this. Finally in Mark 15, Jesus is crucified, the temple curtain is torn in two (remember the heavens at his baptism?), Jesus breathes out his Spirit, and rather than a voice from heaven, we hear a centurion standing nearby say “Truly this man was the Son of God!” Thus we see that Mark portrays Jesus’ baptism and his declaration as Son as intimately connected to his crucifixion. 

Likewise, we are called sons and daughters of God. Although, unlike Jesus, ours is an adoption into the family of God, it is an adoption which leads to the same path as Jesus’ Sonship. Our baptism was the beginning of our journey toward the cross; our transformation for the purpose of taking up our cross and following Jesus. On Ash Wednesday, as we begin the season of Lent and are reminded of Jesus’ journey toward the cross, we are reminded that we have been saved for the same journey. We receive ashes to remind us of our own weakness and frailty. We receive them in the shape of the cross to remind us that weakness is also the shape of our redemption. As we receive our ashes this evening, let us remember that the way of our King, Messiah, and Son of God is the way of the cross.

Christ in the Psalms - A Preview

The text below is the introduction to a study on Christ in the Psalms that I'm writing for the small groups at our church for next Lent. I thought I'd post it here as a preview and to give others a chance to give feedback about the idea as I continue to write the lessons. 

This study is an attempt to read Scripture in a different way - or more precisely, an attempt to return to reading Scripture in a very old way. Finding Christ in the Old Testament is nothing new. Even the most cursory reading of the New Testament demonstrates quite obviously that its authors were concerned with articulating their beliefs about Jesus in the language of the Old Testament. What is surprising, at least to me, is the way that they went about that task.

 For a good portion of my life, I had always assumed that Jesus’ identity as Israel’s Messiah was plainly laid out in the Old Testament, easy to find for anyone who was willing to do the work of searching. The relationship between the Old Testament and Jesus, I often thought, was as simple as prediction and fulfillment; that is, the Old Testament outlined clearly what the coming Messiah would look like and Jesus fit the bill perfectly. Jesus’ identity as the Messiah was so plainly obvious that only the Pharisees and other religious leaders in all their hard-hearted tradition and legalism could miss what was obvious to everyone else. If only they had traded in their man-made laws and traditions for a plain reading of God’s word in Scripture then they too would have known that Jesus was the Christ.

 More recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that these assumptions don’t seem to match-up with the way the New Testament authors themselves made use of the Old Testament to talk about Jesus. Far from treating the Old Testament as a book of predictions, I noticed that the New Testament authors seemed to be reading the Old Testament much less literally than I did, applying passages of Scripture to Jesus in very creative ways; so creative, in fact, that the first authors of those passages probably never imagined that what they had written would be used to describe Israel’s Messiah. So, for example, the author of Hebrews can make use of a Psalm that sings the praises of the God who rescues the faithful (Ps 40) to say that Jesus’ own faithfulness makes animal sacrifice an unnecessary part of the new covenant he inaugurates. Likewise, Psalm 110:1, the single verse of the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament more often that any other, is used repeatedly to speak of Jesus’ exaltation to the Father’s right hand and ascension into heaven even though the Psalm’s author almost certainly did not have ascension into heaven in mind when he wrote the Psalm.

 Upon closer inspection, it seems the prediction-fulfillment formula is actually just the opposite of how the earliest Christians understood the relationship between Jesus and their Scriptures. If anything, it appears they viewed the relationship the other way around. It was not so much Scripture which was determinative for their understanding of Christ as much as it was Christ who was determinative for their understanding of Scripture. To be sure, all of Jesus’ first followers believed that Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures. However, he did so in such radical and unexpected ways that it was by no means an obvious truth to everyone who encountered him. In other words, the Pharisees actually had a pretty good point in their arguments with Jesus. The Pharisees were the ones who were looking at what Scripture said about the Messiah and looking at Jesus and seeing that he clearly didn’t fit the mold. Claiming that he was the Messiah and that he was himself authoritative over Scripture and the temple and Israel was enough to get him killed, itself the surest of signs that he was not the Messiah he claimed to be.

 If all of this is true, then why did those first Christians become disciples of Jesus? If Jesus so obviously did not fit everyone’s Messianic expectations as shaped by Scripture, then why did his first followers so boldly proclaim him as the Christ and even the Son of God, even to the point of giving their own lives? It seems to me that it was because they knew they had encountered in the flesh and blood of Jesus the full, definitive Word of God personified and that Word trumped every other word that had ever been spoken or written. They may not have fully realized this as he healed the sick and proclaimed the kingdom of God and they surely doubted whatever they had previously believed as Jesus hung dying and defeated on the cross. But the resurrection and the consequent pouring out of the Holy Spirit planted firmly in the minds and hearts of his followers that God had done something unique in Jesus. So much so that they began to re-read their own Scriptures in completely new ways through the lens of what they knew to be true in Jesus. For the first Christians, Jesus was the light by which the Scriptures were to be read.

This should come as no surprise to us. It is, after all, what the New Testament authors themselves tell us. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”[1] and “God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”[2] Jesus as the Word of God, the Son by whom the Father has spoken, is one of the most fundamental affirmations in all the Christian faith.

 In spite of that, it seems to me that we often fail to read our Scriptures in accordance with that basic confession. Instead, we approach the pages of Scriptures as if the ink on those thin little pages of paper were the full and definitive Word of God for us, forgetting that title belongs first and foremost to Jesus and only derivatively to Scripture as it witnesses to Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, we often speak of “Scripture alone” being enough to answer all of our questions. So we assume that if we can simply “prove” something from Scripture then it can serve as a universal truth for our doctrine and ethics. But what if Jesus’ disciples had stuck to Scripture alone over and above their experience of Jesus? Can you imagine them meeting with Jesus shortly after his resurrection and saying “Well, there’s no verse that says the Messiah was supposed to be raised from the dead so we’re not convinced.”? In my opinion, when we read Scripture as a document with one fixed and inerrant meaning given to us by God to serve as a source for an unassailable system of doctrine and ethics, we become more like the Pharisees who rejected Jesus and less like the early Christians who proclaimed him as Lord. 

 This is, by no means, an attempt to diminish the importance of Scripture. It is, however, an attempt to recapture its rightful place in the life of the Church and the believer: as a witness to Christ. When we remember that this is its purpose, I think it can actually raise our respect for Scripture by reminding us that God’s Word is not something written long ago, lifelessly locked into words on a page. Rather, “the Word of God is living and active,”[3] a Word that speaks to us presently. It goes to work on us like a sharp scalpel cutting us open and laying bare our weak and broken nature before the Great Physician in whose hand it serves as a powerful tool.

 Of course, the New Testament authors quote from a vast array of passages and books in the Old Testament. The Psalms, however, were a favorite of these first Christian theologians, especially as they reflected on the identity of Christ. A few Psalms in particular are quoted repeatedly in the New Testament with reference to Jesus. It is those Psalms which form the basis of this study.

 Each week will focus on a different Psalm, beginning with Psalm 2 on Ash Wednesday and ending with Psalm 16 on Easter.  Most weeks will consist of four lessons; one about the Psalm and three about its various uses in the New Testament. As a part of each lesson you will also be encouraged to interact with the Psalms as prayers. The readings for each Sunday’s worship are also included along with space for sermon notes.  Each week will also include a small group meeting in which you will discuss the passages you have read in the previous week as well as some quotes from the earliest Christian theologians about those passages. You can move through the lessons at your own pace within the week and, depending on when your small group meets, you may not complete all the lessons by the Sunday they are read in worship. (Even though the Sundays in the outline below appear after days 1-4, if your group meets on Wednesdays you might do days 1-2 on Thurs - Fri and days 3-4 on Mon - Tues.) However, you should attempt to complete all the lessons before your small group discusses them later in the week so that you can contribute to the discussion. Here is an outline of what lies ahead.

Psalm 2

Ash Wednesday - Ps. 2; Mark 1:9-11; 9:2-8; 15:39

Thursday - Meditate on Psalm 2, Lesson on Hebrews 1:1-5

Friday - Pray Psalm 2, Lesson on Acts 4:23-31

First Sunday in Lent - Psalm 2:1-9; 2 Samuel 7:1-17; Hebrews 1:1-5; Luke 4:1-13

Small Group Discussion: What stood out to you from this week’s Scripture readings? This week’s sermon? Quotes from Church Fathers with questions for reflection. 

Psalm 8

Week 1 of Lent

Day 1 - Read Psalm 8, Lesson on Psalm 8

Day 2 - Meditate on Psalm 8 (let God speak to you), Lesson on Matt 21:12-17

Day 3 - Pray Psalm 8 (let it speak for you to God), Lesson on Hebrews 2:5-9

Day 4 - Hear Christ in Psalm 8 (Christ speaks with you), Lesson on 1 Cor 15:20-28

Second Sunday in Lent - Psalm 8; Isaiah 8:11-18; Hebrews 2:5-9; Luke 9:28-36

Small Group Discussion

Psalm 40

Week 2 of Lent

Day 1: Read Psalm 40, Lesson on Psalm 40

Day 2: Meditate on Psalm 40, Lesson on Hebrews 10:1-10

Day 3: Pray Psalm 40, Lesson on Ephesians 5:1-2

Day 4: Hear Christ in Psalm 40, Lesson on Luke 7:18-23

Third Sunday in Lent: Psalm 40:1-8; Hosea 6:1-6; Hebrews 10:1-10; Luke 13:1-9

Small Group Discussion

Psalm 110

Week 3 of Lent

Day 1: Read Psalm 110, Lesson on Psalm 110

Day 2: Meditate on Psalm 110, Lesson on Mark 12:35-37

Day 3: Pray Psalm 110, Lesson on Mark 14:53-64

Day 4: Hear Christ in Psalm 110, Lesson on Hebrews 1:13; 7:11-22

Fourth Sunday in Lent: Psalm 110; Exodus 29:1-9, Hebrews 5:1-10, Luke 20:41-47

 Small Group Discussion   

Psalm 69

Week 4 of Lent

Day 1: Read Psalm 69, Lesson on Psalm 69

Day 2: Meditate on Psalm 69, Lesson on John 2:13-22

Day 3: Pray Psalm 69, Lesson on John 15:18-27

Day 4: Hear Christ in Psalm 69, Lesson on Romans 15:1-7

Fifth Sunday in Lent Psalm 69:4-9; Isaiah 53:3-9; Romans 15:1-7; John 12:1-8

Small Group Discussion

Psalm 118

Week 5 of Lent

Day 1: Read Psalm 118, Lesson on Psalm 118

Day 2: Meditate on Psalm 118, Lesson on Matt 21:1-44

Day 3: Pray Psalm 118, Lesson on Acts 4:1-12

Day 4: Hear Christ in Psalm 118, Lesson on 1 Peter 2:4-10

Palm Sunday: Psalm 118:19-29, Isaiah 28:14-22, 1 Peter 2:4-10, Luke 19:28-40

Small Group Discussion  

Holy Week

Maundy Thursday: Read Psalm 22, Lesson on Psalm 22 and Hebrews 2:10-18

Good Friday: Meditate on Psalm 22, Lesson on John 19:23-27

Holy Saturday: Hear Christ in Psalm 22, Lesson on Matt 27:45-50

Easter Sunday: Psalm 16:5-11, Acts 2:22-36, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, John 20:1-18

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[1] John 1:1, 14, ESV.

[2] Hebrews 1:1-2, ESV

[3] Hebrews 4:11

Of Fruit and Temples

I planned to preach from Psalm 118 this Sunday and probably will still refer to it one way or another.  Since this is the Psalm the lectionary provides for every Palm Sunday and because it is quoted in the New Testament, I've already interacted with this Psalm a number of times before.  Some conglomeration of what I've written here, here, and here will probably all end up in my sermon this Sunday.  But for now I want to focus on one particular irony of the way this Psalm shows up in the Gospel of Mark.

It is especially striking to me the way quotations from Psalm 118 form bookends to a group of stories in Mark 11 and 12.  The (sort of) short version, without rehearsing too much of what I've said in those other posts, is that Jesus rides into Jerusalem during the week of Passover and the crowds welcome him with shouts of "Hossana!" and "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."  That is to say, the people are welcoming Jesus as their deliverer by using the words of Psalm 118, a psalm used at Passover as a celebration of the Lord's deliverance.  Jesus' procession stops at the Temple, much as the Passover procession in which Psalm 118 was recited climaxed as the temple, but Jesus' procession is sort of anti-climatic in that after arriving at the Temple he simply leaves.

On the following day, he is on his way back to the Temple when he spots a fig tree.  Upon closer examination, Jesus finds that the tree is not bearing fruit and curses it.  This seems a little unfair for the poor fig tree since Mark notes that it was not even the season for figs.  Apparently still grumpy about missing out on his fig-breakfast, Jesus then enters the Temple and does his whole righteous anger thing, kicking out all those buying and selling.  Upon leaving the Temple, the disciples notice that the fig tree Jesus cursed has withered.  It is here that we see a piece of Mark's masterful story telling on display: the fig tree is a symbol for the Temple in that it too has failed to bear fruit and is now out of season.  As a result, Jesus cursed it just as he did the fig tree.

Naturally, the religious leaders want to know where Jesus gets his authority for all this cursing and carrying on.  So they ask him.  And naturally, Jesus answers with an enigmatic question of his own and a story.  The story is about some tenants who refuse to give the landowner his share of the harvest.  The tenants beat and reject the owner's servants and even kill his son.  At this point even the religious leaders agree that those tenants are in trouble.  Jesus then responds with more words from Psalm 118; "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes."  Mark notes upon the conclusion of this story and quotation that the religious leaders wanted to arrest Jesus but were afraid to do so because of the people.

So we have this pattern:
Quote from Psalm 118
A tree that fails to produce its fruit
A temple that fails to produce its fruit
Tenants that fail to produce their fruit
Quote from Psalm 118

It would seem Mark wants us to read these stories about failures of fruit bearing within the framework of deliverance celebrated in Psalm 118.  When we do so, these stories become thick with irony.  In Psalm 118, it was Israel which was the stone the builders (the other nations) rejected but that God made the chief cornerstone of his plan.  The religious leaders saw themselves as protecting Israel's place in that plan.  However, Jesus has declared their efforts fruitless and proclaimed that he is now God's chosen cornerstone; that it is through himself that the deliverance of Psalm 118 will come.  The words of the very same Psalm can be used in the people's celebration of Jesus' deliverance and the religious leaders rejection of him.  And in doing that rejecting, the religious leaders show themselves to be exactly the fruitless tenants who reject God's chosen one that Jesus has said they are.  They fulfill his prophecy about them in their rejection of him as a prophet.

Despite the literary intricacy and skill involved in Mark's telling of these stories, I suppose the question for us is still a relatively simple one.  Do our lives bear the fruit of God's deliverance?  However, if the question is simple, Mark's telling of the story cautions us against a simplistic answer.  For we must remember that the religious leaders would have readily answered this question with a clear and resolute "Yes!  Of course, we are bearing the fruit of God's deliverance.  We are God's chosen, after all!"  It might be just as tempting for us to say "Yes!  Of course, we are bearing the fruit of God's deliverance.  We are Christians, after all!".  Perhaps we too have confused certain labels and institutions with real fruit bearing.  May these final weeks of Lent be a time when we re-examine our assumptions about what kind of fruit it is that God desires.

Love Means Holding Your Nose

Several weeks ago, as we began the season of Lent, we heard Psalm 25 as a pattern for prayer.  It served as one example of what it means to respond to this life with God.  And good pattern though it is, it is just one example since there are 149 other Psalms, 149 other prayers ready to be offered.  In fact, we heard a very different prayer the very next week.  One that traded the reverence and diffidence of Psalm 25 for anger and accusation.  But somewhat remarkably we confessed that the words of Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" was just as much an appropriate part of our God-speak as were the pious words of Psalm 25.  Two weeks ago we heard a Psalm of praise for the God who is revealed both in creation and in the Law.  This week we have a prayer of yet another variety; one of confession and a request for cleansing from sin.

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions."  The Psalmist is quite literally asking God to "plaster over, to whitewash" his sin.  The Psalmist is looking for forgiveness so thorough that all record of the wrong is erased; asking God to act out of God's mercy and faithfulness rather than according to what the Psalmist deserves.  In fact, God is asked to "Hide your face from my sins" even as God is doing the blotting out.  The image is something akin to someone painting over an image they find so abhorrent that they can't even look at what they are painting over; like a parent trying to avoid the smell of dirty diaper even as they clean up their child.

This Psalm reminds me of the few times my daughter ate too much too close to bedtime when she was younger.  One time in particular I remember waking up to the sound of her crying and walking down the hall to her room wondering what was wrong but the moment I walked into her room, even in the darkness of night, any question about what was wrong immediately left me.  The smell of vomit was undeniable and overwhelming; enough to force me to concentrate very hard on not making my own contribution to the problem.  The introduction at the beginning of Psalm 51 says that the Psalm was written by David as a response to Nathan's uncovering of David's rape of Bathsheba and murder of Uriah.  Perhaps when we read that story we should see God doing his best not to puke over what David has done.

The words of this Psalm show that David recognizes the repugnant nature of his sin.  It is so foul that it threatens to drive God away.  In spite of that the Psalmist also recognizes that it is only God who can clean him up.  So he asks God not only to blot out the outward marks of his sin but also to "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."  The Psalmist is in need of not only forgiveness but a cleansing so deep that it goes to the very core of his being.

The smell of Hannah's vomit was nearly enough to drive me away as well.  But here was this little girl that I adore, who was sick and confused, and who only wanted her daddy to hold her and clean her up.  So I did my best to hold my nose and my gag reflex and did what she couldn't do for herself.  Obviously, this doesn't make me extraordinary.  It only makes me her father.

Growing up, I often heard the idea that God the Father turned his back on his Son while he hung on the cross.  The reasoning went that Jesus had taken upon himself the sin of the whole world and that God in all his holiness could not possibly look upon all that sin so he had to turn from his Son.  Why else, it was said, would Jesus have uttered those words of Psalm 22 "My God, why have you forsaken me?".  This strikes me as, at best, only getting half the story right.  Yes, of course, God finds our sin repulsive, so much so that God wishes to avert both eyes and nostrils from its sight and smell.  There is a very real sense in which sin threatens to drive God away from us.

But the other half of the story is that of the Father who, even while nearly gagging on the stench we have created, still reaches into our vomitaceous mess with his two hands of Son and Spirit in order to do for us what we can not do for ourselves; a Father whose love is greater than his gag reflex.  Perhaps, when we think of Jesus on the cross, rather than the Father turning his back on the Son, we should imagine the Father holding close his beloved Son, even as he wreaks of the sin of the world.  Perhaps this is the real glory of proclaiming that God is love; that even when the profane horror of crucifixion and the weight of all the world's sin threatened to break the bond of love between Father and Son that bond held fast.  That  even when sin itself entered the very life of the Triune God by Jesus taking it upon himself it did not dissolve the loving relationships between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but instead that love swallowed up the sin of the world and overwhelmed it.  Perhaps this, most of all times, was when Jesus knew his Father as his Abba.

Psalm 51 speaks out of the conviction that God is willing to hold his nose for us.  Indeed, our Father is even willing to get some of our own filth and stench all over him if that is what it takes to hold us in his arms and clean us up.  Because his love for us is greater than his repulsion at our sin.  Because this kind of love is who God is.  Because this is what it means for us to call him our Abba.

Holy, Righteous, and Good Law

"The heavens declare the glory of God" begins Psalm 19.  The Psalmist goes on to speak of God's creation as God's own words to us.  Every new day is a new speech from God, every new night a new revelation.  This word from God goes forth throughout all of creation since creation itself is the word that God is speaking.  In v. 5-6, the Psalmist focuses specifically on the daily movement of the sun across the sky as one of God's greatest works.  Wherever its light touches, the glory of God is revealed.

However, the Psalmist also acknowledges that while creation might be a word from God to us, it is not the whole conversation.  We are not left to make every inference about God from creation alone.  Indeed, though the Psalmist doesn't explicitly state it here, any faithful Israelite would certainly see that as a quick path to idolatry.  We need something more.

So after praising God for God's revelation in nature the Psalmist gives thanks for God's revelation in God's law.  This law the Psalmist describes as perfect - that is, it is complete, blameless.  It brings wholeness and clarity to what would be an otherwise fuzzy and potentially misleading picture of God's character. It tells us what we could never surmise about God from creation alone.  We are told that this law revives the soul, makes the simple wise, gladdens the heart, brightens the eyes, endures forever, and is altogether righteous.  Therefore, it is to be desired more than the finest gold and the sweetest honey.  The law is not a burden or a list of rules.  It is something to be cherished and enjoyed because it reveals God to us.  Without it, we would be left worshiping dumb idols of our own making.

The final verses of the Psalm turn from words of praise to words of request.  The Psalmist recognizes that he, even with the law as a guide, can not discern his own faults (v.12) so the Psalmist prayer is for forgiveness for when he does sin and for safe keeping from the ways of sin.  In v. 13:

"Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!  Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression."  

This is a telling request for in it is a recognition, that even the law, for all of its perfection and revelation of the character of God, is not itself able to prevent the Psalmist from sinning.  The Psalmist not only needs God's law to know what is right but also needs God's power to do what is right.  As the Psalmist says "let them (sins) not have dominion over me!".  There is a recognition that even with the law before us and even as we confess that it is a good and perfect law, the law itself is still powerless to defend us against sin.  We need God himself to act on our behalf in order to keep us blameless.

As Christians, we confess that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are that act of God on our behalf.  It is precisely this idea for which the apostle Paul argues in Romans 5-8.  By his death and resurrection, Jesus has inaugurated a new age in which we are not only forgiven but in which the power of sin has been broken so that it no longer has dominion over us.  We are now empowered by the Spirit to fulfill the law of Christ so that the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts are indeed acceptable to the Lord who is our rock and redeemer.

Gospel of the God-Abandoned

"The Psalms make it possible to say things that are otherwise unsayable. In church, they have the capacity to free us to talk about things that we cannot talk about anywhere else." - John Goldingay

"Most of Scripture speaks to us; the Psalms speak for us." - Athanasius

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  - Psalm 22:1

If the Psalms are prayers to be prayed, then Psalm 22 is a prayer for those who like getting right to the point.  The Psalmist doesn't mince words.  Right from the beginning: "God?  Where are you?  Why have you given up on me?".

But is this really a prayer meant to be prayed?  Are these really words we are meant to speak to God?  It seems a little impious and disrespectful - accusing the benevolent and almighty deity of abandoning us - doesn't it?  Perhaps the Psalmist is not expressing reality but simply how he felt.  Surely this is the prayer of an immature faith.  We would never pray this prayer because we know that God would never abandon us.

And yet, here are these words on the lips of the Psalmist.  These are the words that all of Israel uses to describe its life with God.  These are words that we find on the lips of Jesus as he hangs on the cross.

Perhaps this Psalm makes it possible for us to say what is otherwise unsayable - life with God includes abandonment by God.  

In the gospel reading for this Sunday, Jesus tells his disciples that he must suffer and be rejected.  Upon hearing this, Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him for these words.  Why?  Because just moments earlier Peter has confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, God's anointed sent to deliver Israel.  For Peter, these categories - Messiah and suffering - are mutually exclusive.  One can not be both.  If Jesus is truly the Messiah, truly God's chosen as Peter has just confessed then he can not suffer.  This is unthinkable, unsayable.  In response to Peter's categories, Jesus does nothing less than to call Peter "Satan".  

I imagine we have trouble making Psalm 22 our own prayer because at some level we still make Peter's same equation: chosen = not suffering.  We are God's chosen people so we will not face any real suffering.  Or if we do then there is some explanation for it: God has a plan, teaching us a lesson, greater good, etc.  There may be some bumps along the road but God abandonment?  Surely this is hyperbole.  This is unthinkable, unsayable.

Yet the central image of our faith - the one that adorns our sanctuaries and our necks - is a symbol of God abandonment.  We forget that because for us the cross has become a symbol of hope and eternal life, if not merely a religious trinket.  So its easy for us to pass over its original significance - an instrument of torture and death, a reminder that the Romans, not Yahweh, were really in charge, a tool of oppression, a sure sign of God's having cursed and abandoned you.

A few verses later in that same passage in Mark, Jesus says these well known words:

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."  

This is the tension/paradox/inherent contradiction of Psalm 22 (which ultimately ends in praise) and of any follower of Jesus.  To know salvation is to know abandonment.  To be a chosen follower of the chosen one is to know God-forsakeness.  To journey with Jesus is to say "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?".

A Pattern of Prayer

Switching gears from preaching in Paul's letters to the church at Corinth to preaching the Psalms is a kind of intercanonical culture shock.  These two disparate genres pretty well represent the varied literary landscape of Scripture.  Paul's writings are letters which means they are highly contextual, written for a specific group of people at a specific place at a specific time.  These letters often take the form of carefully reasoned rhetoric as Paul's tries to persuade his audience to a specific course of action.  The Psalms, on the other hand, are anything but rhetoric and anything but contextual.  While scholars have assigned a few of the Psalms to specific times or events within Israel's story, most resist such labeling.  The very purpose of most of the Psalms is to transcend their context and have a universal quality to them; they are meant to be prayed and sung by anyone, anywhere, at anytime.  These are ready-made words for God...a pattern for our own words...words for when we have no words.

This is especially true of Psalm 25.  In Hebrew, this Psalm is an acrostic; each line beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet (with the exception of two letters and one letter repeated).  This Psalm is a pattern of prayer.  To say it is a pattern, however, is not to say it teaches the right way to pray or that it is a pattern that must be followed in robotic fashion.  After all, if this were so, there wouldn't be much point in having 150 different Psalms.  The existence of the collection itself witnesses to the plurality and freedom of prayer.  Perhaps the Psalm is not meant to be "taught" or "followed" at all.  Perhaps it is simply to say here is a pattern that contains movements familiar to those who have made a habit of prayer, to say this is how we have repeatedly found ourselves responding to the God who has saved us.

That pattern of response goes like this:

The Psalmist begins (v. 1-3) by expressing trust in God to deliver, asking God that he not be put to shame by his enemies.  Part of the Psalmist's expression of trust is to say that none who wait on the Lord will be put to shame.  This leads to the next movement of the prayer (v.4-5) in which the Psalmist recognizes his own need to wait upon the Lord if he is not to be put to shame.  So the Psalmist asks God to teach him God's ways.  This is the Psalmist's waiting; not only waiting to be taught by God but also waiting and trusting that God's reaching will be proved true.  This prayer to be taught by God reminds the  Psalmist of all the ways he has failed to be taught by God.  The next section of his prayer (v.6-7) asks God to remember his mercy and not the sins of the Psalmist.  The Psalmist is confident that God will do this, not because the Psalmist deserves it but because God is good and upright (v.8-10).  In fact, God's name, that is, God's reputation is honored when God provides for those who respect God as the Psalmist does (v.12-15).  Finally, the Psalmist ends his prayer by returning to his original request that God would deliver him (v. 16-21).  Then, just in case we missed that this prayer is not limited to one individual, the final verse "re-voices" the prayer as one for "Israel" - the man in whom all Israelites find their identity.

I trust you God.


Teach me to trust you God.


Forgive me for when I haven't trusted you God.


I know you'll forgive me God not because I deserve it but because you are just that good.  You are love.


May you be glorified in my life.


I present my request to you again because I trust you.

I can't tell you how many times I've prayed this prayer - and not because I was trying to imitate this Psalm or any other.  Anyone else find themselves praying basically this prayer over and over?  Sometimes it feels like I hardly know anything else to pray.  These are not the overly pious words of someone who has all the answers about God and prayer.  These are just the words of anyone who has ever tried to live with God for any sustained period of time.

There is a substantial market out there for books on prayer and how to pray.  Anyone who knows me knows I love books.  In fact, love probably isn't strong enough of a word.  Its more of an obsession.  I even have a couple of books on prayer.  But I've found that the only books I've ever encountered on prayer that were really worth anything weren't the ones that tried to explain what prayer is, how prayer works, how to go about praying, or how to make my prayer life more "effective" (whatever that means).  They were the ones that simply offered different kids of prayer, the ones that included prayers to be prayed.  They were the ones that simply got me praying.  It could be that's the kind of book Psalms is to be for us - just the kind that gets us praying - because prayer is a hands-on activity.  It is the real work of the Church.  And over time, if we'll keep wrestling and being honest with ourselves and God, we'll find that our prayers sound an awful lot like the Psalms, not because we wanted them to but just because this is what life with God is like.

Some Help with the Psalms

I've recently been reading the introduction to John Goldingay's commentary on the Psalms since I'll be preaching from the Psalms in Lent.  I've heard a lot of people say how much they love the Psalms because of the range and depth of emotion they find there.  They can relate to the Psalmist in a way they can not with other Biblical writers.  This part of Scripture sometimes seems more "human" than other parts.  I've preached from the Psalms a few times before and always found it difficult.  I am much more comfortable in Paul's reasoned arguments than I am in the rhythm and meter of poetry.  I confess that this says more about my personality and the way I approach Scripture than it does the Psalms themselves.

Nevertheless, I am in the Psalms again and I am doing my best to let them go to work on me.  Goldingay's commentary has offered some insights that I believe might be helpful in that endeavor and I thought it might be worth sharing a few of those here.  I hope to honor these gems of wisdom in my preaching over the next several weeks.

"The Psalms make it possible to say things that are otherwise unsayable.  In church, they have the capacity to free us to talk about things that we canno4 talk about anywhere else." p. 22-23

Quoting Athanasius's Letter to Marcellinus, "Most of Scripture speaks to us; the Psalms speak for us." p.23

"Historically, I assume, the Psalms came into being as Israelites prayed and praised in these words.  They do not document so much their seeking of God as their responding to God's seeking of them, though this response is a spluttering and awkward one." p. 23

After discussing how important historical background is for understanding many parts of the Bible, the prophets as one example, Goldingay says "With the Psalms, the opposite is the case.  They do not contain the specific historical references that appear in the Prophets, and it is much more obvious that they stand independent of their original context and are designed for people to use as the vehicles for praise and prayer throughout the story of God's people."  p. 25

Along the same lines as the previous quote: "They proceed and work by not making reference to the particularities of their origin, so that such information does not distract people who use them and make them more difficult for worshippers to identify with."  p.30

"...psalms came to be accepted in the believing community because it knew they had the ring of truth, even if they were anonymous... Actually, the same is true of the prophecies of people whose names we do know; they came to be accepted because their hearers knew themselves convicted by God when they heard them, not because bearing the name of Jeremiah automatically gave them authority (his story shows this was not so).  The community that recognized them then invites us to listen for God speaking to us through them - in the case of the Psalms, to make them our own prayers and praises." p.31

"Doxology and theology are closely related.  Doxology requires theology; glorifying God involves making many a statement about God.  Conversely, theology finds one of its natural forms in doxology.  There is a role to be played by dispassionate analytical theological statements, though I cannot remember what it is, but the natural way to make statements that do justice to God's nature is to make them in the form of praise.  Dispassionate analytical statement about God deconstruct." p. 69

Speaking about the use of the Psalms in the New Testament: "They (the NT writers) were not trying to do exegesis.  They were using form of expression they found in the Psalms to help them understand themselves and formulate their beliefs.  It will be important that their formulations do fit in with the inherent meaning of Scripture as a whole... But they do not need to fit the results of exegesis of a particular passage they quote.  The Holy Spirit who inspired Scripture is inspiring the writers to see a new significance in the words that appear in Scripture."  p. 77

John Goldingay.  Psalms: Vol.1 Psalms 1-41.  Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms.  Ed., Tremper Longman III (Grand Rapids, Baker Academic), 2006.

Unanswered Questions

Psalm 89 begins with the words of a cheery tune we sang often in the church I attended growing up.

"I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever, I will sing.... and with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations."  

Those words are basically the whole song.  It was a simple and upbeat chorus that led us in praising God for all the ways he had blessed our lives and the life of our church.  Although it begins with these same words, Psalm 89 is really anything but simple and upbeat.  It is actually one of the longest and most sobering of all the Psalms.

The first 37 verses of the Psalm continue with these words of praise.  V. 3-4 celebrate the covenant that God has made with David while v.5-18 praise Yahweh as the Lord of nature and history.  God is declared to be great both by the heavens and earth he has created as well as by his faithfulness to the people of Israel.  Then in v. 19, the Psalmist returns again specifically to God's covenant with David.  He recalls the promise that God has made to Israel through David that one of David's descendants will always be on Israel's throne (v.29, 2 Samuel 7).  But in v.38, the Psalm takes a dark turn.

"But now you have cast off and rejected; you are full of wrath against your anointed."  

The following verses go on to describe the king's crown being defiled in the dust and the city walls laying in ruins.  Israel's foes are exalted while Israel itself is scorned and plundered.  V. 46 asks the oft repeated question of the Psalms:

"How long, O Lord?  Will you hide your face forever?  How long will your wrath burn like fire?"

It is very likely that this Psalm refers to the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem and the removal of the Davidic king of Israel that results.  This is a time when the people of Israel would have suffered military defeat and the political powerlessness and economic exploitation that would naturally accompany such a defeat.  But Psalm 89 makes clear that this was more than just a political or economic problem; it was a theological one.

The deposing of the Davidic king was a theological problem for Israel because it directly contradicted the promise of God that a descendant of David would always sit on Israel's throne.  This in turn seemed to leave Israel with limited options in its beliefs about Yahweh; either God was powerless against the might of the Babylonians or God simply didn't bother to keep his promises.

I imagine that most of us have faced similar circumstances; perhaps not the invasion of an army and the destruction of our city but nonetheless circumstances that cause us to wonder what God is up to.  We pray and pray and nothing happens and we wonder aloud to God "Are you incompetent or do you just not care about me?  Are you hiding from me, God?  How long will this go on?"  Sometimes we even try to soothe ourselves with simple answers like "God has a plan" or "God is testing me".  There can be a degree of truth in those statements but part of what is interesting about Psalm 89 is that it doesn't offer any answers.  This Psalm ends with a series of unanswered questions and cries for God to remember his people.

Is there room in our faith for unanswered questions?  As I think about our gospel reading for next Sunday, I have to imagine that Mary had a few unanswered questions after her angelic visitation.  She did, of course, have one question answered:  "How will this be, since I am a virgin?"... yet another instance of God's promise seeming to contradict current reality.  Gabriel responds that the Holy Spirit will come upon her.  To me, at least, that seems like the kind of answer that only leads to a lot more questions.

Of course, we know how the story goes.  We know that Mary will give birth and that Jesus will minister, be crucified, and resurrected.  So the temptation for us is to have all the answers, to skip ahead and say everything all at once.  It is, after all, a story worth telling.  But what if the waiting for the story to unfold is a critical part of the story?  What if by rushing to the end with all our reasons and explanations we've actually failed to hear the story rightly?  What if we left church this Sunday recognizing that most of our lives don't fit into neat pre-packaged answers and instead realized how often we find ourselves in Mary's position; finding our faith in the midst of unanswered questions, clinging to the promise that in all of our uncertainty the power of the Most High will overshadow us.

The Hope of a World Set Right

Psalm 85 bears a lot of resemblance to the Psalm (80) from which I preached last week.  Both are Psalms in which the Psalmist cries out to God for deliverance.  Both ask how long it will be before God restores the people of Israel whom he has punished for their sin.  Psalm 85, however, adds an element that Psalm 80 lacks.  Whereas Psalm 80 ends by repeating its cry for deliverance, Psalm 85 ends by describing the characteristics of the deliverance for which Israel hopes.  In order to describe this deliverance and restoration, the Psalmist makes us of some of the richest and most deeply meaningful words in all of Israel's theological vocabulary.

Hesed:  Often translated mercy, steadfast love, faithfulness, loyalty, loving-kindness.  This word reflects a profound sense of faithfulness, often even a faithfulness beyond what might be expected under normal circumstances.  There is a sense that someone who exhibits hesed is one who has willingly bound themselves to the fate of another.  As a result, it is most often used to refer to God's continuing faithfulness to Israel, a faithfulness that continues even in the midst of Israel's unfaithfulness (thus the connotations of mercy and kindness).  It is sometimes used to describe human faithfulness lived in accordance with God's faithfulness.

Emet:  Often translated faith, faithfulness, truth.  This word carries a connotation of firmness or standing fast in the face of adversity.  Since it can also be translated faithfulness, it obviously has some overlap in meaning with hesed.  However, emet is more often used describe human faith/faithfulness in response to God's faithfulness which is usually described as hesed.  Emet is probably the closest Hebrew equivalent to the Greek word pistis which is translated as faith/faithfulness in the New Testament.

Tsedek:  Usually translated as righteousness.  In its most basic sense, this word carries the meaning of moral uprightness.  However, its use throughout the Old Testament demonstrates that it does not refer to some universally recognized moral code.  Instead, it more specifically refers to uprightness in regard to God's covenant with Israel.  The perfect example of this is the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38.  In that story Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute in order to get her father-in-law Judah to sleep with her, obviously an act we would consider morally reprehensible.  However, she does this because her two previous husbands (both sons of Judah) had died before she had any children.  According to the laws of Israel, the third son was supposed to raise up offspring for his dead brothers with Tamar.  However, seeing that his first sons did not fare well with Tamar, Judah holds back his third son from Tamar, fearing that he may die as well.  Judah thereby violates the law of Israel.  Tamar, in contrast, goes to great lengths to fulfill the law, posing as a prostitute so that she will still become pregnant by a relative of her dead husbands.  While we may find this story odd, it illustrates the meaning of righteousness as loyalty to God's covenant law at any cost because by the end of the story when Judah realizes what has happened he concludes "She (Tamar) is more righteous than I, since I did not give her to my son Selah."  Since much of Israel's law had to do with one's covenant obligations to the poor and oppressed, tsedek also took on a strong connotation of justice (mishpat in Hebrew) without being reduced to a mere synonym.  This can be seen even more clearly in the New Testament where the Greek word usually translated as righteousness (dikaiosune) shares a root with the word for justice (dikaios).  In its deepest and most profound sense, this word speaks to God's ability to accomplish his purposes in the midst of our broken world; God's setting right a world gone wrong.

Shalom:  Usually translated as peace.  This peace can mean safety or absence of strife but it often describes more than just an absence of danger or war.  Shalom speaks to completeness, wholeness, harmony, fulfillment, and even health.  To be at shalom is to be in right relationship with God, neighbor, and one's self.  That is why Shalom  is so often paired with Tsedek in Scripture.  To live in accoradance with God's covenant law (tsedek) is to be in right relationship with God and others.  Conversely, an absence of open conflict in which injustice is perpetuated is not shalom but simply another attempt at human manipulation and control. True righteousness is the only way to true peace.

In the final verses of Psalm 85, this abundantly rich vocabulary is meshed together.  Hesed and emet meet.  Tsedek and shalom kiss each other.  Emet springs up from the ground while tsedek bends down from heaven.  The Lord gives what is good and the land produces its fruit.  Its as if we are to picture God's righteousness raining down from heaven causing human faithfulness to spring up like a great harvest in response to that rain.  This is how the Psalmist describes Israel's hope, the hope of what God can do in our world.  It is found at the crossroads of justice and peace, at the intersection of God's faithfulness and faithful human response to God's righteousness.  It is the hope that God's overwhelming mercy can set us right and set right our world as well.  

Of Fast Food and Advent

"Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved."  Psalm 80:3

 This is the resounding cry of Psalm 80.  It is a cry of deliverance repeated again in v. 7 and 19.  In between those verses the Psalmist recalls God's faithfulness to Israel.  God took his vine, Israel, out of Egypt, cleared ground for it, planted it, provided for it in every way and this vine grew and filled the land.  But now, the Psalmist says, God has broken down the wall that protected his vine and any passer-by or wild boar can pluck away or trample its fruit.  So the Psalmist cries out to God to restore Israel, wondering how long it will be until God hears this cry.

It seems likely that this cry of deliverance is in regard to the attack of the Assyrian army on Samaria in 721 B.C.  (since only Northern tribes are mentioned in v.2 and the Greek version of this Psalm even includes "on account of the Assyrians" in the title).  If that is the case then the answer to the Psalmist's question of "How long?" is a really long time, longer than the Psalmists own life.  That's because the people of Israel were not delivered from the Assyrian onslaught.  Instead, they were taken into exile and did not return home until 538 B.C.  Although it's impossible to say for sure when this Psalm was written in relation to Israel's exile, I think its fair to say that the "How long?" of this Psalm was being asked and prayed by the people of Israel for all of those nearly 200 years.

There is a sense in which this cry for deliverance must also be the Church's cry, especially in this season of Advent.  This is to be a season of waiting and hopeful expectation for us; a season in which we remember Israel's long, painfully long wait for deliverance as expressed in this Psalm.  And yet, how can this be our cry?  In a culture of I-want-what-I want-and-I-want-it-now, where I can have a hamburger in minutes or any book or movie in the world displayed on the screen in front of us in seconds and when it doesn't work that way we wonder what's gone wrong, how can we learn to wait on God?  Shouldn't God's answers be at least as fast Google's?

I'll be the first to admit that I enjoy these advances in technology as much as anyone.  But that is precisely why the need for the Church to take up this cry is all the more pressing.  The idea of having the world at our fingertips is so seductive that its not long before we begin to act as if anything worth having should be immediately available to said fingertips and if its not then its not worth the time it takes to find it.  The truth is that the Church is already a part of this culture of instant gratification.  We already expect God to conform to these standards and when he doesn't we usually just give up looking and satisfy ourselves with whatever else is more immediately available and easily manipulated to our own needs.

So the Church must take up this cry for God to deliver us precisely because we ourselves are so immersed in this sea of instantaneousness that only God can pluck us out, we can not save ourselves.  We must recognize the long term costs of our fast food spirituality and seek sustenance around the Lord's table.  We must pray "Restore us, O God, to be your people of patience and trust; let your face shine that we may be saved from our own ingenuity in meeting our own needs."  And then we must wait ...and pray...and wait.... and perhaps in waiting for God's deliverance we will find that God is delivering us in our waiting.

The Journey from Deliverer to Sacrifice

Maybe it was like an Independence Day Parade.  You know, the kind you see in small town U.S.A.  Local businesses and civic organizations have their floats.  The High School and Jr. High Bands play patriotic music.  Men and women of the armed forces are recognized.  Everyone else stands on the side of the road waving American flags and clapping.  All in celebration of the freedom that was won over 200 years ago and in hope that it is a freedom that we will continue to enjoy.

Passover was like Israel's Independence Day.  It was the festival that commemorated God's deliverance of Israel from its slavery in Egypt.  It is thought that Psalm 118 was sung by those entering the city of Jerusalem during the Passover festival.  You can almost see the movement of the people into the city in the Psalm itself.  They begin at the bottom of the hill:

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His loving-kindness is everlasting.  Oh, let Israel say, 'His loving-kindness is everlasting.'  Oh let the house of Aaron say 'His loving-kindness is everlasting.'  Oh let those who fear the Lord say, 'His loving-kindness is everlasting.'"

As those singing make their way toward the city, they recount all that God has done for Israel; how God has defeated all of Israel's foes.  Then as they approach the city gate they sing:

 "Open to me the gates of righteousness; I shall enter through them, I shall give thanks to the Lord.  This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it."

Those celebrating then remember once again all that the Lord has done for Israel.  They rejoice that even though Israel was the stone rejected by the builders of all other nations, God has chosen them to be the cornerstone of His kingdom.  Perhaps now they are approaching the Temple at the center of the city, the center of the whole universe in Jewish thought, the place where God himself resides, saying

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  We have blessed you from the house of the Lord."

The journey climaxes and find its goal with the sacrifice of the passover Lamb. This final sacrifice is where the procession has been headed all along.

"Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar."  

And the Psalm concludes with the same words of praise with which it began.

 "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His loving-kindness is everlasting."

Jesus must have made this journey into Jerusalem many times, maybe every year of his life when it came time for Passover.  But the gospels only record in detail for us the last time Jesus would make this pilgrimage.  And in this final trip into Jerusalem, Jesus finds himself as the centerpiece of the Independence Day parade.  Just as feelings of nationalistic pride soar high in the U.S. on the 4th of July, so also Passover was a reminder for Jews of what God had done and a promise that he could do it again.  These crowds had seen what Jesus could do; the healings, the casting out of demons, even raising the dead.  Was there anything that Jesus could not do?  Many in this crowd must have thought that not even the mighty Roman army could stand in Jesus' way.  Maybe Jesus was coming to Jerusalem to claim his throne as king.  So the air in Jerusalem is filled with shouts of Psalm 118

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

And the crowd adds to this shouts of "Hosanna!" which means in Hebrew "Deliver us!"  The crowds believe Jesus is the one sent to deliver them, to bring them independence once again, just as God had given Israel independence from Egypt at that first Passover meal so many years before.  Then Jesus heightens expectations even further by making his way to the Temple.  The Temple, besides being the place of prayer and sacrifice had also served as a symbol of kingly authority in the past.  The Temple had been built by kings and other kings had solidified their rule through it.  Perhaps Jesus would do the same.

But when Jesus arrives at the Temple, he does the last things that anyone expects.  He starts tearing the place apart, turning over tables, and kicking people out.  Jesus says that those in the Temple have taken what was supposed to be a house of prayer, a place where people seek God, and turned it into the exact opposite, a place where "religious people" could hide from the things that God really cares about.

This is the beginning of the end for Jesus and he knows it.  After the triumphal entry and Jesus' actions in the Temple, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus' telling of the parable of the vine-growers.  In this story, the vineyard owner sends a slave and then another slave and a third slave to collect his share of the prophets from the vineyard but the tenets beat all three and send them away empty handed.  The owner finally sends his son but the tenets kill him.  Jesus summarizes the story with the words of Psalm 118:

"The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone."

Whereas it was Israel that was the rejected stone that God had chosen in Psalm 118, now the religious leaders are the ones rejecting Jesus who is the one that God has chosen.  Jesus knows that even though he is God'a chosen one and even though just a few days ago all the people were welcoming him as king, his time is now short.  In just a matter of a few days, the crowds which shouted "Deliver us!" will turn to shouting "Crucify him!"

Humanity hasn't changed much in 2000 years.  We still have our parades to celebrate our independence.  We still talk about how much we value freedom and liberty.  And we should.  But one of the painful truths of Palm Sunday is that we really only value certain kinds of freedom.  We don't really want to be liberated from all of our slaveries.  We want our political freedoms and the liberty to choose what we want.  But what happens when all our choices become a kind of slavery themselves?  We are perfectly happy to continue on in our slaveries of greed, nationalism, lust, and pride.  We don't really want those chains to be broken.  So as long as Jesus plays nice and gives us the freedoms we want then we'll ask him to deliver us.  But if his liberating work begins to actually cause pain, if it demands sacrifice on our part, then like the Pharisees, we too begin to plot how we might get rid of Jesus.

In these final days of Lent, we must remember that to be a follower of Jesus is to be associated with a convicted rebel and criminal.  To accept the liberation and freedom that Jesus brings is to accept the way that he brings it; through death, through the cross, through sacrifice.  It is easy to join in the parade, singing God's praises and waving our palm branches, when we think that this march will end in the fulfillment of our own hopes and dreams but will we continue on this path when we find that the movement of this whole procession is a movement toward sacrifice?

The Journey Between Liberation and Restoration

Psalm 126 is a part of the group of Psalms known as the Psalms of Ascent (Psalm 120-134).  This group of Psalms go by this name because they were sung or recited by faithful Jews as they ascended the path toward Jerusalem.  Faithful Jews made this pilgrimage three times each year at the major festivals of the Jewish calendar: Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles, festivals which celebrated both God's deliverance of the people from their slavery in Egypt and his provision for them through the harvest they reaped in the land God had given them.

These festivals were celebrated throughout much of Israel's history.  However, some scholars believe that the practice of singing the Psalms of Ascent during these pilgrimages did not become common practice until the people of Israel had been returned from their exile in Babylon.  Psalm 126 certainly seems to reference that return from exile.

"When the Lord brought back the captive ones of Zion, we were like those who dream."

The first three verses of the Psalm speak of the joy that is shared because of the great deliverance that the Lord has accomplished.  The final three verses express a hope that God will not only deliver but also restore.  Surely the exiles would have rejoiced to return to their homeland, the land that God himself had given them.  However, upon arriving there they would have found a land that had not been lived in or adequately cared for in years.  It was their home but it was not what it used to be.  Now that God had delivered them, these liberated captives also needed God to renew their land.  The renewal of the land even stands for a kind of renewal of the people themselves.

"Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting."

So here are these newly liberated captives making the arduous climb up to the city of Jerusalem thanking God for his deliverance and asking for the complete restoration that only God could bring.

We find ourselves making the same climb.  We, too, are making our way along the lifelong arduous and demanding journey toward the holy city.  It is, as Eugene Peterson calls it, "a long obedience in the same direction."  It is not a sprint or a sight seeing tour but an intentional journey toward the one thing that matters.  It is a journey that lies between our being liberated and our hope that God still has more work ahead; that God will also renew and restore our land.  We make the climb thankful for what God has done and eager to see what God has yet to do.

More Painful Than Repentance

Psalm 32 sings the praises of a God who forgives.  As Christians, we talk about forgiveness and repentance and confession a lot.  But talking about it a lot sure doesn't seem to make it any easier.  Is there anything more difficult than admitting when we've been wrong about something?  It's so painful, sometimes embarrassing and humiliating to admit when we've done something wrong.  Sometimes being a Christian or being in Church can actually seem to make it harder to repent and confess because we think we're supposed to be better than that or something.  Or maybe we're just worried about what everyone else will think.  Or maybe we're worried about what God will think; that maybe this time God won't be able to forgive us; that we've just gone too far.  Or maybe its just that we can't stand to see ourselves that way; maybe our own self-worth is too wrapped up in being right all the time.

But what's the other option?  Continuing down our current path even though we know its not the right one?  Turning around and starting down an entirely new path may be difficult but it is certainly better to make the correction when we first see the error of our ways than it is to keep going down the wrong path only to be convinced later that we must now back track even further.  I often think of confession and repentance as a kind of spiritual surgery; it is certainly painful at first but the temporary pain is meant to lead to greater overall health.  Without the surgery and the pain that accompanies it we only become more and more ill.