The God of Unmet Expectations

 

May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child, and sing and dance in the love of God who is Father, Son, and Spirit.  --Larry Hein

 I started my car this morning, on my way to get a haircut.  The radio was set to a local Christian music station.  Nowadays they are playing all Christmas all the time.  I don't mind it much--it gets old on longer trips, but I can always change the station.

The first song I heard as I put the car in gear was a version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.  Not one of my favorite seasonal songs, but one I sing along with mindlessly, knowing all the words by heart.  The second line reminded me of a verse of Scripture.  "Let nothing you dismay," led me to think of Philippians 4:6.  "Do not be anxious for anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."

Maybe, I thought, this old 16th century English carol might have some relevant message for me now in the 21st century U.S. of A.  It reminded me of a book I am reading.  It is called Your God is Too Glorious, written by one of my favorite authors, Chad Bird.  The sub-title is "Finding God in the Most Unexpected Places."  The whole point of this book is that often our religion is too pristine, too sanitized.  If our expectation is that we meet God behind beautiful stained-glass windows, wearing our very best clothes, all scrubbed and smiling, then we may be amazed to find Him in our day-to-day dealings with the world.  We may be more amazed still to find Him at our lowest, when we are smelly and dirty, and our faces are not masked behind smiles but rather scrunched in pain and agony, when we see the world through tear-stained eyes.  

"As a feed trough was not a worthy crib for the Christ," Chad Bird writes, "as prostitutes and tax collectors were not His worthy dinner guests, and as a bloody cross was not a worthy throne, so the ways and means of God's priests in this world are shrouded by that which seems beneath such a grand deity."  While we rightly see Jesus as the Son of God, there is, on the human side of His ancestry, a whole list of sinners.  From patriarchs to prostitutes, from mighty men to murderers, we see God's hand directing each generation toward the promise of salvation.

So I did a little research.  God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen is one of the oldest songs we still sing, dating back to the 1500s and before.  It was written as a reaction to (and maybe a rebellion from) 15th century church music, which was typically dark, somber, and in Latin.  Since the lay-persons (not clergy) could not change the way that they worshiped in church, they started writing and singing songs in a more contemporary style.  The clergy and the Church did not intend for their parishioners to go rogue like this, but it happened.

The song itself has gone through several revisions over the years.  One of the earliest printings of the song was in 1775--before that it was handed down from one person to another, from generation to generation, and it probably had several revisions along the way.  Nevertheless, one of the earliest known versions of the song looks like this:

1. God rest you, merry gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas-day
To save poor souls from Satan’s power,
Which long time had gone astray.
And it is tidings of comfort and joy.

2. From God that is our Father
The blessed angels came
Unto some certain shepherds,
With tidings of the same;
That he was born in Bethlehem
The Son of God by name.
And it is tidings of comfort and joy.

3. Now when they came to Bethlehem,
Where our sweet Saviour lay,
They found him in a manger
Where oxen feed on hay.
The blessed Virgin kneeling down
Unto the Lord did pray.
And it is tidings of comfort and joy.

4. With sudden joy and gladness,
The shepherds were beguil’d,
To see the Babe of Israel
Before his mother mild.
O then with joy and cheerfulness
Rejoice each mother’s child.
And it is tidings of comfort and joy.

5. Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place
Like we true loving brethren,
Each other to embrace,
For the merry time of Christmas
Is coming on a-pace.
And it is tidings of comfort and joy.

Typical of 17th-century language, “rest” in this usage means “to keep or continue” while “merry” means “great, mighty, or strong”. So a modernized translation of the first line could read: “God keep you strong, gentlemen”. This fits with the rest of the verse – a hopeful cry to stay strong because Jesus Christ has saved mankind.  Looking further into the text, the shepherds did not expect to see angels that day.  We, too, should be shocked and amazed that the Son of God, King of Kings whom angels proclaim, would be sleeping in a feed trough.

Less than a century later, the song had gone through some major revisions.  The original authors likely did not expect the song to take on extra verses and even include some extra-biblical language that makes little sense.  Nevertheless, here is what the printed version looked like in 1833.

1. God rest you merry, gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
For Jesus Christ, our Saviour
Was born upon this day,
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray. 

O tidings of comfort and joy, For Jesus Christ, our Saviour was born on Christmas day.

2. In Bethlehem, in Jewry (Judea)
This blessed babe was born
And laid within a manger
Upon this blessed morn
The which his mother Mary
Nothing did take in scorn.

O tidings of comfort and joy, For Jesus Christ, our Saviour was born on Christmas day.

3. From God our Heavenly Father
A blessed Angel came,
And unto certain Shepherds
Brought tidings of the same,
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by name.

O tidings of comfort and joy, For Jesus Christ, our Saviour was born on Christmas day.

4. Fear not, then said the Angel,

Let nothing you affright,
This day is born a Saviour
Of virtue, power and might;
So frequently to vanquish all
The friends of Satan quite.

O tidings of comfort and joy, For Jesus Christ, our Saviour was born on Christmas day.

5. The Shepherds at those tidings

Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their flocks a feeding
In tempest, storm and wind,
And went to Bethlehem straightway,
This blessed babe to find.

O tidings of comfort and joy, For Jesus Christ, our Saviour was born on Christmas day.

6. But when to Bethlehem they came,

Whereas this infant lay,
They found him in a manger,
Where oxen feed on hay,
His mother Mary kneeling
Unto the Lord did pray.

O tidings of comfort and joy, For Jesus Christ, our Saviour was born on Christmas day.

7. Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All other doth deface (outshine).

O tidings of comfort and joy, For Jesus Christ, our Saviour was born on Christmas day.

 Obviously some poetic license was taken between the 1775 version and the 1833 lyrics.  The colloquial use of "Jewry" to mean Judea, the place where Jews lived, is not something we would say today. It does, however, bring to mind the prophecy of Micah 5:2 which was quoted in Matthew 2:6, "And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel."  Verse 3 says that Mary "did not take scorn" for having a child out of wedlock, but we know that is not likely.  We could also take issue with verse 5, where the song goes in a really weird direction: yes, the shepherds did leave their flocks unattended, but the peril was more likely robbers or predatory animals than tornado-like weather.

There was also another verse added in some versions of the song.

8.God bless the ruler of this house, and send him long to reign,
And many a merry Christmas may live to see again;
Among your friends and kindred that live both far and near-

That God send you a happy new year, happy new year,
And God send you a happy new year.

Not only does this verse depart from the Scriptural narrative weaving throughout the rest of the song, but it references the New Year rather than Christmas.  It also references some class-envy, as is described here:

This stanza is usually omitted from hymnals, as it speaks more to a domestic Christmas celebration in the dwelling of the Lord of the Manor. The New Oxford Book of Carols (1992) describes this version of the carol as a “luck-visit song” or a song sung by carolers when visiting a house (Watson, Canterbury, n.p.). Though most of the remaining stanzas present a straight-forward telling of the Christmas narrative (Luke 2:8-16), the “merry gentlemen” in stanza 1 combined with this traditional last stanza call into question its inclusion in many hymnals. Indeed, hymnologist Ray Glover, commenting on its appearance in the Episcopal Hymnals 1940 and 1982, noted: “This is one of the most popular English traditional carols that entered the musical repertoire of the Episcopal Church . . .. It has had, however, a mixed acceptance by hymnal editors of other denominations” (Glover, 1994, p. 105).  --C. Michael Hawn (Southern Methodist University).

 The version we sing today has undergone still more changes in text.  In addition, we have not even touched on the varied tunes to which these lyrics were sung over the decades.  The point is this: just as God can use an old English carol, even after it goes through some weird and (some might say) heretical revisions, He can also take our circumstances, including our dark past, and use us for His glory.  God can use us, despite a questionable heritage, or a sinful past.  He can meet us where we are, whether that is in a beautiful cathedral or a filthy barnyard.  As Chad Bird said, "While the world anticipates God to locate himself in power, wealth, or anything dubbed glorious and attractive in their eyes, he is ensconced in the exact opposite."

Let the caroling begin!

Christ our High Priest

 

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.  Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  --Hebrews 4:14-16

With the holidays rapidly approaching, it won't be long until we are inundated with Christmas music, media, and movies.  One of the movies I hope to avoid again this year is the adaptation of the Dr. Seuss book, The Grinch.  The protagonist is a monster, with a heart "two sizes too small."  We eventually see the redemption of this foul fellow, but not before he is described in song.

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch
You really are a heel,
You're as cuddly as a cactus,
You're as charming as an eel, Mr. Grinch.

You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel!

You're a monster, Mr. Grinch,
Your heart's an empty hole,
Your brain is full of spiders
You have garlic in your soul, Mr. Grinch.

I wouldn't touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole!

The song goes on interminably, but I want to point out the first few lines.  "You really are a heel."  This verbal slight has fallen out of use recently, but back in the day being described as a "heel" meant that you treat others badly.  A "heel" is an inconsiderate or untrustworthy person.  We've all known our share of "heels", those really contemptible people.  If we're being honest, we have all been that person at some point in our lives.

This is the kind of people that Jesus came to save.  It is the kind of people whom we are called to minister to.  We share Jesus with contemptible people because that's who we live among.  Just like Jesus did.  I want us to look at Psalm 41 with the idea of Jesus ministering to contemptible people as a great high priest.

Blessed is the one who considers the poor.  In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him; the Lord protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land; you do not give him up to the will of his enemies.  The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health.  As for me, I said, "O Lord, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you."  My enemies say of me in malice, "When will he die, and his name perish?"  And when one comes to see me, he utters empty words, while his heart gathers iniquity; when he goes out, he tells it abroad.  All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me.  They say, "A deadly thing is poured out on him; he will not rise again from where he lies."  Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.  But you, O Lord, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may repay them.  By this I know that you delight in me; my enemy will not shout in triumph over me.  But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever.  Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting!  Amen and amen.

 It doesn't take much to see Jesus in this Psalm.  The Sermon On The Mount starts with Jesus saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God."  Indeed, when Jesus went public with his earthly ministry, "He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor'." (Luke 4:17-18).  So Jesus can be called "blessed" because He was the One who considered the poor.  

Looking further, we see that the Lord protected Him and kept Him alive.  After hearing Jesus profess to be the Chosen One, religious leaders cried foul.  "When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.  And they rose up and drove Him out of the town and brought Him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.  But passing through their midst, He went away."  (Luke 4:28-30).  Even so, the Scribes and Pharisees looked for ways to shut Him up, to trap Him in His words, fulfilling verses 7 and 8 of Psalm 41: "All who hate me whisper together about me; they imagine the worst for me.  They say, 'A deadly thing is poured out on him; he will not rise again from where he lies'."

Finally, we see the culmination of fulfillment in verse 9.  "Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me."  Doesn't this describe Judas exactly?  Which is why Jesus said in John 13:18, "I am not speaking to all of you; I know whom I have chosen.  But the Scripture will be fulfilled, 'He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me'."

The phrase "close friend" is literally "man of my shalom"--that is, a person with whom I was at peace.  This "friend," however, turned for.  When woodenly translated, the Hebrew for "lifted up his heel" is "made great with his heel."  Whatever that idiom precisely describes--scholars are uncertain--it is certainly not good.  The "heel" is frequently associated with "deceit" or "cheating," as in the story of the "Heel Man" himself, Jacob (Gen. 25:26; 27:36; cf Jer. 9:4).  And we cannot forget that already in Genesis 3:15, the heel is associated with the serpentine venom of the evil one.  --Chad Bird The Christ Key, page 170.

Perhaps the American idiom "he's such a heel" has biblical roots.  Yet we remember the very first Old Testament prophecy about Jesus when God spoke to the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." (Genesis 3:15).  In fulfillment of this, Romans 16:20 says, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you."  Hebrews 2:14 says, "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil."  Revelation 20:1-3,10 says, "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.  And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended.  After that he must be released for a little while....And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."

But what of the high priestly role of Jesus, and how does it relate to Psalm 41:4?  "As for me, I said, 'O Lord, be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you'."  Surely this verse does not refer to Jesus, the one who "was tempted as we are, yet without sin," does it?  You'd be surprised.

In the Old Testament a system of animal sacrifices was established.  A lamb without blemish was offered to be killed in lieu of the offerer.  In essence, the lamb took on the sin of the human with the result that the sinful human was made clean or forgiven.

This is the only way to make sense of  John the Baptist's words, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29).  John's listeners would have understood this because they were accustomed to thinking of sacrificial lambs "taking away" sins in some way.  In Psalm 41, and in other Psalms like it (e.g., Psalm 38), the Messiah is speaking as one who is free of blemish, without sin, yet also as the sacrificial victim who will take upon himself the sin of the world.  "He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth," Isaiah says, yet he was "like a lamb that is led to the slaughter," for "he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed" (Isa. 53:9, 7, 5).  In short, what happened at Israel's altar teaches us how to pray Israel's Psalms.  --Chad Bird The Christ Key, page 171.

But wait, there's more!

When the office of the high priest was implemented and described in Exodus 28, the vestments included two onyx stones that each bore the names of six of the tribes of Israel.  That's how the high priest bore "their names before the Lord on his two shoulders for remembrance" (Exodus 28:12).  Also, on the breastpiece were four rows of precious stones, three stones per row.  These stones represented the twelve tribes (see Exodus 28:21) when Aaron, the first high priest, made a sacrifice for the people.

All Israel melted into Aaron when he stood before God.  This one man was the nation.  He was a sinner himself, to be sure, but because he was also the singular symbol of the nation before God, he also bore the sins of the nation before the Lord, even sins that he himself had not personally committed.  We see this ritual enacted on the Day of Atonement, when the high priest was to lay his hands on the head of the goat and to "confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins" (Lev. 16:21).  The priest confessed not only his own sins but the sins of others, "all the iniquities of the people of Israel."  When Christ came as our great and final high priest, he too was the nation.  Indeed, he was all humanity reduced to one man.  Though he had no sins of his own to confess, he confessed all the iniquities, all the transgressions, all the sins of every individual, everywhere, for all time, on the great and climactic Day of Atonement known as Good Friday.  What he does in the Psalms, when he prays, "I have sinned against you" (41:4), is pray as our high priest.  --Bird, page 172

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."  Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

However, the question could arise as to how one is to think about the fact that Christ also prays these Psalms with us.  How can the sinless one ask for forgiveness?  In no way other than he can, as the sinless one, bear the sins of the world and be made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21).  Not for the sake of his sins, but for the sake of our sins, which he has taken upon himself and for which he suffers, does Jesus pray for the forgiveness of sins.  He positions himself entirely for us.  He wants to be a man before God as we are.  So he prays also the most human of all prayers with us and thereby demonstrates precisely that he is the true Son of God.  --Bonhoeffer, Psalms, page 51.

Thus we are redeemed.  We cannot claim that we are anything other than vile, contemptible, inconsiderate, untrustworthy sinners separated from a holy God; yet by the sacrificial and high priestly prayer of Christ Jesus, we are cleansed and forgiven.  And by the grace of God, we can then go and minister to all the other heels in this world. 

The Sounds of Silence

 

You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a horror to them.  --Psalm 88:8

My wife works with a woman who is very bitter toward God.  To be fair, this poor lady has dealt with more than her share of tragedy.  I believe she lost a set of twins at birth.  She had another son, but he was killed at age 21, just as he was getting started with his life and career.  She is divorced, abandoned by her husband because of her overwhelming grief.  My wife has tried to share the love of Jesus with her, but it is hard for her to hear.  She feels that God, whoever He is, has abandoned her.

Unfortunately, due to HR policies that prohibit talking about religion or other sensitive topics at work, my wife is not able to explain to this lady that God hears her cries.  He knows her loss.  He, too, lost a Son.  That Son died an agonizing death.  You think God's heart was not broken?  Yet is was through the death and resurrection of God's Son that we have hope of one day seeing our loved ones again, after their passing.  God's Son was raised after 3 days.  This lady's son will also be resurrected from the dead, either to life everlasting if his faith was in Jesus, or in eternal judgment.

Many of us may often feel abandoned or betrayed.  David wrote of those feelings in depth in Psalm 38.

O Lord, rebuke me not in Your anger, nor discipline me in Your wrath!  For Your arrows have sunk into me, and Your hand has come down on me.  There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin.  For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.  My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness, I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning.  For my sides are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh.  I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart.  O Lord, all my longing is before You; my sighing is not hidden from You.  My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes--it has also gone from me.  My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off.  Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long.  But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open his mouth.  I have become like a man who does not hear, and in whose mouth are no rebukes.  But for You, O Lord, do I wait; it is You, O Lord my God, who will answer.  For I said, "Only let them not rejoice over me, who boast against me when my foot slips!"  For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me.  I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.  But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully.  Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good.  Do not forsake me, O Lord!  O my God, be not far from me!  Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation.

Psalm 38, along with Psalm 88 that kind of mirrors it in many ways, encapsulate the human condition.  We may be limited physically (38:3), or feel overwhelmed, like we are in over our heads (verse 4).  We may carry a burden around with us all the time, and feel like we are always on the verge of tears (verse 6).  We may feel like the whole world is against us (verse 11), or that those in power are setting a trap for us (verse 12).  We may want to defend ourselves, but our words are powerless or fall on deaf ears (verses 13 and 14).  We may feel outnumbered and outgunned (verse 19) when all we are every trying to do is just do the right thing (verse 20).

Who among us has not felt like this at one time or another.  Chad Bird, in The Christ Key, writes:

I first ventured into the bleak and midnight landscape of Psalm 88 when I was in the throes of a spiritual depression, when I thought that the Lord had truly forsaken me.  The petitions of this psalm  drip tears and bleed pain.  Ponder these words: "My life draws near to Sheol....I am ... like the slain that lie in the grave.... You have put me in the depths of the pit.... You have caused my companions to shun me.... O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?... I suffer your terrors...  Your wrath has swept over me....My companions have become darkness" (vv. 3, 5, 6, 8, 14-17, 18).  When I stumbled into Psalm 88, I knew I had found the thesaurus of a cruciform life.  Here were words that could only arise from a ravaged soul, one with whom I felt a kinship.

Again, the psalmist has captured the human condition in these verses.  But I want us to re-read these Psalms with Jesus in mind.  We are, after all, in the middle of a series of essays about seeing Jesus in the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms.  And we are reminded as well that "we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin." 

Psalm 38:11 says, "My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my nearest kin stand far off."  Similarly, Psalm 88:18 says, "You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness."  We see this very thing in the various accounts of His crucifixion.  While He was being publicly executed for sins He had not committed, his friends stood afar off.  Matthew 27:55 says, "There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him."  We also see this in Mark 15:40, "There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome"; and again in Luke 23:49, "And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things."

I cannot look at the last part of Psalm 88:18 without thinking of Paul Simon's hit song, which begins "Hello darkness my old friend."  The song continues with this verse:  

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.

Jesus, suspended between heaven and earth, with His friends afar off and His Father turning a blind eye, saw the multitude wagging their heads and mocking Him.  "If You are the Christ, save Yourself!"  They shouted.  It must have seemed that silence was His only friend at that moment in time.  As He hung in agony, He must have longed for death, for release from the pain and shame.  Yet He knew this was their plan all along.

Psalm 38:12 says, "Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long."  In Matthew 22:15 we see, "Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words."  Mark 12:13 says "And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk";  and in Luke 20:20, "So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor."

Again, the words of Paul Simon:

"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence.

Psalm 38:13 says, "But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear, like a mute man who does not open his mouth."  We see in Isaiah 53:7, "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep before it shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth."  Jesus fulfilled these verses in His trial before the chief priest. Matthew 26:63 says, "But Jesus remained silent.  And the high priest said to him, 'I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God'."  The same thing is found in Mark 14:61, "But he remained silent and made no answer.  Again the high priest asked him, 'Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed'?"  Jesus also restrained Himself when he stood before the Roman proconsul Pilate.  John 19:9 says, "He [Pilate] entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, 'Where are you from?' But Jesus gave him no answer."  1 Peter 2:23 says, "When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly."

Psalm 38:20 says, "Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good."  We can all relate to this, as we all have good intentions (well, most of the time anyway).  3 John 11 says, "Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good.  Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God."

We cry out with David, who wrote in Psalm 38:21, "Do not forsake me, O Lord!  O my God, be not far from me!"  Yet we see in Matthew 27:45 and again in Mark 15:34, "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani'?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Whenever we feel god-forsaken, we can look to Christ Jesus, who took on human flesh and walked among us.  Whenever our minds are centered on Him, we know that we are not truly forsaken by God, because Jesus was forsaken for us.  He took our sins upon Himself and became the perfect sacrifice for us, so that we can call God our Father.  "But for You, O Lord, do I wait," says Psalm 38:15.  "It is You, O Lord my God, who will answer."

Majesty

 

The amount of time we spend with Jesus--meditating on His Word and His majesty, seeking His face--establishes our fruitfulness in the kingdom.  --Charles Stanley

A pastor and his wife went camping in the mountains.  In the middle of the night the woman whispers, "Honey, are you awake?"  The young man says, "Yes. I am just lying here staring at the stars, feeling the cool breeze, and enjoying the mountain air."  His wife asks, "What do you think it all means?"  The young pastor says, "I can't help but think of the words of Psalm 8: 'When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?' What doe is mean to you?"  His wife replies, "I think it means somebody stole our tent."

We are in a series of studies surround Jesus in the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms.  Today we will look at Psalm 8 specifically.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth!  You have set Your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, You have established strength because of Your foes, to still an enemy and the avenger.  When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and stars, which You have set in place, what is man that your are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?  Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  You have given him dominion over the works of Your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes a long the paths of the seas.  O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth!

 One of the most beautiful, and succinct, poems in all of Scripture.  Yet in these 9 verses there lies a great deal of theology.  Let's begin to unpack it here.  

C.S. Lewis wrote, "In its literal sense this short, exquisite lyric is simplicity itself--an expression of wonder at man and man's place in Nature (there is a chorus in Sophocles not unlike it) and therefore at God who appointed it.  God is wonderful both as champion or 'judge' and as Creator.  When one looks up at the sky, and all the stars which are His work, it seems strange that He should be concerned at all with such things a man.  Yet in fact, he has, down here on earth, given us extra-ordinary honour--made us Lord's of all the other creatures." (C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, pg 155.)

Genesis 1:28 says "And God blessed them.  And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth'."  The psalmist David refers back to creation with wonder and awe.  Why in the world would God place all living things in subjection to man?  It may be because we were made in His image; it may also be due to to the fact that we are called by His name.  We will speak more on this later.

After the Fall, this was not so evident.  When man lost fellowship with God, the balance of nature was upended.  "The Christian writer observes that, in the actual state of the universe, this [nature's subjection to man] is not strictly true.  Man is often killed, and still more often defeated, by beasts, poisonous vegetables, weather, earthquakes, etc." (Lewis, pgs 155-156).  God Himself has had to intervene directly to protect mankind from exposure to the elements (see Genesis 3:21, the first sacrifice: "And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them.")  He also had to intervene personally to cover our sins.

We look a bit deeper into the Psalm, and we see it is not only talking about Adam (and Adam's seed--us), but it speaks directly about Jesus.  What evidence is there to support this interpretation?  We need only to look at Hebrews 2:6-9.

It has been testified somewhere, "What is man, that You are mindful of him, or the Son of Man, that You care for Him?  You made Him for a little while lower than the angels; You have crowned Him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under His feet."  Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside of His control.  At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him.  But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.

 The writer of Hebrews takes this account of creation and gives it a deeper meaning.  Quoting from Psalm 8 directly, he draws a straight line to Christ Jesus.  "In Psalm 8:5, the phrase 'a little lower,' m'at in Hebrew, can also be translated temporarily as 'a little while.'  This is significant.  It means that the 'little while' of Psalm 8 refers to the earthly life of Jesus, his sufferings and death.  After this 'little while', He was 'crowned with glory and honor,' befitting a King." (Chad Bird, The Christ Key pg 167.

There is another reference to Psalm 8 in the New Testament.  1 Corinthians 15:20-28 makes the case for Christ in the Psalm as well.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.  For as by a man came death, by a Man has come also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.  But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ.  Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.  For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death.  For "God has put all things in subjection under His feet."  But when it says, "all things are put in subjection," it is p lain that He is excepted who put all things in subjection under Him.  When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to Him who put all things in subjection under Him, that God may be all in all.

If nature has the upper hand, defeating man during his lifetime and resulting in man's death, then it is God who has put all things in subjection under the feet of Jesus, who is the second Adam.   Since Jesus defeated death in His resurrection, and God has put all things in subjection under His feet, then we can only look to Jesus as our hope of glory (see Colossians 1:27).

Let's look at one more New Testament reference to Psalm 8, from the words of Jesus Himself.  Matthew 21:15-16 says, "But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!', they were indignant, and they said to Him, 'Do you hear what these are saying?'  And Jesus said to them, 'Yes; have you never read, 'Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise'?"  Jesus quoted Psalm 8:2 back to them, saying this was a fulfillment of prophetic Scripture that children should praise Him.  How it must have burned their hearts when the chief priests and scribes recalled the second part of Psalm 8:2 ("You have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.")

Not only did Jesus use this verse as a fulfillment of prophecy, but he burned the chief priests and scribes, equating them as enemies of God and associates of Satan, the avenger.  Not only did David prophesy that "out of the mouths of babes" should come praise, but that the more they opposed Jesus the stronger He would get.

Finally, let's look at the first and last verses in Psalm 8.  "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your Name."  When we look at the various ways the Son of God appeared to people in the Old Testament, "He also appears as the Son of man, Glory, Power, and Name.  The last one, the 'name of God,' in some OT passages, is distinguished from the Lord Himself.  God's Name dwells with Israel (Deut. 12:11).  His Name is in the temple (1 Kings 8:16).  'Our help is in the Name of the Lord,' the psalmist says (Ps. 124:8).  John is reflecting this OT understanding of the name = the person in his Gospel.  After Jesus says that the 'hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified (John 12:23, my italics), he prays, 'Father, glorify Your Name" (12:28, my italics).  See the parallel? The 'Son of Man' is the 'Name' of God.  Based on this, when Psalm 8 says that the Name of God is majestic, the poet may be suggesting this: 'O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is that One who is Your Name in all the earth!'" (Bird, pg 165).

Philippians 2:10 says, "that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth."  His Majesty, indeed!