A Beautiful Triad That Ends in Peace

 I'm sorry that I haven't gotten back to my thoughts on the Psalms of Ascent sooner. I've been hanging out with a couple of my grandkids and their wonderful parents. It is a blessed distraction. It's almost enough to take my mind off of the tragedy that is going on around us all. Almost.

As the ancient Israelites made their way to Jerusalem to worship the Lord by keeping the feast days, they too passed through a land of trouble. Listen as they sing.

Psalm 129 (ESV)

A Song of Ascents. 

“Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth”— let Israel now say— “Greatly have they afflicted me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me.

The plowers plowed upon my back; they made long their furrows.” 

The Lord is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked.

May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward! 

Let them be like the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up, with which the reaper does not fill his hand nor the binder of sheaves his arms, 

nor do those who pass by say, “The blessing of the Lord be upon you! We bless you in the name of the Lord!”

 Can you feel the bitter taste in your mouth as you walk along and listen to the pilgrims sing? Do you identify? Are their scars on your back, so to speak? Of greater importance does your attention turn to thoughts like those of these travelers from more than two-and-a-half millennia ago? 

"Get them, Lord!"

The end of Psalm 129 takes on the imprecatory mode that we find in many of the Psalms. Imprecatory means to call down a curse. This one is mild and muted compared to many. Still it causes one to cringe. The houses of the time were made of clay and stone. In times of rain, stray seeds would sprout on the rooftops. The lives of those blades of grass was hopeless. Soon the relentless sun baked all life out of them. 

"Lord, make that the future of my enemies, scorch them to death. Don't let anyone who passes by pronounce a word of blessing. Lord, I'm going to Jerusalem to receive a special blessing, but for these, my enemies, may all blessing be withheld. The Psalm doesn't say it in so many words, but the implication hangs thick and heavy, "Lord, they don't deserve to be blessed."

As the article I linked above points out, there are imprecatory statements, some from the mouth of Jesus, in the New Testament. Any honest reader of the New Testament, however, has to come away with the clear understanding that the kind of bitterness--dare I say, "hatred"--expressed in the last couple of verses of Psalm 129 stands in stark contrast to the standard set by Jesus. 

Luke 6:27–36 (ESV)

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. ²⁹ To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. ³⁰ Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. ³¹ And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. ³² “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. ³⁵ But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. ³⁶ Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

The contrast is so stark that some, like Marcion of old, have conclded that the God we see in the Old Testament cannot be the same God who came incarnate in Jesus Christ. In my humble opinion, and most orthodox Bible students are on my side, that simply won't stand up to what the Bible has to say. I don't have time in this post to talk about it fully, but I will share three brief points:

• The Psalms are poems that often express personal feelings. How did the author of Psalm 129--and for that matter those who sang the song along the road, that was no doubt marked with reminders of the bad treatment--feel about those who had abused him and his people? 
• Often in the Psalms, there is an, "I'm on your side, Lord," declaration. Those the Psalm has in mind acted in opposition to the God of the Universe. It sounds harsh to our ears, but these imprecatory Psalms have an element of defending God's honor about them.
• Finally, quite simply we have a fuller view of the truth than did the ancient Israelites. They did not know the truths, like those above that Jesus preached.

Let's use that third point as a transition. Even in the Old Testament, we see signs that God is a forgiving God. I don't think the pilgrims on their way to worship the God who in his mercy would accept their sacrifices and pleas for forgiveness were immune to the corosive effects of a bitter heart. Part of the journey from distress to peace involved learning how to deal with life's hurts without becoming bitter. In Psalm 130 the song leads the traveler through a process, putting the pieces together so to speak.

With [God] there is forgivness.

One is wise to wait on Him.

And hope in His word.     

For with the LORD there is steadfast love,

Andd with him is plentiful redemption (4-7)

Psalm 131 gives the end result of this process. I'll comment briefly tomorrow (I hope). 

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Ps 130:7). (2016). Crossway Bibles. 

 

 

 

One is wise