Psalm 21
Psalm 21
is a most interesting psalm. The first
half of the psalm reads like a celebration.
Actually, it is a celebration.
From a historical perspective this psalm was written as David has just
come off of a victory in battle. David
is exuberant about the victory.
David
speaks about the deliverance that he has received at God’s hand. David talks about the faithfulness of God and
David promises continued faithfulness towards God on his behalf. We hear these words and have absolutely no
difficulty understanding David’s joy. In
his time of success, David pours out adoration for God. It is as it should be. God absolutely deserves our adoration.
However,
then we turn to the second half of the psalm.
This is a part of God that most of us in the modern western world don’t
care to think about. God treats His
enemies harshly. When God appears, His
enemies burn as an oven burns. The Lord
swallows them up in wrath. The Lord
consumes them with fire. The Lord
destroys the descendants of His enemies and it is assumed that the descendants
are enemies as well. The Lord will even
aim at their faces with His ammunition.
These are
not very friendly words. These are words
of destruction and judgment and vindication.
These are words that should make us feel for the enemies of God in
addition to making us recognize the might of God. These are words that should make us want to
be active and vocal about convincing people to not be an enemy of God. These are words that are designed to cause us
to take seriously the consequences of being an enemy to God. We cannot save all people – in fact, we
cannot save any of them! – but we can actively point to salvation and allow God
to use us to bring as many people in this world as possible into a relationship
with Him.
Psalm 22
Psalm 22
is a famous song. I cannot read this
psalm without crying and thinking about Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. In the Christian Church, this psalm takes on
a whole new meaning. This psalm is
filled with a grave set of predicting images for our Lord, Jesus Christ.
However, I
am not going to focus on that dimension of the words today. I believe all of us can read this psalm and
understand how it applies to Christ.
Instead, I want to take this psalm in its historical context.
First, do
you feel the difference between Psalm 21 and Psalm 22? Psalm 21 is an exuberant king relishing life
with his God. Psalm 22 is a king whose
perspective has been turned away from God and focused upon the threats of the
world. These opening words say as much:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
We know that God has never forsaken any of His followers. God is always beside us. Rather, it is we who stop seeing the
proximity of God’s closeness. It is we
who focus more and more on the threats, dangers, and concerns of the world
around us. We lose sight of God’s
faithfulness.
This is
the interesting dichotomy of the whole psalm.
David goes back and forth between focusing on his pain and suffering yet
knowing that he should be praising God.
One of the reasons that I love this psalm is because it truly does
demonstrate the difficulty of focusing on God in the midst of our
suffering. It is genuinely difficult,
and this psalm attests to that fact!
As it
should be, it is hope that wins out in the end.
The true follower of God will always find more respite in God than worry
in the world. The follower of God will
eventually remember to trust in the Lord and put their faith in Him. The follower of God will always remember that
it is the Lord who prospers and the Lord can make any of us fall into
prosperity at any time. If this world
ends in death – which it does for all of us – the Lord can make us prosper even
after death.
I love
this psalm because it is a phenomenal example of how to gain perspective when
perspective is hard to find. It is a
great psalm to speak about real issues of life: pain and sorrow versus
celebrating our relationship with God.
It is an honest psalm that confesses freely that life is not easy and
there are times when we as human beings will struggle to remember that God
walks with us.
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