Category: Psalms

Mercy and Contempt

~ John Grimm ~ 1 Comment 
Psalm 123 (NRSV)
A Song of Ascents.

To you I lift up my eyes,
    O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
As the eyes of servants
    look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
    to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
    until he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
    for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than its fill
    of the scorn of those who are at ease,
    of the contempt of the proud.

By John Grimm

I noticed something cool about my dogs.  When they are lying on the floor or on the ground, they will look up at me.  When they greet me when I arrive at home, the dogs will look up at me.  They look up to me because they know they can trust me.  Or they are looking for their next treat!

Yes, it is about trust when we are lifting up our eyes to the Lord our God.  It is God who can be trusted to give us mercy.  God will correct us, but he also has mercy for us.  Sometimes, we will have to continuously look to the Lord our God.  In the process, it will be a good idea to repent of known and unknown sins.  God hears the prayers of a repentant heart.

Now, those who have been contemptuous toward us and scorned us, what do we do about them?  As this psalm leaves out any retribution, we also leave out any retribution.  It has happened that as God has had mercy on people, those others who have had contempt and scorn towards God’s people actually turn to God.  God will take care of those who give contempt and scorn.  We need not concern ourselves with that.  We do continue to look for the one enthroned in the heavens so we may see him and receive mercy.

O Lord, more than our master or our mistress give us their attention, you give your attention to us.  When we seek you, we find you.  May we know your mercy as people give us contempt and scorn.  May even those who give us contempt and scorn receive your mercy, we ask in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

At the Funeral

~ John Grimm ~ 1 Comment 
Psalm 130
A Song of Ascents.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
    Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my supplications!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you,
    so that you may be revered.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
    more than those who watch for the morning,
    more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel
    from all its iniquities.

By John Grimm

When attending a United Methodist Church member’s funeral, we most likely have heard this psalm read during the “Entrance” of the Service of Death and Resurrection.  This service is found in the United Methodist Hymnal, 870, and the Book of Worship.  After acknowledging our grief, this psalm is read.  It is both a confession of sin and an expression of hope.

As we are all created equal by God, hearing this psalm read at numerous funerals is appropriate.  To humbly ask the Lord for something can be hard.  It is at funerals of our loved ones and friends that we seem to be begging for hope for our life without the departed.  As this psalm moves toward hope, it sets the tone for the rest of the service as Old and New Testament Lessons, Psalm 23, and a Gospel reading are read during a funeral.  It is these lessons that draw out what hope in Jesus Christ looks like.

We know our sins.  Our iniquities are ever before us.  Our transgressions weigh us down.  By going to God in prayer, we confess our wrongs.  This psalm reminds us of the Lord who redeems and forgives.  That is where hope comes, knowing that the Lord redeems and forgives us, and our departed loved ones.

Almighty God, thank you that when we cry out to you, you hear our confessions.  It is by your steadfast love that we have hope.  We thank you for forgiving and redeeming us.  Our hope in you is what carries us through times of grief.  Thank you that Jesus is our hope.  It is in Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.

Redeemed from Trouble

~ John Grimm ~ 2 Comments 
Psalm 107:1-3 (NRSV)

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    for his steadfast love endures forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
    those he redeemed from trouble
and gathered in from the lands,
    from the east and from the west,
    from the north and from the south.

By John Grimm

It is fascinating to hear the statement: “You are not from around here.”

My accent shows that I am not from around here.  As we are preparing to live in the kingdom of God, then each redeemed person will know that we are not from around here!  It will be a joy to tell the Lord how good he is when we are living fully in the kingdom of God.

In the meantime, we get to give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love.  It is now, today, that we can say that the Lord has redeemed us from trouble.  Was that trouble of our own making, an addiction or decision we made?  Was that trouble of someone else’s making, an accident or a decision they made, and we allowed ourselves to sin in response to those circumstances?  Through Jesus Christ, we discover that we are redeemed, brought out of trouble.  We get to say that Jesus has redeemed us.

Even today, we can hear how the Lord has redeemed people from all over the world.  It is a time of thanksgiving when we hear how God has redeemed people not from around here.  No matter our accent, we can give thanks to the Lord for his steadfast love redeeming us from trouble.  Will we start saying that we are redeemed so people not from around here can know the goodness of the Lord?

Lord, thank you for being good.  Your steadfast love endures forever.  You are redeeming people from all over the world.  Gather these redeemed people in our local churches so we can start living in your kingdom even now.  Guide us in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Restore Us, O God

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment 
Psalm 80:1-3 (NRSV)

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
    you who lead Joseph like a flock!
You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth
    before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh.
Stir up your might,
    and come to save us!

Restore us, O God;
    let your face shine, that we may be saved.

By Chuck Griffin

What we now call the Old Testament is full of oscillation, the relationship between God and his chosen people moving in and out of harmony.

God’s abundant love and astonishing holiness never change, of course. It is people, then and now, who draw near to God in works of mercy and piety or run away from God as they sin. Sometimes we run so far that God seems to have slumbered or even poured out wrath.

For the fallen—and we all have been among the fallen—that plea, “Restore us, O God,” is an excellent starting point. Of course, we cannot say “restore us” as we continue to run away. We have to at least turn toward God, like the prodigal son climbing out of the pig sty and taking his first step on the walk home. We have to repent.

While sin deeply offends God’s holiness, God’s love keeps our creator alert to our return. Through his chosen people, he has even made the return easy, ready to embrace us with outstretched arms. He came among us while we were deep in sin, living among us and ultimately paying for those sins on the cross.

“Stir up your might, and come to save us!” the people prayed in Psalm 80. And God did, in ways with far greater global impact than they likely imagined.

Can we lift up the same cry, in our own lives and on behalf of our own people, whomever they may be?

Lord, let us see a turning toward you, moving us into a time when your grace abundantly flows, bringing healing and salvation to all. Amen.

Let the Music Play

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment 
Psalm 150 (NLT)

Praise the Lord!

Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heaven!
Praise him for his mighty works;
    praise his unequaled greatness!
Praise him with a blast of the ram’s horn;
    praise him with the lyre and harp!
Praise him with the tambourine and dancing;
    praise him with strings and flutes!
Praise him with a clash of cymbals;
    praise him with loud clanging cymbals.
Let everything that breathes sing praises to the Lord!

Praise the Lord!

By Chuck Griffin

As someone regularly involved in leading worship, I have to acknowledge where I am and am not gifted. Music is definitely an area where I need to step back and let others take charge.

I love worship music, though, and singing is a critical part of worship. When the singing has to be muted or subdued, as it has been during the pandemic, I am among the first to recognize how we suffer.

Psalm 150 makes it clear how noisy worship should be, at least at times. (There’s a place in worship for deep, meaningful silence, too.) The word “exuberance” comes to mind.

One thing I’ve learned over the years—musical exuberance comes in many forms. I’ve been blessed to pastor churches employing all sorts of music styles, and I’ve seen how every style has the potential to glorify God.

Some rural folk would immediately reject the idea of “high” worship being inspiring, but some of the best worship I’ve ever experienced was at a Methodist church that focused on the organ, the choir, and a highly disciplined, classical sound. These people knew how to inspire worshipers with music that often was centuries old.

I’ve also been blessed to have a similar experience during so-called “contemporary” worship in its many different forms. (This style should significantly change how it sounds every decade or so if it’s going to stay contemporary. Otherwise, it is just a particular generation’s preference.) I have been in services with a bluegrass or southern gospel sound that have brought me to tears, too.

Here’s the key: It’s not the style of the music, it’s the intent of the music leaders and the worshipers as they follow along. If God is praised through the music, if God is glorified, God’s Spirit will flow through what is happening, and we will feel inner transformation during the experience.

If the music comes across like a performance—if someone other than God is glorified—the whole service is likely to fall flat.

I thank God regularly for those of you with musical gifts, whether you are pianists, organists, guitarists, singers, fiddlers, banjo pickers, saxophonists, drummers, cymbal crashers or tambourine shakers. Keep doing what you do to the glory of our Lord and Savior.

Lord, thank you for the gift of music. It touches our souls in places words can never reach. Amen.

There It Is!

~ John Grimm ~ Leave a comment 
Psalm 133 (NRSV)
A Song of Ascents.

How very good and pleasant it is
    when kindred live together in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
    running down upon the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
    running down over the collar of his robes.
It is like the dew of Hermon,
    which falls on the mountains of Zion.
For there the Lord ordained his blessing,
    life forevermore.

By John Grimm

The kindred we know and appreciate in the church are all those who believe that Jesus Christ is their Lord and their Savior. This news seems self-evident. However, we know from experience that we do not treat each other as kindred. As Jesus’ people, we may even show preference to those who act, think, and smell like us! Yet, living our preferences keeps us from seeing unity.

Being who we are as children of God, even brothers and sisters in Christ, is ordained by God. We get to recognize the joy of the oil running down upon Aaron’s beard when we have unity. We get to relish the pleasantness of the dew on Mount Hermon when we have unity. The early church discovered this fact as they kept on loving each other through the growing pains of thousands being added to their number in Acts 2.

It is in unity that we discover the Lord’s blessing. Are we experiencing unity in our local church right now? Are we seeing life forevermore being lived within our congregation? We know what to do. We say those wonderful words to each other. Go ahead and say them, we will not hurt ourselves. We tell each other, “I forgive you.” Then we get to experience the Lord’s blessing in our local church.

Forgiving and blessing God, thank you for making a way for us to have unity in our local church. Your Son did not die and rise again so we could fight among ourselves. You want to give us your blessing. As you forgive us, we love each other enough to do the same. May we experience life forever more as are united in Jesus’ name and with each other in our local church. Amen.

Enduring Love

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment 
Psalm 118:1-2 (NLT)

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!
    His faithful love endures forever.

Let all Israel repeat:
    “His faithful love endures forever.”

By Chuck Griffin

The opening to Psalm 118 asserts a truth that some people find difficult. Perhaps that’s why it is worth repeating.

In the midst of life’s problems, we can feel God has forsaken us. Those dark times can be deeply frustrating, at least until the moment when God does break through to remind us of his grace.

The Easter season is a good time to remember just how powerfully God has broken through and will continue to break through. For no clear reason, other than the fact God is eternally loving, our savior came among us in flesh to die for our sins, making eternal life for us possible.

While dying, Jesus Christ also felt that loneliness we sometimes feel: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” His cry from the cross was a quote from Psalm 22, another place in Scripture we can go when we feel forgotten.

Yes, Jesus died, but always remember, the stone was rolled back. Morning light made its way into the tomb, and the resurrected Jesus stepped forth. The resurrection proves Christ defeated the darkness that sometimes seems to surround us, including what can seem like the deep darkness of death.

Remember this, too: Until Christ is seen in full, we are to be voices in the darkness, offering hope to those who think they will never see light again.

Lord, in difficult times, give us unique signs of your presence to carry us through. Amen.

Right from the Start

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment 
Psalm 119:9-16 (NRSV)
How can young people keep their way pure?
    By guarding it according to your word.
With my whole heart I seek you;
    do not let me stray from your commandments.
I treasure your word in my heart,
    so that I may not sin against you.
Blessed are you, O Lord;
    teach me your statutes.
With my lips I declare
    all the ordinances of your mouth.
I delight in the way of your decrees
    as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts,
    and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
    I will not forget your word.

Over the last couple of decades, I’ve had a few parents tell me an odd theory about their children’s religious upbringing. Essentially, they told me they intended to bring up their children with no religious instruction at all, allowing their kids to “choose for themselves” when old enough.

Surprisingly, some of the parents had been raised with the benefit of a religious education—Sunday school and such, if not more.

It continues to strike me as a terribly dangerous strategy, one that assumes a child exists in some sort of theological vacuum until reaching adulthood. “Theology” roughly translates as “reasoning about God.” Understanding how God has defined holy and unholy behaviors since the earliest days of civilization is critical to this process.

Children are, of course, deeply impressionable, and if their parents aren’t helping them develop a sense of right and wrong rooted in theology, people in the world will be happy to introduce them to all sorts of notions that may be very ungodly, and even deadly.

Frankly, I doubt if these parents actually left their children to their own devices. They almost certainly told their children what they considered permissible and impermissible, not realizing they simply were teaching their version of righteousness—likely a mish-mash of thought disconnected from the true source of righteousness. “But why?” must have been a tough question to answer.

Today’s verses from Psalm 119 tell us of the importance of exploring God’s word from an early age. In my mind, the pattern for Christian education is simple. Children need to learn the stories of the Bible, being allowed to ask the good questions they always have.

As they grow into adolescence, they then learn to take the principles found in those stories, principles often more fully developed in the non-narrative portions of the Bible, and apply what they have learned to their own lives.

By the time they are young adults, they have begun an ongoing process of interaction with Scripture, a process that should continue for a lifetime. What we pray for them is a life full of deep and nuanced theological thought, one resulting in actions aligned with God’s will.

Lord, bless the children we bring to you with understanding, and may that understanding grow into the wisdom so desperately needed in the future as they take their place among our leaders. May they lead the world down a path headed directly toward you. Amen.

Sin Sick

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment 
Psalm 107:17-22 (NRSV)
Some were sick through their sinful ways,
    and because of their iniquities endured affliction;
they loathed any kind of food,
    and they drew near to the gates of death.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he saved them from their distress;
he sent out his word and healed them,
    and delivered them from destruction.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
    for his wonderful works to humankind.
And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices,
    and tell of his deeds with songs of joy.

We live in a relatively libertine society—by that, I mean we are far less interested in forcibly repressing people’s behaviors than most societies have been throughout history. That’s generally a good thing, as people tend to develop disdain for heavy-handed institutions, be they secular or religious.

As we value our freedom, however, we Christians can sometimes forget to deliver a basic warning found in Scripture. Freely chosen sins can do a lot of damage to our bodies and our souls, hustling us along toward death.

I’m not saying that all sickness is a direct result of sin. Jesus made that clear enough in John 9, where we find the story of Jesus healing a man born blind. The disciples, caught up in the fallacy that all infirmities had a direct tie to sin, asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

There’s no doubt, however, that many sins are capable of dissipating us, leaving us less than what we should be as God’s creation. And we should always remember that what we might perceive as the smallest sin separates us from God, putting us in need of Jesus Christ as Savior.

There is physical illness tied to sexual sin, of course, diseases we cannot get as long as both husband and wife remain faithful in marriage. There also are the heightened physical risks we face when sins like pride, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony and sloth lead us to encounters where injury becomes likely.

When I read this portion of Psalm 107, I also get a deep sense that the psalmist is thinking of turmoil within the soul that may manifest itself as mental illness, as well as physical. We are broken in ways that allow us to sin, but made in God’s image, we were not designed for sin. The internal overpressure has to manifest itself in some way.

As we see further along in the psalm, there is a way out, a path back to wholeness and wellness. God wants that for us. God made that possible through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross.

Belief brings healing.

Lord, we pray specifically today for those among us who suffer mental or physical illness because of sin. We petition our risen savior to grant healing wherever it is needed. Where bodies cannot be fixed, may the souls within find full repair through a relationship with Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Full Experience

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment 
Psalm 84:10-12

For a day in your courts is better
    than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
    than live in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
    he bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does the Lord withhold
    from those who walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts,
    happy is everyone who trusts in you.

As short as Psalm 84 is, I want to focus on just the closing verses today. Nothing blesses us like the presence of God. Absolutely nothing.

If we could fully grasp this truth and live it out each day, most of our problems would vanish. Idolatry in all its forms, ancient and new, would be a thing of the past. Making a list of priorities would be the simplest act we would ever undertake.

The briefest moment in God’s full presence would transcend time and space, giving us a sense of what eternity is really all about. The substance of our more mundane moments would be altered in ways we can barely imagine.

No wonder the psalmist is willing to simply hang out near the door. Such proximity to God offers safety, as evil will never come near such a place. The tents of wickedness are lovely, even beautiful, but what is inside them is the opposite of what’s across that threshold.

The temple this psalm evokes is gone, but we don’t need it anymore. The presence of God is available in those places God has said we will be met: in prayer, in God’s holy word, in worship and in fellowship with committed Christians. God’s Spirit inhabits all these places, awaiting us.

Don’t just stand at the threshold. Step in!

Lord, may this season of Lent renew our desire to be in your presence, a possibility made so easy by Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.