While I don’t know how most of my readers will spend their day today, and I’m even uncertain about what I’ll do today, there’s one thing about today I do know:
“This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” – Psalm 118:24
Today, we may have activities and responsibilities we didn’t choose, but this is the day we have. We don’t have control over things we’d like to control, but this is the day we have.
Today, we have no other day but this one, and it is from the Lord. It is a good day because it is given to us by Him. If He is good, it is good.
Today, “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” – Psalm 118:24
Rejoice in this day!
“There is a vital objection to the advice merely to grin and bear it. The objection is that if you merely bear it, you do not grin.” – GK Chesterton
In many Psalms, the authors complain about the evils in the world and compare them with God and His perfect attributes. Psalm 12 is one of these, and begins with David lamenting the ungodliness he sees in the world in the first verse:
“Save, O LORD, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.”
What is David so upset about? James 3:7-8 tells us: “For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” David is upset by people’s inability to “tame the tongue,” which he describes in verses 2 through 4:
“Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, those who say, ‘With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?’”
David says the words of the unfaithful are lies, flattering, duplicitous, boasting, proud, and rebellious. These adjectives also describe much of what we see and hear today, and if we’re honest, much of what we say. How often do we say things just because they came to mind? And if they are bad things, but we get away with it or get something we want from it, are we emboldened to continue? After all, “no human being can tame the tongue.”
There is One, however, who has tamed the tongue. David contrasts His words with ours in verses 6 and 7:
“The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. You, O LORD, will keep them; you will guard us from this generation forever.”
These words are pure, refined, purified, kept, and preserved. The number seven in the Bible is often used to indicate perfection, so if His words are “purified seven times”, they are perfectly considered and constructed before they are delivered to us. God keeps all His promises, and His word never expires.
Even when the world is full of people who speak ungodly words, the Lord’s words are pure and can be trusted. Because of this we know He will “guard us from this generation forever.” Someday our words will be like His words.
Does it often seem like God is asleep at the wheel? Like He is not relevant to the real problems we face in the world? Today we continue on the Songs of Ascent, a liturgy used in ancient Israel to prepare for worship at the annual festivals in Jerusalem. While not part of the Ascent, Psalm 119 precedes it, praising the law of God in the longest chapter of the Bible, and the Ascent begins in Psalm 120 with God’s people living in a world that remains broken even with a perfect law. In the last post of this series, I wrote that Psalm 121 “asks us to take our eyes off of the world around us and look upward for our hope.” Verses 1 and 2 say:
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
As these pilgrims looked to the hills, what did they want to find? Did they expect to find a better group of people? No, they brought their community with them on the long journey, along with all their baggage. Did they travel in search of a better law? No, they had the law God had given them. Did they travel to Jerusalem to give penance for not keeping the law? No, they came to find real help for real problems that exist within themselves and in their communities. This help could only come from the LORD.
Then verses 3 and 4 say:
He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
Why does the Psalmist need to say this? Because even God’s people can doubt that He is interested and cares about tangible problems. When we focus on our circumstances, on the people around us, or even on God’s holy law, we can miss the power of God. It can seem like God is asleep. Like He is not relevant. The Old Testament prophet Elijah mocked the powerlessness of the Canaanite storm god Baal in 1 Kings 18:27 – “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.” We don’t say this out loud, but sometimes we wonder where our own God is. If we don’t take the time to intentionally look for Him, it’s easy to think He is asleep.
In these Psalms, God calls us to worship in a central place as a reminder that no matter what the world looks like, He is awake and at work in the midst of very real problems. In ancient Israel, sacrifices were offered at the temple as a sign of Jesus’ future sacrifice, which provided reconciliation with a God who requires justice, which is our deepest need. After making the perfect sacrifice, Jesus rose again to give us power to love our neighbor, meeting their needs.
Pilgrims didn’t go to Jerusalem to pay God a visit, then leave him behind when they went home. They went because God provided a way to remind them that He was always with them in the places they came from, but if they don’t take the time to be reminded, they remain discouraged in their circumstances. Likewise, on our Sabbath day of rest, we remind ourselves that He is never sleeping, but has been working for the salvation of His people since the very beginning of creation. His people are the very people we congregate with. People who are not saved by Psalm 119 and find themselves participating in a Psalm 120 world. People whose circumstances tell them God is asleep, and who need help with their Monday to Saturday problems.
Here we come to perhaps the most difficult point. Elijah’s mocking is also echoed in criticism of the church today, both from those inside the church and outside. Where is God in the midst of real problems? What does God offer above laws and rituals that cannot perfect us? The pilgrims also could have criticized the other pilgrims. Those arriving in Jerusalem certainly had among them people who thought the law was the answer. There were also those who went to practice their religious rituals, check the box, then get on with their lives as they saw fit. Sometimes the church looks little different than the circumstances we find ourselves in where we live, but that’s nothing new.
The LORD calls us to Him and gave these Psalms to let us know that He is not asleep, no matter what it may look like to us. The world will more clearly see God as their help when His people lift their eyes up to the hills, go to Him in public worship, and bring back His help to their communities. This is how they will know He is not asleep.
Therefore, the liturgy of the Psalms of Ascent points us beyond all laws, doctrines, traditions, and institutions, to the help that comes to us from the sacrifice of Jesus, foreshadowed at the temple in Jerusalem:
I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
Sometimes the Bible surprises us by explaining things differently than how our natural instincts would like. In the case of Psalm 119:75, there are two words that we might not think of together:
“I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”
How often do we associate God’s faithfulness with affliction? Don’t we usually associate it with our blessings? Yet there it is: “in faithfulness you have afflicted me.”
Earlier, in verse 71, David wrote:
“It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.”
Then he says the benefit he gets from learning this is more than “thousands of gold and silver pieces”. Since we benefit from discipline, would God be unfaithful if He did not discipline us? Or do we only consider Him faithful when things seem to go well?
“My son, do not despise the LORD’S discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.” – Proverbs 3:11-12
He is faithful, always. Even in affliction. Perhaps especially.
Today we come back to a weekly series on the Psalms of Ascent, a group of 15 Psalms used as a liturgy for Jews in ancient Israel traveling to Jerusalem for feasts. Previously I wrote: “To today’s Christian, the Psalms of Ascent remind us not only of our need for salvation apart from law, but they prepare us to regularly contemplate His provision to accomplish that salvation.” Psalm 119 praises God’s law, but the following Psalms let us know that the law cannot deliver salvation.
The first Psalm of Ascent, Psalm 120, picks up from verse 136 of Psalm 119: “My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law,” but it also starts where the pilgrimage starts geographically. The full Psalm 120 is:
“A Song of Ascents.
In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. Deliver me, O LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.
What shall be given to you, and what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue? A warrior’s sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree!
Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war!”
Each person traveling to Jerusalem came from a different place. Meshech was in the far north; Kedar in the far southeast. The Psalmist does not live in either place, but the picture is that the same problems exist everywhere. Everyone lives among people with lying lips, a deceitful tongue, and who hate peace. Each of us in our own way are such people. In verse 3 the Psalmist is frustrated about what to do about this: “what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue?” The next verse says that force or coercion won’t solve the problem. It must be solved internally because mankind is fundamentally broken. Society isn’t the cause of the problem, but an outcome of the problem, and we are frustrated with it.
However, those following the familiar liturgy of these Psalms would know that this frustration is only the beginning of their preparation to worship in Jerusalem. The place we all live – this entire creation – is groaning for a solution, a way out, and struggling to find it. All of mankind is in this boat together, but we’re “gonna need a bigger boat.” The pilgrimage begins with knowing we have a need that we can’t satisfy ourselves.
On their days- or weeks-long journeys to Jerusalem these pilgrims had to bring the baggage from their home lives with them – literally and figuratively. They certainly lied to and fought with each other on the way. The trip lasted too long for them to pretend. Their baggage was visible to all, and they couldn’t make the trip without it. But they went. In today’s church, do we go to a place that is full of “good” people, however we define that? No, we go to a place with people just like us. We begin as sinners among sinners, from Meshech to Kedar, but we long for a better place.
If you are in distress, call out to the LORD for a place of peace, not just for eternity but for your journey to it. The church is “called out” to both places. The journey is worth it.
Coda The title of this post, if you haven’t already guessed, comes from the musical West Side Story. The song is about the love between Tony and Maria, members of rival ethnic groups that insist on fighting even though they aren’t sure why. Therefore, Tony and Maria long for a place where the world’s hate doesn’t tear them apart.
In more ways than one, the sentiments of the song echo the last verses of today’s Psalm:
“Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war!”
Here is the song from the 1961 West Side Story film:
This post continues a series on the Psalms of Ascent. To start at the beginning, click here, and for the next post click here.
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 