My Strength and My Song: A Year with the Psalms

Psalm 29

We begin our journey through the Psalms with an imaginative tour de force taking us literally in a great sweeping movement from the heavenly court down to earth and catching up in its energy all creation. The heavenly beings of the first verse may be angelic; that is, what might be metaphorically called God’s left and right hands, whom we meet in the Old Testament and the New, bearing messages, correcting, warning, and defending. It might also, with a theological leap to the New Covenant, be a prefiguring of the way human beings by the grace of Christ are drawn into the life of the Holy Trinity so that we, while now in this mortal and temporary existence, are already sitting in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). In this sense, the temple of Psalm 29:9 is all creation and those who cry Glory! are the redeemed.

The name of God (verse 2) is a matter of awe-inspiring importance. You will no doubt be aware that the name YAHWEH in Hebrew is a form of circumlocution so that the actual name of God is not completely pronounced. This is because the name of God is thought to be of such power and holiness that it is not something to take lightly upon one’s lips. We recall the prohibition in the Ten Commandments: You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain (Exodus 20:7). In another place, we are told that God’s name is I AM WHO I AM (Exodus 3:14). In early Christian theology this is expressed most frequently on icons of Christ as The One Who Is; that is, being itself, and the name of Jesus subsequently becomes for us the name which is above every name (Philippians 2:9). To speak the name of Jesus with love and attentiveness is, in effect, a prayer in itself. In a way, that is difficult for us to understand: to know the name of God is to be brought into direct contact with the divine nature. How much care should we then take when using it!

The continual refrain of this psalm is a reference to the voice of the Lord. We are reminded (verse 3) of the Creation account and the Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters (Genesis 1:2). This creative voice of God, once sent forth, keeps the whole of creation in existence. Another psalm (Psalm 19:3-4) makes this point; paradoxically, a voice that is not heard but whose effects are the continuing sustenance and maintenance of every created thing. The voice is also a glorious voice—a term, glory, of which we have only the faintest grasp since it is, again, to do with the nature of God. In two places in the New Testament we have the voice of God accompanying the divine glory. Firstly, at the Christ’s baptism (Mark 1:10-11) where, with the voice from heaven there is the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove. As an intriguing side note for you to ponder, the image of a dove is also part of the Genesis account of the Flood (Genesis 8:8). The dove is the messenger of the good news (and of peace, with the olive leaf) signifying that the water had receded, in the same way that Christ represents the beginning of a new age of redemption for all creation and all humanity.

The second occasion with the coincidence of God’s glory and the voice from heaven is the Transfiguration on the mountain (Mark 9:2-8). Here, the glory of Christ is so overwhelming that the disciples can barely look at him. They are given a glimpse into his true nature, as much as their human eyes can stand. The church has understood both these events as moments when the triune nature of God is revealed—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The all-embracing movement of Psalm 29 sees the voice of the Lord whipping through the whole of the Fertile Crescent from the north to the south. Everything is effectively turned upside down by its energetic activity—flame, wind, and irresistible force. It reminds us of the mighty wind of the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:2) and the tongues as of fire resting upon the heads of the disciples. They, too, are given a new voice at that moment—not of confusion as in the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:9), but of a single purpose and single message: Christ is risen. May that wonderful voice—creating, glorifying, redeeming—sound in our hearts this week.

For Reflection

How hard are you listening for God’s voice in your life?

Prayer

God of the Pentecost rushing wind, your voice upholds all creation. Speak me, too, as your creative word, bringing life to the ailing world. Amen.

Psalm 38

Well, I never. We certainly find the psalmist at a very low ebb this week! I hope you have never felt quite this bad, but I also imagine that you can recognize parts of it in your life experience. Unless, of course, the sky of your life has never had the suspicion of a cloud and everything has always been plain sailing. If this is the case, you needn’t read further!

However, let’s begin by thinking about the implication of the first verse: O LORD, rebuke me not in thy anger. Just how do we conceive of God being angry?

In theology, one of the attributes we claim to be true of God apart from being all-powerful, all-knowing, and present everywhere in a moment of time is that God is impassible; that is, God does not experience either suffering or what the early church collectively called the passions. Today, we tend to use the word passion only in a popular connection with the feelings of romantic love. However, to the early Christians it meant the disorderly emotional impulses, usually sinful, that buffet the human heart: lust, vanity, pride, greed, anger, avariciousness, and jealousy. Certainly, we would not think of attributing any of these to a holy and righteous God; these impulses are our problem. This is perhaps what the psalmist is referring to in verse 8 as the tumult of my heart.

So that does not get us very far. Evidently, to attribute anger to God in a way that makes it a kind of superabundant escalation of what we experience as anger would be very misleading if not sinful in itself. But can we as moderns still conceive of God’s anger in a meaningful way? Let’s explore an idea. When we jump off a high place without benefit of a pair of wings or a parachute, the consequence, a matter of seconds later, is painful contact with the ground. Should we survive the fall, we do not rebuke the ground for having hurt us or imagine that the ground was angry with us because it gave us an injury. We accept that the force of gravity, a law of the universe, will operate whatever we might think about it. Not to do so would be like the actions of a child who, having hit his or her head on the corner of a drawer, smacks it with a hand as if it were the drawer’s fault! So, if we understand creation as the principles and, to an extent, the nature of God made manifest, then when we choose to ignore those principles or fight against them, the result, we could say, is experienced as God’s anger.

This can be said to be true of the whole concept of sin. The sufferings we experience through living a life in opposition to God (and, by the way, in opposition to our created nature) arise because we are experiencing the pain of beating our heads repeatedly against the way God is and creation is. We can certainly see how comprehensively destructive sin can be, revealed in the psalmist’s experience. Every part of the human being is chaotically disrupted: physical health (verse 5), mental stability (verse 9), and even social relationships (verse 11). In each case, the psalmist traces the source of the problem to unconfessed sin. This does not, perish the thought, mean that all physical suffering is punishment for sin; but it does mean that hostility to God and the unbridled pursuit of selfish passions have the effect of a gradual destruction of the human being.

I am reminded of Moses’ great adjuration to the people in Deuteronomy: See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you this day, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to take possession of it. . . . I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse (Deuteronomy 30:15-16, 19).

In the idea I proposed, the commandments, statutes, and ordinances are not just moral rules but creative principles, springing from God’s nature, woven into creation. The blessing and curse come from understanding the nature of God and living in harmony with the divine purpose. If we ignore these things, we will experience the anger of God, or, metaphorically, continually jump off the same building!

For Reflection

What do you think about God’s anger?

Prayer

Lord, teach me to live in joyful harmony with your purpose. Amen.

Psalm 36

The French writer and philosopher Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) wrote a little play about hell called in French Huis Clos, or No Exit. The play is set in a faded and dingy French living room with dusty, overstuffed furniture. The characters who are gradually introduced into this gloomy environment are quite diverse; but, as the play continues, we come to realize that each, in different ways, has history with the others. Essentially, no one can even dream of peace or happiness while the other is there. Sartre’s main point is that hell is other people rather than the fiery torments that filled, especially, the Medieval Christian imagination. The atmosphere of this play is stifling and claustrophobic, as it is intended to be. It is a very small pool with some very nasty fish in it. From a theological point of view, it is a picture of a world without God.

The first four verses of this week’s psalm anticipate Sartre’s vision by a great many centuries. Here, also, we are aware of the stultifying condition of sin, for sinfulness is not just a matter of sinful thoughts and acts but a way of being, the total human experience warped away from the purpose of our Creator. As the psalmist portrays so graphically, sinfulness permeates every aspect of this person’s life. It speaks in the deepest recesses of his heart (verse 1). His mind is made restless by myriad selfish plans, all of which are designed to profit from another’s disadvantage (verse 4). Evil is so self-obsessed, so inward looking, imagining that as long as it is not revealed to the cold light of day, then it is all right (verse 2).

These four verses certainly present a dark place to start a psalm, but then something wonderful and dramatic happens. It is as if the windows and doors to this fetid, squalid place are suddenly thrown open by an irresistible force. Our imagination is lifted up to the heavens, to the clouds. It is as if an infinite, sunlit space is revealed to us in a kind of epiphany. This is God’s abundant life, not the dreary mere existence of sin. Here we have the majestic mountains of divine righteousness and judgments as profound as the deepest oceans. The lie that Satan tells humankind is that he is as powerful as God, as much deserving of honor. The reality is that his kingdom is sin’s cramped room that has no exit, and his riches are worthless rubbish with just the surface appearance of value. But God’s kingdom is the shining universe itself and all creation within it, and our value is beyond measure.

You probably wouldn’t be reading this if you were still living in that cramped and stuffy room. In Christ, you have been brought out onto the mountaintop and can see with clear eyes the glory of God. Christ has raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). Verses 7-9 of Psalm 36 take us more into the characteristics of this new life, this ultimate release from the things that used to constrain us. God’s kingdom is a place of nurture and protection (verse 7) and although in material things we may very well be at a disadvantage, we are incomparably rich