"From the depths of despair...to singing with the joy of life..."
Last Sunday a friend and parishioner took me aside for a few moments and asked a question that has been asked of me many times. "Brad, how and what do I read to get started in the Bible? One of your 'Rules of the Road' for this summer says to read Holy Scriptures on a regular basis. Now, where do I start?"
Lots of possibilities went through my head and what came up most strongly this time was the Psalms. I had only a moment to respond before church started so I said, "Read the Psalms," and then dashed off to the sanctuary.
So, friend and fellow journeyer, this Sunday's sermon is a more complete answer to your timely and appropriate question.
We begin with an answer to the question: What are the Psalms? They are a collection of some one hundred and fifty hymns and prayers written, read and sung during the first millennium (one thousand years) before Christ. One scholar calls them the hymn book of the Old Testament, another a Hebrew Book of Prayer.
Psalms have been the subject of much scholarly research during the 20th century, but the fact is we still don't know much about who wrote them, where and how they were written and used. What we do know is that they show up in the Old Testament writings from about the Fifth Century B.C. on, yet tradition tells us that many Psalms, like the 23rd Shepherd Psalm, go back to the time of David--1000 B.C.
The Book of 150 Psalms is tucked away in our Old Testament of our Bible between Job and the Proverbs and they fill up a goodly portion of our Book of Common Prayer. There are, as I indicated, 150 Psalms and they vary greatly in theme, length and meaning.
For example, Psalm 117, a hymn of praise, has only two verses:
Praise the Lord all you nations,
Laud Him, all you peoples.
For His loving kindness toward us is great,
And the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
On the other hand, Psalm 119, an acrostic wisdom poem based on the Hebrew alphabet, goes on for sixteen pages of the Book of Common Prayer and has one hundred and seventy-six verses. And one significant insight that has emerged from recent study of the Psalms is the recognition of the great variety of literary types. There are Psalms of temple liturgy, covenant, wisdom, joy and praise.
Psalm 22 plumbs the depths of human despair:
I am poured out like water; all my bones are
out of joint;
my heart within my breast is melting wax.
My mouth is dried out like a potsherd;
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
and You have laid me in the dust of the grave.
Whereas, Psalm 95 sings with the joy of life:
Come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with Thanksgiving
and raise a loud shout to Him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
What is most important and helpful to me is that the Psalms address God in a wholly personal way. They present for us our perennial dialogue with God, our struggle to know Him--humanity's attempt to break that silence that so often exists between us and God.
About ninety of the 150 Psalms reflect alienation, suffering and misery in one form or another.
Psalm 86 opens typically for these Psalms:
Bow down your ear, O Lord, and answer me
For I am poor and in misery.
In Psalm 80 someone cries out:
O Lord, how long will You be angered
despite the prayers of Your people?
You have fed (us) with the bread of tears,
You have given (us) bowls of tears to drink.
Psalm 13 is quite direct in its demand of God:
How long, O Lord, will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
Look upon me and answer me, O Lord my God;
Give light to my eyes lest I sleep in death.
These prayers wrestle at the very depths of being and cry out for hope, confidence and faith in the midst of depression:
Save me from the mire, do not let me sink...
Neither let the deep swallow me up.
says today's appointed Psalm 69.
These honest cries of anguish have a power which has worked for more than 2,500 years.
I recommend that my friend read the Psalms because they have a unique power to heal, to toughen our inner being, to deepen insights about life, to quicken our imagination and, above all, they possess a power to strengthen faith and tighten our hold on life. Why is this so?
Well, first of all, Psalms "tell it like it is." They tell the truth about the human condition. I suspect many of us are a bit too careful not to offend God--to not burden Him with our troubles or pains or tell Him the truth about how we really feel about our lives and His creation.
Yet, the Psalmists are not afraid to protest their lot, face up to life and enter into honest struggle with the Master of Life. These ancient Psalms share our deepest feelings and can truly help us break our self-imposed silence with God.
Remember, Lord, how short life is;
How frail You have made all flesh. (Psalm 89:47)
And now that I am old and gray headed;
O God, do not forsake me. (Psalm 71:18)
The second reason why Psalms work and have power in our lives is that Psalms do not end in their protest or in despair. For regardless of the pain they feel or the struggles they protest, Psalmists end their prayers with a recognition of God's presence and power in life. They recognize, says one writer, that "to suffer with God is better than to prosper without him," and so these great prayers end with praise and thanks.
Weeping may spend the night
But joy comes in the morning. (Psalm 30)
In the midst of struggle Psalms give us a clear sense of Trust: (37)
Commit your way to the Lord
and put your trust in Him. (V. 5)
Be still before the Lord, and
wait patiently for Him. (V. 7)
And He will bring it to pass. (V. 5)
They offer Hope:
The Lord loves justice and
does not forsake His faithful ones. (V. 29)
They cried to the Lord in their trouble and
He delivered them from their distress.
God satisfies the thirsty and
fills the hungry with good things. (Psalm 107)
They speak of Truth: (87)
(In God) Mercy and truth have met together,
righteousness and peace have kissed each other,
and truth shall spring up from the earth.
And they know about God's eternal presence: (139)
Where can I go then from Your presence?
If I climb up to Heaven, You are there;
If I make the grave my bed, You are there also.
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there Your hand will lead me ...and hold me fast.
Keep me as the apple of Your eye,
Hide me under the shadow of Your wings. (17:8)
Well, it would be tempting to stand up here this morning and read you the whole Psalmody, but we will close now with this wonderful vignette about the power of Psalms in one man's life.
Russian Jew Anatoly Shcharansky, when he was released from Siberian labor camp last year, had his beloved book of Psalms taken away. Shcharansky promptly lay down in the snow and refused to move until his Psalms were returned. Indeed, when he walked across the Glienicke Bridge from East Germany to West Germany, he carried with him only his most prized possession--his book of Hebrew Psalms.
One of Shcharansky's letters from prison spoke of the power of Psalms in his life. He wrote to his mother these words:
"The day I received your telegram telling me of Papa's death I decided in his memory to read and study all 150 Psalms. That is what I now do from morning to evening...What does this give me? Gradually my feeling of great loss and sorrow changed to one of bright hopes. I am denied the right to visit Papa's grave now, but when in the future I hear these wonderful verses...I shall remember Papa. It will be as if I had erected a memorial stone to him in my heart and he will be with me all the days of my life."
On his first night of freedom in Jerusalem Shcharansky was carried on the shoulders of a jubilant throng to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, still clasping that same book of Psalms that had taken him through prison and into deliverance and freedom.
For God alone, my soul in silence waits,
Truly my hope is only in Him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
My stronghold so that I shall never be shaken. (Psalm 62)
Amen.
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