24.11.06
The Psalms (2): The Message of the Psalms
Open your Bible to the middle and you will find the Book of Psalms – the Book of Psalms is at the heart of the Bible – Old and New Testaments. From Old Testament times, through the times of Jesus, through the early Church, through the Church of the Reformation right on down to today, the Psalms have been at the heart of Christian worship and devotion. And yet, the Psalms as a book are not particularly well understood even by those of us who have known them since we were in our mother’s wombs.
I want to address two issues tonight which are not often talked of when we are studying the psalms – the first is the message of the psalms – that is, the psalms are to be read. The second is, praying through the psalms – that is, the psalms are to be prayed. I was thinking of appending a third onto the end of the study – that is that the psalms are to be sung, but I feel the topic of the singing of the psalms warrants a whole study to itself.
[A] The Psalms are to be Read
The issue I want to address in this section is that of meaning – taken as a whole, is there an overall meaning to the Book of Psalms? It can sometimes be helpful when you are studying the Bible to understand the message of an entire book of the Bible so that when you are looking at individual texts or chapters you can see where they fit into the general flow of Biblical truth. So what about the Psalms – the biggest book in the Bible – what is its overall message?
For this section I am relying heavily upon the structure as laid out in the American Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggeman’s book, “The Message of the Psalms”. In that Book, Brueggeman identifies 3 basic types of psalms in the Psalter.
1. Psalms of Orientation – Brueggeman defines these as psalms where, “human life consists in satisfied seasons of well-being that evoke gratitude for the constancy of blessing.” In other words, these are psalms where, by and large, everything seems to be going well for the psalmist – he and his circumstances are on an even keel. Life is not troubled or threatened by disorder or chaos, rather God is seen as ordering and controlling life for the benefit of His people. A good example of a psalm of orientation is Psalm 145 – A Song of Creation.
In this psalm, King David meditates upon the wonderful works of God in Creation – he points to the abundant goodness of God being celebrated in the great deeds of the Created Order. He then moves on to talk of God’s character as being gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. He talks of how God not only creates an extravagantly fertile world, but sustains and rules it in such a way as to feed not just his own people, but every living creature. And these are truths we need to point to as Christian believers – God’s goodness in all that He has made and God’s amazing kindness to us in the day to day necessities of life. Our God is so gracious that He doesn’t only save our souls, but He clothes our bodies!
2. Psalms of Disorientation – Brueggeman defines these as psalms where “human life consists in anguished seasons of hurt, alienation, suffering, and death. These evoke rage, resentment, self-pity and hatred.” In other words, these are psalms where everything seems to going badly for the psalmist – he and his circumstances are topsy-turvy and he is in real pain. And so the psalmist thrashes out in confusion – thrashing out against himself, against his enemies and even against God. And that’s why these psalms are so alien to our modern Christian culture – the psalms are dangerous because they tell us that the faith of the Bible isn’t that of “shiny, happy people”. As Brueggeman writes, “it is clear that a church that goes on singing happy songs in the face of raw reality is doing something very different from what the Bible itself does.” The Psalms are a book which are true to life – there are sometimes tears of joy, but more often tears of pain and grief – and as such, the Psalms speak for us and to us about what it means to be one of God’s people in the midst of a sinful and doomed world. And these psalms are powerful – the American Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote a seminal work on dying and grief – work that every palliative care professional will be familiar with – and each stage of the dying and grieving process is included within these psalms of disorientation. A good example of a Psalm of disorientation is Psalm 32 – a Penitential Psalm.
The Psalm begins with a beatitude – blessed is he, and then a parallelism (remember one thing said two different ways) – blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven = blessed is he whose sins are covered. The psalmist then moves on to talk about his own experience of disorientation due to his own sin – he talks about his bones wasting away, his strength being sapped and God’s hand being heavy upon him. The world has become a confined, breathless space – claustrophobic – King David can’t get away from God’s conviction of his sin. And yet, aren’t these wonderful verses, for they reflect perfectly what happens when we ourselves are convicted by sin? And don’t they also provide an incisive analysis of the pycho-somatic impact of sin in our lives – affecting body, mind and soul? Do you feel like this tonight? Many in our society, many on the streets will feel battered down by these symptoms and they don’t know what’s wrong – Psalm 32 answers it in a word – guilt; and the solution, confession, repentance and the forgiveness of God through Christ.
3. Psalms of New Orientation – Brueggeman defines these psalms as psalms where “human life consists in times of surprise when we are overwhelmed with the new gifts of God, when joy breaks through the despair.” In other words, here’s a man who’s been in the pit – perplexed by his sin, or his circumstances – and he sees nowhere to turn. But unexpectedly, God overwhelms him with a new experience of his power and love. The psalmist is brought up from the pit and has a new path laid before him with a new depth of knowledge and intimacy with God. A good example of a psalm of new orientation is that of Psalm 27 – a psalm of confidence.
The psalmist reflects on the enemies who surround him and the trouble which dogs him – in vs. 12 David writes, “false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence.” Armies besiege him and evil men attack him. And yet, through it all David has learned that “The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?” King David has been besieged – in the pit of his enemies’ making, but now, through God’s divine help he has a new perspective on his troubles – he is able to rise above them all the find the strength he needs to go on in the Lord. In fact, not just to go on, but to exalt and reign victorious over his enemies, because by the power of God, “my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me.” We need to hear that message today! Everybody carries their own pain with them and what they need is to learn the process of trusting God through tears and how, in the midst of death, the presence of God is the sweetest place to be. We have that message of hope to give to Glasgow tonight – to the homeless nomads, to the bored professionals, to the lost teenagers – there is a strong refuge to be found – not in drink, drugs, sex or money – but in the Lord Jesus – and that through Him, we learn not only to survive, but to succeed.
So these psalms which God has given us provide a message of orientation, disorientation and new orientation. They mirror our lives and provide us with superb descriptions of who we are and how to react in these situations.
[B] The Psalms are to be Prayed
The Psalms are not only called “Tellihim” – the Praises, but also the “Tephilloth” meaning the Prayers. At the end of Book 2 of the Psalms, Psalm 72:20 we read, “this concludes the prayers of David, son of Jesse”. William Binnie, Free Church Professor in the 19th Century has written, “A Psalm, whatever else it may be, is a Prayer; it is an utterance of the soul before God.” For the majority of this section I am using the seminal work of Deitrich Bonhoeffer in his remarkable little book, “The Psalms: the Prayer Book of The Bible.” There are three things I would like to say about how we can understand and use the Psalms as prayers:
1. Learning to Pray – how does a child learn to speak? How does a child of God learn to speak to God the Father? Does a child not learn to speak by repeating words its parent has spoken to it? The child does not invent words to speak to its parents; rather it copies and mimics what its parents have said to it. In the same way, we learn to pray to God not through invention, but through mimicry – Bonhoeffer writes, “A child learns to speak because his father speaks to him. He learns his father’s own language. That is how we learn to speak to God, for God has spoken and still speaks to us. His children learn to speak to him in the language of their Father in heaven. We begin to pray by repeating to God his own words. We are to speak to him not in the false and confused language of our own hearts, but in the clear, pure, language in which God has spoken to us in Jesus Christ, and in that language he will hear us.” The disciples came to Jesus and said, “Lord, teach us to pray”. Whilst the desire to pray is automatic amongst the children of God, the form of prayer is something we need to be taught – what God deems as important for us to pray to Him is something we need to learn – something we need to be taught. After all, it is His priorities which must dominate our prayer lives – His Glory, His Kingdom, His Name. The Psalms reflect God’s priorities for our prayer lives. One piece of advice I was given as a young Christian was this: if you are struggling in prayer, pray through a psalm. Use the language of the psalm; use the ideas of the psalm – intersperse the words of the psalm with your own words. And if you do that, you’ll be praying through the whole range of human emotion and divine will.
2. Prayer and God – at heart, prayer is a relationship between a person, or group of people, and God. As such, the Psalms are full of the language of relationship – in particular they use the word ‘you’ with relation to God. I am taking this point from another book of Walter Brueggeman – “The Psalms and the Life of Faith” where he talks of the importance of the I-You relationship with God. When we are thinking of God as you, we are really saying three things:
· God is the Object of a Relationship – in the ancient world, gods were not lovingly spoken to in the second person – one might meditate or speculate on the nature of a particular God, but there was no focus on the God itself – the focus was more on the religious experience of the worshipper. But when we are approaching the God of the Bible, we must realise that not only is He greater than any other God, but He is also more ‘accessible’ than any other God – He wants to be in relationship with His people – He wants them to know Him as “you”. I find this an amazing thing – the God who made the Universe and whose power knows no limit; the God who raised Jesus from the dead and knows the thoughts of every person wants me to know Him as “you” – He wants us to enter into a personal relationship with Him.
· God is not to be Flattered – in the religions of the day, epithet upon epithet were piled on top of each other to describe and flatter the gods. The imperial religions of Babylon spared no language in describing the greatness of their gods, hoping somehow both to impress their gods into answering their prayers, and impressing observers. But the devotional language of the people of God is different – to be sure there are glowing endorsements of the greatness, love and power of God, but the language is free from flattery. After all, who in their right mind would speak to God in the way the Sons of Korah speak to Him in Psalm 43:2 – “For you are my God in whom I take refuge; why have you cast me off?” This lack of flattery characterises a relationship of closeness and intimacy
· God is Sovereign – the language of you turns prayer away from being a purely subjective experience, where the most important figure in the dance is the person who is praying, to being an objective yearning after God on His terms. It is God who is the source and ground of all life, not the human being who comes to pray. God is not an extension of the religious desires of a human being, as the philosopher Feurbach insisted, God is the sovereign, objective King whose presence and help are not just desired, but absolutely indispensable to human existence. The “you” of prayer is an acknowledgement of God’s primacy over us – our need of Him, not His need of us.
A good example of where you see this I-You relationship in the Psalms is in Psalm 86. The pronoun ‘you’ does not often stand alone in the Hebrew language – it is usually affixed onto the end of a noun or a verb – but when it is used, it is used to emphasise the I-You relationship which exists between a human being, or a group of human beings, and God. In Psalm 86 the stand-alone pronoun “you” is used 6x in the original Hebrew text – vs. 2 “You are my God”; vs. 5 “For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you”; vs. 10 “For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God”; vs. 15 “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”; and vs. 17 “Because you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.” And therefore, in this prayer of King David we are to see God as the object of the David’s relationship – a God who is great but is not to be flattered in a meaningless and empty way – God who is sovereign over the life of David and his enemies. Are you in a position to call God “you” – do you have this personal relationship with God? The Lord Jesus died upon the cross to remove all the obstacles which may keep us from calling God “you” – are you trusting in Him?
3. Prayer and Jesus – the great St. Augustine, speaking of Jesus, called Him “Iste Cantator Psalmorum” – “He, the singer of psalms”. I want to suggest to you tonight that the Psalms formed the worldview of the Lord Jesus Christ – they gave Him His sense of self-understanding and the perfect means by which He was able to communicate with His Father in heaven.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer makes the same point in his book, “The Psalms: the Prayer Book of the Bible”. He refers to Hebrews 2:12 , where speaking of the Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels and tasted death for everyone, the writer talks of how these were the words in Jesus’ mouth as He went to the cross, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.” These are the words of Jesus – and yet these are the words of Psalm 22:22. Again, in Hebrews 10:5 we read, “Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am – it is written about me in the scroll – I have come to do your will, O God.” These are Christ’s words and yet they are the words of Psalm 40:6-8. Bonhoeffer writes, “The prayers of David were also the prayers of Christ, or rather, Christ himself offered them in the person of his ancestor David.”
Think about Jesus on the cross – we all know that Jesus said 7 things upon the cross – but did you know that 3 of these 7 sayings are direct lifts from the book of Psalms. Jesus died with the words of the psalms upon His lips! “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is taken from Psalm 22:1; “It is finished” is taken from Psalm 22:31 and the very last words of Jesus, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” is taken from Psalm 31:5, words which were used by the Hebrew children as their prayer at bedtime. Jesus used the psalms as His basic tool of prayer to God – what was most precious to Him stayed with Him to the end of His earthly life – the last words on His lips taken from the Psalms.
We hear again and again that the Psalms are sub-Christian – and yet, they perfectly fitted the need the Lord Jesus had for prayer. Who primarily prayed through the language of the Psalms? The answer is Jesus. David only prayed them because Christ dwelt in his heart. You will only pray them as Christ dwells in your heart because they are the prayers of the indwelling Christ.
You are rejoicing with the God who made the world – pray Psalm 145; you are crying tears of pain because of the death of a loved one – pray Psalm 13; you are shedding tears of confession and repentance before God – pray Psalm 32; you have experienced the power of God and the deliverance of the Lord Jesus Christ in your life – pray Psalm 27; you are trying to find words to express the way you feel about God – pray Psalm 86. There’s a prayer for every occasion in the Book of Psalms.
The Psalms are not only the heart of the Bible, they form the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by extension, they shape and mould our hearts too. We need to thank the Lord God that by His grace we have this book of the Bible, and we value this book of the Bible – but we need to make sure that through the work of Christ upon the Cross at Calvary in taking away our sins and giving us new hearts, and by the work of the Holy Spirit enlightening and energising us, we allow the Psalms to mould us and shape us so that we will be the kind of people God wants us to be. AMEN