Bible Reading Challenge Blog

It seems like we are all over the map in this psalm.  It begins on the note that I stressed before which I consider the most important part of my ministry outside of preaching Jesus Christ, and that is the cause of the poor and the marginalized.  The psalm begins with the authors stating that God will give preference to those who look out for the poor.   This is nothing new, we have seen it before.

He then transitions to another theme which we see in a lot of psalms which is: Woe is me because I have a lot of enemies and they are all coming after me.  One difference in this psalm is the honesty of the statement in vs.10: But you, O Lord, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them.  What a statement.  Make me healthy and strong so I can crush my enemies.  Again, some of these psalms are so honest and raw and yet at the same time antithetical to Jesus’ words and message.  Jesus said that in order to rule over all we must be a servant to all.  A psalmist perspective would be in order to rule over all you must crush all your enemies.  I don’t really see Jesus saying that.  

But we need to be comfortable with the contextual differences and be able to say that Scripturally the words of our Savior fulfill the Old Testament approach of an eye for an eye by given a new commandment.  Do you remember Jesus’ new commandment which is why celebrate Maundy Thursday?  Look up John 13:34 and you will see Jesus’ new commandment.

In the end, however, we are able to say: Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel.

This psalm is legitimately a psalm of thanksgiving through and through.  Except for maybe vs.11 where the psalmist asks God to make sure that he doesn’t withhold his grace and favor from him, and maybe even vs.12 where there is a descriptive statement on the evil that surrounds him, but everything is filled with thanksgiving.  The psalmist praises God for all those times in his life when he was in the miry pit and God drew him out.  I want to focus a bit on vs.3.

You notice that the psalmist is able to say that he has a new song because of what God has done for him.  The past is finished and gone and he has been blessed tremendously.  He wants to tell everyone what God has done for him.  This is a natural inclination for anyone who has been blessed by God.  You just don’t want to keep it to yourself.  But in the last part of this verse he states that many will see that God has done good things to him because of what he says and does, but he also says that many will fear.  

Keep this in mind.  How we act or react in our lives is not just an indication of our character, but it is also an indication of who God is in our lives.  If our lives don’t reflect the joy that we have in the Lord, then people will see that and mock God.  We do have a responsibility to ensure that our lives mirror the life of Jesus or else when we tell others about the love of God, well, it simply will not be believed.  Why should anyone believe us that God is good when we treat others in a way that no one should ever be treated?  Why should anyone want to hear the good news of Jesus Christ if we, the ones who follow him, ultimately turn our back on the world?  In the paraphrased words of Gandhi: I love Jesus, it is just Christians that I can’t stand.

In what I do I experience quite often the sudden, unexpected twists and turns of life in the lives of others.  There are those who suffer heart-attacks before they turn 40.  There are those who are looking forward to retirement and then are told that they have inoperable cancer.  There are those who discover they are pregnant long after the family had been planned and set.  We do not know what one day will hold, nor the other.  When you get to vs.4 you hear words that are very familiar: “Lord, let me know the number of my days.”

We find in Revelation the Lord has our days numbered in the book of life.  Again, the metaphorical implication is that at any day our lives could be changed dramatically and even to the point where it will be required of us.  The psalmist asks that he would be reminded of how fleeting his life is.  We need to be reminded of how fleeting our life is.  If you knew that this would be your last 24 hours how would your day change from what you would normally do today?  Who would you reach out to?  Who would you call?  What activities and events would you do?  My basic question is how would you make your life more significant just simply knowing that at any moment your life might be required of you?

The psalmist gives us an opportunity to recognize that we can every single day face the day as if God is going to embrace us and bring us home in vs.7.  What do we wait for?  My hope is in the Lord.  When we are able to hope in the Lord, when we are able to believe that God has our lives in His hand and that each breath and each step that we take are steps with the Lord, then we are able to face every single moment of our life as if it is our last.  For me it really is not a morbid thought.  I want to see Jesus, I want to see my creator, I am looking forward to that day.  But I love this life so much that I am very much happy with the way things are going down here as well.  My motto is: Life is awesome, and then you go to heaven.  Both are great choices and both provide an opportunity to see and do the Lord’s work.  

Remember, any day your life might be required so take advantage of today.

As you are reading through the psalms, especially psalm 38, it might also be a good idea to dally in the book of Job.  There is a great parallel between this psalm and the book of Job.  Really starting at vs.6 and following you hear many Job like qualities: I am utterly bowed down and prostrate, I am utterly spent and crushed.  Vs.11 is one that really speaks to what the reality of Job was as we read: My friends and my companions stand aloof from my affliction, and my neighbors stand far off.  We find that happening in Job where his friends told him to confess the numerous sins he must have committed because he was so bad off, and even his wife told him to curse God and die.

We do not believe today that we are sick or that we suffer from ailments because we have somehow sinned against God.  There is not a 1 to 1 correlation between our sin and God’s punishment against our bodies.  It just doesn’t go together.  But there is an undercurrent in much Christian thought that illness and disease is somehow related to our faith.  We need to push that away from our mindset.  

But the author moves away from speaking of his physical ailments to beseeching the Lord in vs. 21-22 to not forsake him, to not be far from him, to hurry up and help him, because the Lord is, after all, our salvation.

If you look at vs. 11 I wonder if you are able to identify where in the New Testament we might find that verse.  It states simply: the meek shall inherit the earth.  Look at Matthew 5:5 and see if you  hear the same words that the psalmist states in these verses.  The meek shall inherit the earth.  So who are the meek and what earth shall they inherit?  Well, unfortunately the psalmist does not answer that question in these verses.  But when we look at the New Testament we know that the meek are those on the margins of society.  Jesus always focuses on those.

But as we continue along in the psalm he does address other issues.  This psalm is closer to Proverbs rather than Psalms.  I once heard a theologian state thay reading proverbs is like driving cross country with your mother-in-law.  I was never able to relate to that analogy since my mother-in-law was awesome and I actually did take her for a fairly long ride on my motorcycle in seminary.  I would take her advice any day if she were still living.  But you hear the psalmist say: refrain from anger, forsake wrath, don’t fret.  If you look at vs.25 and following you can hear a wizened David, or if we were looking at Proverbs a wizened Solomon.  

It is nice to be able to hear a psalm and feel the advice flow over you and lean upon the words knowing that God is guiding in such a way that if we were just to listen he would lift us up on his wings.  Allow that to happen.

For this blog today all I can comment on are the last two days.  The psalm begins by speaking against all those who would act against the desires of the Lord.  But then he transitions quickly to speak about the faithfulness of the Lord, how precious is His steadfast love.  It just seems that no matter what takes place, David, the writer of the psalms just can’t seem to forget that God remains faithful forever.  

We’ve had an emotionally draining, but spiritually uplifting, couple of days here at First Presbyterian Church.  I have never heard the church sing quite the way that it sang on Saturday.  The walls were still shaking on Sunday.  But it is in these times that we are reminded that we are church, that we are the people of God.  

So do you get the sense that at the beginning of the psalm the author is asking God to do some really not nice things to his enemies?  Go ahead and look at vs 1-8 and you hear how the author beseeches God to rise up and defend him and to do some not nice things to those who would do not nice things to him.  Okay, so this is probably where I need to quote my Savior Jesus who said in Matthew 5:38-48 to turn the other cheek.  You have a whole listing of opportunities that we need to take to love our enemy.  It is quite different from today’s psalm.  The author also includes a type of quid pro quo where he says in vs.9 (if you do these awful things to my enemies) “then my soul shall rejoice in the Lord.” The assumption is that if God, you do not do these things, then maybe I’ll just keep my rejoicing to myself.

It is a very human prayer and a very human emotion, but one that we must avoid.  We have to be more like Matthew 5 people than Psalm 35 people.  As the psalm continues you see that the author points out the times that he was a neighbor to them.  He prayed for their healing, and they repaid him by ridiculing him and causing him pain and suffering.  As he continues on in this psalm y0u can almost hear him pointing out that his enemies are not doing the things that we were encouraged to do yesterday in Psalm 34.  His enemies do not keep their tongue from evil (vs.16), nor seek peace and pursue it (vs.20), they speak deceit (vs.20).

The author tells the Lord to wake up just like in I Kings 18 where Elijah battles the prophets of Baal and as Baal is proven to be impotent the prophet states in vs.27 “pray louder for if he is really a god maybe he is sleeping.”  It seems as if in vs.23 the author has gotten to the end of his rope and calls out to the Lord to wake up.  Even if elsewhere later on in psalm 121 we read that the Lord does not slumber or sleep.  But sometimes in our frustrations we say things we don’t mean to say.  

The psalmist ends with a call for all those who are on his side to rejoice with him, but only when the Lord will respond.  The assumption is that the Lord will respond even if he has not yet.  All the way to vs.28 we read then my tongue  shall tell of your righteousness.  Not until then.  I pray that we will be able to tell of the Lord’s righteousness even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and even when our “enemies” have mocked us beyond our ability to take.  I pray that we don’t have to wait to taste that the Lord is God before we tell of His goodness.

Like so many of the psalms, this one has a specific context within the Bible.  You need to turn to I Samuel 21 and read the chapter.  Here we find David, before he becomes king, fleeing from Saul who is out to kill him.  Ahimelech was a priest who knew David and respected him and gave him food even from the temple.  But when David arrives at Gath he recognizes that the king of Gath is an ally of Saul and would probably look to kill him just as Saul was looking to kill him.  The king of Gath knew that David was a dangerous man and capable of defeating even the most seasoned soldiers.  So he posed a threat to the king.  In order to escape harm from the king, because David had no weapons, he pretended to be crazy and even foamed at the mouth to escape the king from thinking that he might be dangerous to his people.  It worked with the king saying: I don’t need one more crazy person around here.  David escapes from this king who was a potential threat by pretending that he was crazy.

The psalm says that it is within this context that it was written.  Now let’s see why it has this as a prelude to the psalm.  Well, I just read through it and can’t really picture David hanging out in the caves after foaming at the mouth to pretend an illness writing this psalm.  But, I do love vs.8 where we have a really interesting command to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”  We aren’t often commanded to taste in order to identify the presence of the Lord.  We are told to see, we are told to hear, we are told to speak, but normally not taste.  I do love that image.

I get more of a sense from this psalm that David is giving advice to those who are coming up behind him on how to live life.  So, I can see him surrounded by young soldiers who had followed him away from Saul and telling them in vs.11: “I will teach you the fear of the Lord.”  How do you enjoy the good that God has provided you to enjoy?  Vs.12 starts the advice by saying: “Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace and pursue it.”

So today I want you to try to follow that advice.  Taste and see that the Lord is good.  The way that you can do that is by keeping your tongue from evil.  Do not say one negative thing today about anyone.  That’s a challenge!  Keep your lips from speaking deceit.  Try to make it through today without saying something that is untrue.  It might be harder than it sounds.  Depart from evil.  Allow yourself to flee from temptation whatever that may look like.  Identify the sin in your life which at times can overtake you and block it out today, just today for now.  Do good.  Be involved in one random act of kindness today, whatever that may look like.  Surprise someone with joy so that they can be thankful.  Seek peace.  What an appropriate one for today.  Don’t argue with anyone about politics today.  Allow your presence to be one that is uplifting and that encourages people to see you as a messenger of peace.  Pursue that peace until you find it.

That’s quite a bit of homework.  I know that you can do it and this psalm encourages us to be involved in that kind of life.

We once again find a reference to God creating with His Word.  But this time the psalmist includes the fact that the breath of God was also involved.  You can see that in vs.6.  So, whether you are aware of it or not, vs.6 contains the entire Trinity.  We saw previously that when we talk about the Word, we are talking about the Son in the Trinity.  We know this because of John 1 where Jesus is referred to as the Word.  Then, when we read about the breath of God it is in Hebrew the word ruach.  Ruach is a word that means breath, air, or spirit.  That’s right, spirit is also mentioned in vs.6.  We find then the presence of the Holy Spirit also in this verse.  So our theological dogma that God is manifested in trinitarian presence is supported by this psalm.  

This psalm is without a doubt one of thanksgiving.  But it is also a kingly psalm where we read that the presence of the Lord is unmistakeable and unshakeable.  It is important to know that God remains enthroned even while around us it seems as if we don’t know who is in power.  This is important because one can easily lose hope and think that God has decided to leave us up to our own doings without being involved in anything at all.  This psalm says no, He remains enthroned and actively involved in all that happens on this earth and in our lives.  That’s nice to know.

There are some great references in this psalm.  Did you catch vs.9 which encourages us not to be like the horse or the mule, without understanding?  I know from talking with people who know (because I don’t know) that sheep tend to be one of the least responsive and, dare I say, the least intelligent animals.  Compared to a sheep, a horse is a genius.  But do you notice what animal we are often referred to in the Bible?  If the Lord is our shepherd, then who are we?  We are like the sheep who have gone astray.  I am positive that the Lord has known the intelligence of sheep and has called us in Scripture a very appropriate animal.  All you have to do is look at the book of Judges and the recurring line: “And the people did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”  We don’t ever learn, do we?

But on to the psalm.  This is a great psalm for lent because it does speak about the joy that we receive in knowing that our sin is forgiven.  You see the theme of the forgiveness of sin that takes us from vs.1-5 where he tells us that we have to acknowledge our sin before the Lord and He will forgive our guilt.  It is a psalm that focuses on the forgiveness that the Lord provides and ends with a reminder that our hope is found in the Lord and it is in him that we are able to rejoice.