In the atmosphere of contemporary Western Christianity, when someone voices a lament with the intensity frequently found in the Psalms, it is not uncommon for them to be looked at aghast or derided for their deficient faith and concept of God, which has produced such a so-called absence of trust. “If you really knew who God was,” they might say (or one might tell themselves), “you wouldn’t feel this way.” Yet when we look to the Psalms themselves, it is indeed the biblical and thoroughly Hebrew concept of God which provides fertile ground for the most poignant and unsettling of complaints. That our concept of God results in a lament-less spirituality, while the Hebrew faith invariably gives rise to lament, should indict us of our own deficient concept of God.

Allow me to illustrate.

Verses 1-13 of Psalm 10 voices a gut-wrenching cry to God, including the charges that

• God is standing far off (v. 1)
• He is hiding (v. 1)
• He is not lifting a finger to help us (v. 12)
• He is forgetting the afflicted (v. 12)

These near blasphemous claims, to a Western Christian, would obviously arise from a lack of understanding concerning God’s sovereignty (he is in total control), omnipresence (he can’t technically be “far off”), and omniscience (he can’t forget). Yet, these complaints do arise from a concept of God, albeit, a somewhat different one. Verses 14-18 give the justification, the rationale so-to-speak, for verses 1-13.

• He sees, specifically trouble and grief (v. 14) – a corollary would be that he identifies such as trouble and grief, not as a “blessing in disguise”
• The purpose of his “seeing” is not an abstract omniscience, but “so that you might take it into your hands” – i.e., act on behalf of the afflicted
• He is the helper of orphans – he helps the helpless (v. 14)
• He is King (v. 16)
• He he hears the desires of the afflicted (v. 17)
• God hears in order “to vindicate the orphan and the oppressed” – he is a God of justice who vindicates the downtrodden (v. 18)

Interestingly, the notion that “God is King” (v. 16), which is essentially what the concept of “sovereignty” means (i.e., God is the “sovereign,” the king), does not produce an apathetic acquiescence to divine pre-determination as it so frequently does in Western Christianity. Rather, it undergirds a cry for God to change what he is doing–don’t sit there continuing to do nothing – get up, lift your hand to help us! The Western deterministic concept of God (God determines how every event unfolds) leads us not to lament in the face of suffering, but to “trust” God in all things, that is, accept everything that happens, good or bad, as a blessing from God. After all, since he is all-knowing, he knows better than our limited understanding. Yet the Hebrew concept of sovereignty (God is King), or divine omniscience (he sees and hears all things), does not produce an acceptance of everything that happens (including evil), but rather, a resistance of all we know to contradict God’s revealed nature. God is the helper of orphans, therefore I cannot reconcile myself with any event, circumstance or person that promotes evil, hatred and violence towards people God loves. While faith can stabilize us in perseverance towards God’s yet unfinished future, true biblical faith refuses to ignore the open wound of humanity in the name of any theological construct, but rather suffers under it. In anticipation of God’s faithfulness to his Word and revealed character, faith and hope rejects any conciliation with a world marred by sin and death. In such we lament – with a cry both loud and strong, bearing an inexplicable mourning as we await, with all the saints and the entire creation, the future of God’s faithfulness.

While the Psalms abound with such examples, one further illustration could be taken from Psalm 74. Here the lament includes:

• God has rejected us (v. 1)
• His anger smokes against us (v. 1)
• God has not remembered us (v. 2)
• Our land has become a perpetual ruin (v. 3)
• Our adversaries have roared in our midst (v. 4)
• God is holding back his hand (v. 11)
• God is keeping his hand in his bosom (v. 12)

In verses 12-17, the mood seems to completely change, recounting the history of God’s mighty acts:

• God is King (i.e., “sovereign”) (v. 12)
• He works salvation and deliverance for his people (v. 12)
• He divided the Red Sea to save his people (v. 13)
• He destroyed the enemies of his people (v. 14)
• He is the mighty creator (vv. 16-17)

This kind of belief in God – a confession of God’s mighty deeds – the Hebrew concept of God – does not reduce the lament. It does not invalidate the previous expression of sorrow. Neither does it produce a response of apathy like “well now this is true, we have nothing to worry about” (and nothing to care about either). Rather, verses 18 and following of the Psalm go back into lament, pleading with God to act and not forget those who are oppressed as targets of violence. In all, this pattern we see in the Psalms should tweak the way we neatly package God in theological terms bearing the prefix “omni” or any other prefix for that matter. The God of the Bible is the God Who Acts, specifically on behalf of his people. He is the God of Justice. When these dear beliefs are contradicted, we do not sink into the swamp of apathetic malaise which we can call “trust” if we are so inclined. Rather, we allow a cry to well up from the depths – a shattering protest and earnest appeal, mourning the absence of this God of Justice. All is not well, all is not okay, and in such we feel, and feel deeply. This pain of godforsakenness is not a wonderful place to be. However, I would much rather be there, than in the catatonia of a faith that shuts its eyes to trouble and misery and closes its ears to the cries of the afflicted, rattling off some theological platitude in the stead of sorrow. For in the agonizing depths of godforsakenness, the crucified Jesus is always present – suffering with us – our friend and companion in grief.

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Whenever there are times of great difficulty, pain or suffering, we naturally ask God questions. I once heard someone remark that in a certain instance people were “asking God the wrong questions.” The notion of asking God the “wrong question” struck me, so I made a quick breeze through the Psalms exploring what the God-inspired Scripture indicates are the “right questions” to ask God. The “right questions” might shock the refined sensibilities of affluent Western (i.e., quasi-gnostic, quasi-Victorian) spirituality. I’ve often heard that when going through a difficulty the right question to ask God is “what are you teaching me through this trial?” Strangely, I did not find that one in the Psalms. The Psalmists are rather uninhibited in their gritty and unvarnished processing of pain before God. Granted, these questions are not the entirety of this process. But they are where the process must start. Giving an answer is a meaningless abstraction apart from the concrete and often disconcerting question to which it corresponds. Comfort that denies the problem is merely delusion. The Psalmist does not simply “surrender to the sovereignty of God” or “discern what God is trying to teach.” The right question is the question that allows the full release of lamentation which is lodged in the soul whether it is expressed or not. Failure to express such reality only brings our relationship with God into the placid oblivion of unreality. The honesty modeled in the Psalms is the gateway into a deeper relationship with God and true Biblical spirituality.

My soul also is struck with terror, while you, O LORD—how long?

For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?

Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

Why do the wicked renounce God, and say in their hearts, “You will not call us to account”?

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

“What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?

How long, O LORD, will you look on? Rescue me from their ravages, my life from the lions!

I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”

For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you cast me off? Why must I walk about mournfully because of the oppression of the enemy?

Have you not rejected us, O God?

O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?

How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
Why do you hold back your hand; why do you keep your hand in your bosom?

“Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable?
Has his steadfast love ceased forever? Are his promises at an end for all time?
Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Selah

How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?

Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes.

O LORD God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?

Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?

Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? Selah
Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?

O LORD, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?

How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire?

Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?

Have you not rejected us, O God?

My eyes fail with watching for your promise; I ask, “When will you comfort me?”

How long must your servant endure? When will you judge those who persecute me?

(Psalm 6:3, 5; 10:1, 13; 13:1; 22:1; 30:9; 35:17; 42:9; 43:2; 60:10; 74:1; 74:10, 11; 77:7-9; 79:5, 10; 80:4; 85:5-6; 88:10-12, 14; 89:46, 49; 108:11; 119:82, 84)

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The Book of Psalms is an incredible gift of God to the Church. Regularly singing the entire book of Psalms is the spiritual practice I commend to people most frequently. Their uniqueness lies in while most of Scripture portrays the history of Israel from either a God’s-eye or birds-eye view, the Psalm give us the inside perspective of how Israel experienced their life before God, and simultaneously invites us into the personal experience of that very Story. Praying the entire book of Psalms is the core of the Daily Office and thus should never be downplayed, omitted or shortened.

Historically, the entire office developed from this nucleus of psalmody. Even as far back as the Desert Fathers and Mothers (4th century), it was common for a monk to pray the entire book of Psalms every single day. As St. Benedict established in the sixth century, it became standard practice for the Psalms to be recited once per week. To this kernel of Psalms were added Scriptural readings, prayers and chants which eventually grew into the formal structures of the Daily Office.  When Cranmer released the Book of Common Prayer in 1549, the entire Psalter was to be prayed each month. The 1979 edition makes provision for either a 7-week or one-month cycle.

Interestingly enough, my practice of praying the Daily Office began by praying the psalms. I heard somewhere that Martin Luther had the entire book of psalms memorized from singing it through every week as a monk. I don’t really know if the story is true, but I decided that I wanted the same to be true of me in 30 years. So I began singing through the Book of Psalms on a weekly basis. I’ll tell you, that when I did it the first time, I discovered how completely unfamiliar I was with the Psalms. Many passages, I felt like I had never heard or read before.

The Psalms are rather strange in the light of contemporary Christianity. Yet their incredible richness stems from a form of spirituality that is a marked alternative to the quasi-gnostic forms of spirituality that masquerade throughout the Church as Biblical. The Psalms represent to us the most concrete and expansive expression of a truly Biblical Spirituality. In contrast to a quasi-gnostic nihilism that might say “nothing in the world matters” or that history, the life of the body, circumstances, etc. all don’t matter because of Jesus (or something akin to that), the Psalmists seem to strongly believe that their lives on earth truly matter and truly matter to God. The Spirituality of the Psalms is not an “I’ll retreat into my inner life because there nothing in the world matters” but rather a much more risky partnership with the compassionate God who draws near to His people in the earthly life so unstable, unpredictable, full of calamity yet imbibed with meaning by virtue of the God who created it and continually chooses to acknowledge its worth. God’s constant intervention into earthly life (or the groan rising from the absence of God’s intervention) persistently affirms the value of an earthly, bodily, physical, sensory, historical, full-of-feeling existence which remains under the persistent threat of a nihilism seeking to render it meaningless. This spirituality, though very much full of hope (and indeed precisely because it is), never allows us to “soar above the vale of tears” but again and again brings us into a suffering resistance to the violence, evil, injustice and death that so marks our age.

OK – I’m trying just to teach you how to pray the Psalms, but sometimes I get really excited. I am really passionate about the Psalms and their Spirituality. Eventually (since I already have 4 or 5 series after this one already planned), I’ll come back and unpack this previous overly-long paragraph.

Back to the Prayerbook.

This page should look familiar from the last time.

Immediately after the Phos Hilaron, or any opening hymn/song/canticle, follows the “Psalms Appointed.” This means the Psalms that are appointed for the day, according to whatever schedule of Psalms you happen to be following (I’ll come back to this in a second). The rubrics say that the Gloria Patri (“Glory to the Father, and to the Son…”) is said at the end of the Psalms. This could be either after each Psalm (or section of Psalm 119, or other Psalm that is split up), or after all the Psalms prayed/sung at that time. I like to sing to the Gloria Patri after every Psalm because it helps me focus (and refocus) on praying to the actual persons of the Trinity, the overflowing community of self-giving love.

We’ve skipped a few pages now to # 585. The BCP contains the entire Book of Psalms.

“First Day: Morning Prayer” is the first of many indicators included right in the text of the Psalter that divides the Psalms into a 30-day schedule. If you pray both Morning and Evening Prayer, then you would pray them as divided for Morning and Evening. If you pray only one office per day, you would pray both the Morning and Evening psalms for each given day. If you want to sing the Psalter twice a month, use Days 1 and 2 on the first day, 3 and 4 on the second day, etc.

If you’re not using the BCP but just want to pray the Psalms out of your Bible, click here to download a schedule for dividing the Psalter into monthly, bi-monthly or weekly schedules.

Since it is a 30-day schedule, the “First Day” means the first day of the calendar month. On months with more than 30 days you can pick any day to repeat. In February (less than 30 days), you’ll just skip the days not in the month and start back again at the beginning on March 1.

We’ve skipped pages again – now we’re at 936.

This is the first page from the Daily Office Lectionary. A lectionary is a schedule of readings according to the Church Year.

I’ll explain how to navigate the lectionary more when I discuss the “Readings” section of the Office next time, but for now, notice how next to Sunday at the very top, there are the numbers “146, 147 * 111, 112, 113.“

These are Psalms for each day according to a 7-week schedule. The Psalms left of the asterisk are for Morning Prayer and right of the asterisk are for Evening Prayer. Again, if you pray one office daily, pray both sets of Psalms.

This schedule obviously does not move sequentially through the Psalms like the 30-day schedule. However, it is preferable if you have less time available to pray the Office.

An additional option for one with limited time would be to do a 60-day cycle through the Psalms – by praying the First Day: Morning Prayer Psalms on Day 1, then First Day Evening Prayer on Day 2, and so on.

That’s it! Having completed the Opening (section 1) and the Psalms (section 2), next time I’ll discuss the third major section of the Daily Office – the Readings.

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After a lengthy google search, I managed to discover one Protestant church in the greater Kansas City area was having an Ascension Day service last Thursday. Overjoyed at finding my quarry, I happily drove the 20+ minutes to attend this service. Including myself and the other person who came with me, there were five people in attendance, including one person who arrived half way through. I guess this means that in Kansas City, approximately 4.5 Protestants celebrated Ascension Day this year. I wonder if this is an all time record low since the founding of Kansas City. Suffice to say, celebrating the Ascension of Jesus is not high on the priority list, let alone on the radar screen of the Protestant Church at large.

But why should it? The Ascension is one of those topics that seems to have slipped off the general theological grid in contemporary Christianity (nevermind the Presentation or Transfiguration). Both the ascension and session (“being seated at the right hand of the Father”) of Jesus are given prominent places in both the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed (indeed, considering what is NOT said in the creeds, being mentioned at all is a place of prominence). The early church apparently considered the Ascension to be a critical component of true Christian faith. However, perusing through one of the most popular evangelical systematic theology books in print at present, the Ascension is squashed into the end of the chapter on the resurrection. In fact, the topics of providence, miracles, angels, satan and demons, the di/trichotomy of human nature, election and reprobation and the intermediate state EACH receive more coverage than the resurrection and ascension combined, though the early church didn’t perceive any of those topics to be crucial enough to be included in the creeds.

I am gathering that Ascension Day has come to such a low place of recognition because in the average evangelical consciousness, the possible meaning for the ascension is rather opaque. Perhaps, if at all, it is endowed with a negative meaning - Jesus is no longer with us in person. We are alone to do what he told us to do until he finally comes back. I hope in the following to merely in outline, amend this theological lacuna, which turns out to be significantly more practical and pastoral than one at first might imagine.

1) The Ascension means Jesus is the world’s true Lord.

The grand prayer in Ephesians 1 culminates with the statement that after God raised Jesus from the dead, he “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,   far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.” To be in heaven is not to be “out-of-sight out-of-mind.” Rather, heaven in the Bible is thought of as the “control center” for the earth (cf. the parallelism in 2 Chr. 20:6; Job 38:33; Ps. 103:19). For Jesus to be seated in heaven, means that he is the world’s true lord and king over all.

2) The Ascension means heaven and earth are not as far apart as we might have thought.

It is funny how the way we think is often opposite to the way reality works. When we think of the ascension, we think of Jesus going away and not being with us. The exact opposite is expressed in Matthew 28. While this passage does not explicitly mention the ascension, it bears several features in common with the end of Luke and the beginning of Acts including Jesus taking his disciples to a mountain, teaching them and commissioning them to spread the gospel. It is not a stretch to think that they were the same event (though it technically doesn’t matter for what I am about to say). It is precisely here that he gives the promise, “I am with you always even to the end of the age.” How can Jesus ascend to heaven and be with us always? It is commonly assumed that this promise refers to the Holy Spirit. But what about the 10 days in between the ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit? Where those days exempted from “always.” The only way this can be true is if Jesus can be “in heaven” and with us at the same time. My sense is that this promise implies something that we as contemporary Christians often fail to grasp – that early Judaism conceived of heaven and earth, not as discrete locations a long way off from each other – but as two overlapping and interlocking dimensions of God’s created world. Think about this one the next time you are shouting at God “up in heaven.”

3) The Ascension means that the restoration of the full destiny of humanity and the entire earth is not as far off as we might have thought.

Hebrews 2 quotes Psalm 8 in saying “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them. You have made them a little lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.” The Psalmist’s awe at God’s consideration of humankind has less to do with “feeling good about yourself” as much as it does with the role and destiny God gave human beings of ruling the earth (cf. Gen. 1). It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if humans are ruling the world, they are doing a terrible job, but more so it seems like the world is completely out of the control of humans. Lots of people seem desirous to do things right, whether in personal, familial, local, national or global contexts, be we can never seem to get it right, and often make matters worse either by our incompetence or intention.

The author to the Hebrews agrees with this in quite an understatement – “As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them (meaning humans).” He goes on to say, “but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.” How precisely is this an answer to the problem that God gave humans rulership over the earth, and as of yet it is completely out of control, full of death, decay and despair?  Because, Jesus as a human has been exalted to the heavens, he now sits in a place of rulership over the earth. Though we do not yet see the earth under the gracious rulership of humans intended by God, there is one human who has gone before the rest and is currently, as a token, fulfilling the destiny of the human race – Jesus the Messiah. The ascension of Jesus tells us that the restoration of humanity’s destiny — wherein our propensity towards destroying the creation would be healed and we exercise co-regency with God in establishing a gracious reign of justice, peace and life on earth — has begun in Jesus.

4) The Ascension means that we are to exercise this authority NOW

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…” (Ephesians 2:3-6)

Apparently heaven and earth are not that far apart considering we can be in both places at once! I won’t try to explain exactly what I think this means now, but the immediate meaning is apparent – the authority that Jesus has at the right hand of the Father, we partake with him in the present. Jesus’ rule over the universe is something he already is sharing with those who are “in the Messiah.” The justice, peace, life and joy of the age to come is not something we are simply to wait for – it is something we have both the authority and responsibility to implement now. So much for the easy Christian life – we’ve got work to do!

Almighty God, who did raise your beloved Son from the dead and seated him at your right hand, so now restore your people from the mire of Death’s hold and the darkness of Sin’s night, that the light of his gracious rule might shine through our lives, growing brighter and brighter until the fullness of day, through Jesus the Messiah our Lord…

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For some time I’ve been pondering the notion that we become like what we worship. With reference to God, we become more like God as we worship him with an adoring gaze. With reference to sin, we become increasingly consumed with and characterized by that which we worship (whether it be money, sex, power, etc.). Recognizing this as a biblical principle (2 Cor. 3:18, amongst others), I’ve wondered how exactly it works. I’ve come up with a theory, not attempting to fully explain the concept, but perhaps to give one reason why worship has a transformative effect.

My theory is that worship significantly entails a reorientation of value. Worship comes from the Old English word weorthscipe (i.e. worth-ship). Worship is the recognition of the “worth” or “value” of someone or something. When I worship God, I am recognizing the worth and value of the concrete dimensions of who God is to the concrete aspects of my life. When I worship God for being loving, it is because I recognize the value of his love meeting me in my alienation and isolation. When I worship God for raising Jesus from the dead it is because I recognize the value of the hope he gives to the disjointed and desperate particulars of my existence.

When I say “recognize the value,” I primarily mean an affective and intuitive recognition rather than a cognitive or analytical recognition. Obviously they are not mutually exclusive. Obviously I very much prize the functions of cognition and analysis to our personal and indeed our spiritual lives. However, if the affective and intuitive faculties are rarely or never engaged, I would question whether the concrete dimensions of God’s self are in fact touching the concrete particulars of one’s life. I base this on the observation that when peoples’ personal lives get messed with, they get emotional, whether it is someone getting sad at the death of a loved one, frustrated at their own failure or furious when someone takes their stuff or challenges their authority.

Over time, my affective experience of what is valuable in worship reorients my sense of value in all areas of life. If in worshipping money (either through fantasy or anxiously-driven financial development), I repeatedly reinforce the value that money has for me in affording feelings of power, success, security, etc. Especially, but not only because such feelings and their cause (fantasy or actuality) are so uncertain in a world characterized by unceasing flux, my life becomes increasingly oriented around maintaining that value. This includes viewing people and circumstances increasingly through the lens of financial prospects.

If in worshipping God, I perceive him as the creator God, who formed and fashioned all that is in love, and who in spite of my disobedience, did not abandon me to the power of death, but became human, compassionately identifying with the fullness of the human condition, gave himself up to death, and rising from the grave, destroyed death, making the whole creation new — I begin to affectively understand the value of love, compassion, forgiveness, self-giving and self-sacrifice. The people and circumstances in my life look and feel different as these values are being reinforced in my life, values that are radically different than those cultivated in obsessions with money, sex and power.

Understanding (at least some of) the transformative power of worship in value-reorientation, it is thus imperative that our worship bear both specific and accurate content concerning who God is. Faulty and defective notions of “god” derived from inadequate interpretation of Scripture reinforce values and a world view that are different than those that would be imparted in the worship of the true God. If one explicitly or implicitly worships a “god” who is mean, vindictive, harsh and impatient, good luck cultivating compassion and tenderness.

“Generic” and content-less worship (i.e., endless repetition of “praise slogans,” like “we worship you,” “we bless you,” “we praise you,” “we give you glory,” etc.) would seem to be lacking this transformative effect unless the content was significantly supplied elsewhere and lies implicit behind such words. It is of consequence to note that the biblical records of worship (most notably in the Psalms and other canticles) are not of this “generic” type. In fact, there seems to be so much content in the Psalms, both about God and his activity in history, as well as the concrete situations of the worshippers, that they are too lengthy and unwieldy for most Christians to regularly use in their private and corporate worship. This is most unfortunate, because the psalms and canticles of Scripture are precisely the kind of place where the concrete dimensions of God’s self can meet the concrete particulars of the worshipping-self in a manner which would cultivate and ultimately yield the kind of value reorientation that I described above.

I’d be interested in comments, critiques, etc. on this theory, or alternate/complementary theories.

Also, if I accomplish anything by this post, let it be an encouragement to make singing/praying the Psalms a significant part of your daily devotional life.

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Last time, I wrote about the “new exodus,” describing it as a way of speaking of the ending of the Jewish exile while investing it with the epochal significance of replacing the Exodus as the defining event in Israel’s history and their revelation of God. I then described reasons for believing that theologically, the Jewish people did not understand the exile to have ended when the exiles in Babylon physically returned to their homeland in 538 B.C. Understanding this brings a dynamic twist in understanding the NT and the person and message of Jesus. Before we look at how interpreting the New Testament is affected by these realities, it is important to add another dimension.

A significant theme which recurs throughout the later OT writings is the link between the ending of exile and the forgiveness of sins. The classic introduction of this theme is in Isaiah 40 where (if you do something funny to account for the peculiar placement of Isaiah 35) Isaiah’s in-depth exposition of New Exodus kicks off:

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her

that she has served her term,
that her iniquity has been pardoned…

Notice the two couplets that I have marked off by leaving space between them. This is to illustrate the extremely common and primary feature of Hebrew poetry called parallelism. We commonly think of poetry as rhyming the sounds of words. This however, is not at all how Hebrew poetry functions. Instead of rhyming words, they would rhyme thoughts. This came in two primary forms (although technically one could tease out various additional nuances). The first is synonymous parallelism, where the two lines of poetry express synonymous thoughts, i.e. their meaning are essentially the same. Examples of such would include:

O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD,
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. (Psalm 95:1)

I will extol You, my God, O King,
And I will bless Your name forever and ever. (Psalm 145:1)

One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts. (Psalm 145:4)

The LORD of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our stronghold (Ps. 46:11)

The wilderness and the desert will be glad,
And the Arabah will rejoice and blossom (Isaiah 35:1)

Behold, the Lord GOD will come with might,
With His arm ruling for Him (Isaiah 40:10)

The point in all these and many other verses is not that each line is communicating a new and distinct idea. Rather it is a poetic way of saying the same thing. Where this becomes critical is that seeing parallelism can often indicate to us two concepts that the author is holding closely together in a semi-synonymous (though not necessarily precise – remember this is poetry) relationship.

The other major form of parallelism is antonymous parallelism, in which the two lines of the couplet express the opposite idea. This form of parallelism is much less common than the former.

The LORD keeps all who love Him,
But all the wicked He will destroy. (Psalm 145:20)

For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1:6)

They will find gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away. (Is. 35:10) – an interesting case, not precisely synonymous or antonymous parallelism, it is expressing the same idea in opposite ways

The purpose of this digression on Hebrew poetry is to show how meaningful it is when the Isianic text brings into parallel the notion of the ending of exile (she has served her term) and the forgiveness of sin (her iniquity has been pardoned). In other words, the author is bringing into a poetically synonymous relationship, the twin notions of the end of Israel’s exile and the forgiveness of their sins. How can these two seemingly disparate themes be related? One has to do with their historical circumstances, the other with their relationship with God. One concerns “horizontal” relationships, the other “vertical.” The one is temporary, the other eternal. Let me explain how I think this works.

The book of Deuteronomy is essentially the covenant charter of the people of Israel. It explains at length the relationship between God and Israel. In chapter 28, blessings are described, which are for Israel if they keep the covenant, while curses are described for Israel if they do not keep the covenant. Interestingly, these blessings and curses are not for individuals, but are for the nation as a whole with regards to corporate obedience or corporate disobedience (an extremely foreign concept for twenty-first century individualism-assaulted denizens). The result of obedience is that God “will establish you as a holy people” and consequently, they will be blessed and prosper, specifically with regard to the surrounding nations of political adversaries. However, if as a nation they do not follow the covenant, they are told that “the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth” and that “The LORD will bring you back to Egypt in ships.” In other words, God’s deliverance of the people from the Egyptian captivity (the exodus) will be reversed by virtue of their corporate disobedience. Chapter thirty also promises that if while in captivity in foreign nations, if they will return to the Lord, he will bring them out of captivity, restore them to the land and bless them abundantly. In summary the result of corporate disobedience is exile and the result of corporate repentance is return from exile.

What we see from Deuteronomy is that the concept of sin and exile are intricately related. Sin is understood in essentially a causal relationship with going into exile. The reason why the captives addressed in Isaiah 40 are in exile is because of their corporate sin. These sins are delineated in much of the pre-exilic prophetic literature and the historical books.

What is critical to grasp here is that sin and forgiveness are not primarily viewed from an individualistic or existentialist perspective. The concern in Isaiah 40 is not “how one feels” when relating to God (i.e., feeling forgiven or feeling shame). Neither is the concern the accumulation of merits and demerits, nor the eternal fate of individuals (i.e., heaven or hell). Rather, the concern is typically Jewish: it is historical, national, geographical, political and related to the future of life on earth. When these people were awaiting the “forgiveness of sins,” they were not anticipating a spiritual experience whereby their guilt-anxiety complex was assuaged. They were not expecting a declaration from heaven announcing their forgiveness or status of righteousness. They certainly we not even dreaming of being assured of escaping the earth for an eternal heavenly abode. They were looking forward the ending of the exile, freedom from foreign powers, the restoration of the nation and the fulfillment of God’s covenant promises in which the entire earth would be renewed. According to Deuteronomy, they would know they were forgiveness, not by the warm-fuzzies, but because they had been brought back to their land and restored as a people. In this passage the forgiveness of sins is not individualistic, internal or “spiritual.” Rather it is corporate, historical, national, geographical, ecological and political. For the exile to end means that Israel has been forgiven of their sins. If the exile has not ended, the logical interpretation is that they have not yet been forgiven and the “wrath of God” still remains over them.

This perspective helps to makes sense of some other “baffling” passages. I always used to get tripped out over verses like these:

Psalm 103:9 – He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever.

Psalm 85:4-6 – Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?

Psalm 79:5 – How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?

Micah 7.18-20 – Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency. He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and unswerving loyalty to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old.

I would think, “don’t the Israelites understand that we’re saved by faith? All you have to do is ask God to forgive you and he will.” I would change the words of these Psalms around when praying and singing them. Instead of saying “you will not always accuse, nor will you keep your anger forever,” I would say something like “you do not always accuse, you do not stay angry forever.” I didn’t make any sense that one would have to plead with God for him to forgive you. That sounded like Medieval penance theology.

These verses (and MANY others) only doesn’t make sense when a modern notion of “justification by faith” and the radical individualization of sin and forgiveness is applied to these passages (See my posts on “Reading the Bible in the Right Direction” for more on this). There is certainly a personal concept of sin in the Scripture but it is not the only way sin is treated and in many passages it is not primary. The verses given above, however, are patently not about the individual assurance of forgiveness. That was not the primary concern of the Israelites in captivity. We don’t see in the Scripture a spirituality of “well, we’re in captivity and slavery, but at least we have the inner assurance of God’s forgiveness so we are content.” That kind of forgiveness was not on their radar. For them, to be forgiven meant to be restored in the full sense of the word, as we see in Ps. 85:4 (restore us again). This is not an issue of “pre-cross/post-cross” as I’ve sometimes heard it described (as if only after Jesus died on the cross can we be forgiven immediately, before then we had to beg and do penance). The context of these passages make clear to us what they are about without bringing in an artificial theological framework that is foreign to the texts. The context of Psalm 85:4-6 is immediately in relation to the notion of the captivity of Israel in exile. The context of Psalm 103 immediately preceding the quote above is all about Moses and the exodus and a quotation from Moses’ encounter with God on Mt. Sinai. Psalm 79 is about the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple as the Babylonian exile was inaugurated. The passage from Micah seven explicitly correlates forgiveness of sin to faithfulness of the covenant with Abraham (i.e., the land).

As I will develop further in my next post, the notions of the ending of exile and the forgiveness of sins are intricately linked in these and many other passages. Understanding this helps restore a more authentically Jewish (and less of a Medieval European) biblical perspective and sheds (in my opinion), radical new light on the both the OT and the NT, especially the life, message and mission of Jesus and the theology of sin, forgiveness and justification in Paul.

One way it immediately helps us, is it beckons us to break out of the morose and obsessive inwardly-bent introspective posture that we can develop when all we think about is dealing with our personal sin and the corollary confusion that the focal point of Christianity is to aid you in dealing with your guilt-anxiety complex. I hate to break it to you, but there is more to Christianity than you and your personal sin! God has a much more expansive and exciting vision for the world and the future than for you to neurotically manage your besetting sins. Of course, dealing with sin and our own insidious propensity towards hatred and violence is incredibly significant, but it can only be done when we are fully engaged with God’s bigger picture for the human race and the future of life on earth. It will necessitate getting our eyes off of ourselves, perhaps at first for only moments at a time, but more and more we will lift our gaze and begin to see the wide and open space of freedom and life God is inviting us to.

Wow. I’m kind of getting excited and am feeling this already-too-long post burgeoning into more than can fit here. More on this to come…

Related posts

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• Prayers for Revival – Hatred of Sin (1)
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• Jesus the Crucified and Resurrected Lord Part 1 (0)

OK – here’s where I say what the New Exodus is: the decisive event that the Jew’s were waiting for that would bring the definitive revelation of the “God who will be” faithful to his covenant promises was the ending of exile. The ending of this exile was often described with exodus-like imagery and language. The “New Exodus” is a way of speaking of the ending of the Jewish exile while investing it with the epochal significance of replacing the Exodus as the defining event in Israel’s history and their revelation of God.

As a quick historical review the “exilic” period of Israel’s history officially began in 586 B.C. when Babylonian armies sacked Jerusalem, destroying the temple and exiling most of the people of Jerusalem (excepting the poorest) to be slaves in Babylon. This period of deportation ended when Cyrus issued the decree for the return of the exiles and the rebuilding of the temple in 538 B.C.

However, while this physical deportation to Babylon ended in 538 B.C., there are many reasons for believing that according to the Jewish people, the exile had not in fact ended. This point is crucial for understanding the message of the Old Testament as a post-exilic canon of literature and for understanding the historical context of the New Testament. There are two distinct interpretations of this phenomenon. The first, of whom the leading exponent is N.T. Wright, is that the Babylonian exile was believed to have not ended. The second interpretation, offered by Brant Pitre, disagrees with Wright in that he believes the exile had not ended because there were in fact two exiles – one in which the ten northern tribes were deported by the Assyrians around 727 B.C., and the second, in which the remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin were deported by the Babylonians beginning in 597 B.C. and again in 586 B.C. and 581 B.C. Of these two exiles, the Babylonian exile of the southern kingdom had ended, but the Assyrian exile of the northern kingdom had not ended. For this reason, then, according to Pitre, in the days of Jesus it was still believed that the exile had not yet ended.

I believe that Scripture points to the conclusion that both are true: neither the Babylonian nor Assyrian exiles had truly ended.

1) The first reason is the clearest literary example that the Babylonian exile itself was not believed to have ended. This is found in Daniel 9, esp. vv. 24-27. Daniel had been reading the writings of Jeremiah and after concluding that the appointed time had come for the exile to end, began to pray and fast for its fulfillment. While praying, the angel Gabriel appeared to him and in essence explained that the exile was in fact not over, the time of fulfillment had not come, and that instead of their being 70 years of captivity, their would be seventy “sevens” (i.e., 490 years).

2) With regard to the exile of the northern kingdom, there are a number of scriptures, especially in Jeremiah, which speak of both Israel and Judah coming back together. This gathering never happened and yet remained unfulfilled.

Jer. 3.18 – “In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance.

Jer. 30.3 – “For behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah.’ The LORD says, ‘I will also bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they shall possess it.’”

Hos. 1.11 – “And the children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together,  And they will appoint for themselves one leader…”

3) Additionally, all the promises given in conjunction with the announcement of the return from exile were not fulfilled. One example will suffice. Isaiah 35 speaks of ecological renewal, bodily restoration, freedom from ungodly beasts, the cessation of suffering and the arrival of everlasting joy simultaneously with the return of the exiles to Jerusalem. This could be demonstrated many times over throughout the prophetic literature. When the exile was to end, it was expected that Israel would be freed from its enemies, the creation would be restored, justice would go to the ends of the earth. At this point, forget the renewal of creation and global justice, after the return from the Babylonian deportation, the Israelites still continued under the domination of foreign powers. Theologically, this meant that the exile had not yet ended.

4) The exiles left Babylonian according to the decree of Cyrus to return and rebuild the temple. Though the prophet Haggai could say that the glory of the latter temple would be greater than the glory of the former (Haggai 2:9), the historical reality is that the second temple was quite lackluster when compared to the former. This is so simply in terms of the quality and comparative magnificence of the building. More importantly, though while with the first temple we have glowing reports of the glory of Yahweh descending and filling the temple (e.g., 2 Chr. 7), there is nothing comparable in the entire period of the second temple. No where is it ever said that Yahweh himself returned to Zion by dwelling in the temple.

5) A further reason is the on-going lament over the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the Davidic Monarchy in 586 B.C. This can be exemplified in the book of Psalms. This collection of songs is evidently a post-exilic redaction as shown by Psalms that celebrate the return from exile, such as Psalms 107, 147 and possibly 66, 96, 98, 132 and others. Nevertheless, laments over the fall of Jerusalem and prayers for the ending of the exile remain in the collection:

Ps. 74:2b-7 – “Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell. Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;   the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary. Your foes have roared within your holy place; they set up their emblems there. At the upper entrance they hacked the wooden trellis with axes. And then, with hatchets and hammers, they smashed all its carved work. They set your sanctuary on fire; they desecrated the dwelling place of your name, bringing it to the ground.”

Ps. 79:1 – “O God, the nations have come into your inheritance;   they have defiled your holy temple;   they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.”

Ps. 89:38-40 – “But now you have spurned and rejected him; you are full of wrath against your anointed.  You have renounced the covenant with your servant;   you have defiled his crown in the dust. You have broken through all his walls;   you have laid his strongholds in ruins.”

Ps. 106:47 – “Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise.”

Ps. 126:4 -  “Restore our captivity, O LORD,   like the watercourses in the Negev.”

Ps. 137:7 – “Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites   the day of Jerusalem’s fall,  how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down!  Down to its foundations!”

Other examples could include Pss. 42-43, 68, 80, 85, and 102. What could this phenomenon mean, that after the exile had ended, the prayers and laments of the exilic condition were collected as part of the nation’s continuing liturgical material? What would it mean for the people who had already come out of exile to lament the exile and pray for its ending? It seems that in a significant way (especially considering the poignant and potent language used in some of these Psalms) the Jewish people believed that the great restoration related to the fall of Jerusalem and the exile had not yet in fact happened. It remained in the future and hence the past events should still be lamented and the future events prayed for.

Other reasons could be given, but these five points develop a case that after the Babylonian captives returned to the land, the promised had not been fulfilled and the exile had not yet ended. The faithfulness of Yahweh to his covenant promise to Abraham was still awaited. Hence the ending of exile and the new exodus were future events  anticipated as the definitive revelation of God through his historical intervention on behalf of his people and his creation.

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Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the six-and-a-half week season of Lent. The part we all know about Ash Wednesday is that people get ashes smudged on their foreheads and walk around looking somewhat goofy for the rest of the day. The part that is less well known is what the whole ritual of the ashes means. Most simply, it is an approximation of the ancient practice of placing ashes one’s head as a sign of mourning (together with wearing sackcloth). Interestingly enough, as the ashes are applied to the forehead, the priest says, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

This phrase gives a significant indicator of meaning that moves beyond an overly introspective obsession with self-abasement and self-hatred stylized as repentance. To say that one is dust often is interpreted as an expression both diminutive and derogatory. It conjures up popular notions of “the depravity of man” [sic] which cooperates effortlessly with the self-deprecation that has gradually become the automatic path of movement for our hearts the way an unremitting drip of water would eventually form a channel in soil. Returning to the Lord with all of the heart is undeniably central to Ash Wednesday and Lent, but there is more to this phrase that can and must inform our repentance.

The invocation of dust language harkens back to the creation and Garden of Eden narratives at the beginning of Genesis. The text tells us that “the Lord God formed the human person of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7). The first thing this tells us is that as humans, we are fundamentally people of the earth. We were formed from the dust, showing that our material composition is elemental to who we are as people. It is not a “lesser” component of our being, it is who we are. This is further illustrated by the fact that the word for human (adam), in this passage and the rest of the Old Testament, is etymologically related to the word “ground” (adamah). We are quite literally earth-lings. It also shows us that, as the formation of dust was given life by the breath of God, we constantly live only in dependance upon the gracious gift of God.

Walter Brueggeman develops this idea by saying, “Thus human persons are dependent, vulnerable, and precarious, relying each moment on the gracious gift of breath which makes human life possible. Moreover, this precarious condition is definitional for human existence, marking the human person from the very first moment of existence. That is, human vulnerability is not late, not chosen, not punishment, not an aberration, not related to sin. It belongs to the healthy, original characterization of human personhood in relation to God.”1

Thus the call to “remember that we are dust” is not simply an appeal to repentance. It is an invitation to recall one’s own creaturehood and again become comfortable with one’s own vulnerability. The dominant values of our culture reward efficiency, execution, perfection and predictability. Over the past hundred years, in nearly every sector of society we have repeatedly chosen machines to replace humans and continually place ourselves in a losing battle to compete with them. Thus humanity has become increasingly like machines in a delusional attempt to transcend our frail creaturehood by imitating them. The delusional nature of this cultural neurosis could be explicated at length but is epitomized in the belief and practice that transcendence lies in machination. Like Adam and Eve we desire to reach beyond the limits of human being, to transcend the God-given limits of fragile vulnerability. Like Adam and Eve we must be told that such a pursuit is exceedingly futile. We place unspeakable demands upon ourselves imagining that we have greater power and ability than we ultimately in fact possess. For Adam and Eve, the cure was magical fruit, but remarkably, we imagine our escape will come through modeling our lives after machines. Thus Christian holiness becomes transmogrified into an irrational perfectionism, that through unyielding rigidity aspires to an inaccessible divinity.

We receive ashes on our foreheads and experience the tender yet confrontational beckoning to “remember that we are dust.” We must remember that as humans we are ever and always creatures, earth-lings, ground-lings. If it takes receiving ashes to begin grasping this, so be it. If it takes lying on the ground in the dust, so be it. We must recover this foundational truth. The Lenten recollection then no longer comes to us in collusion with the self-hatred of failure to attain an unreachable, yea, idolatrous goal. Rather, it comes to us in its truly biblical form, as an express not of God’s derision, but of his tender compassion. When God remembers our origin, it does not lead him to despise us. Instead, God’s knowledge of our beginnings in the dust is indeed the source of the heart-rending pity of a Father for his suffering children:

As a father has compassion for his children,
so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him.
For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.

Psalm 103:13-14

——————-
1 Walter Brueggeman, “Remember, You are Dust,” Journal for Preachers 14 no. 2 1991, 4.

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“How long, oh Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” Psalm 13:1-2

How did these verses get in the Bible? How are they inspired by the Holy Spirit? How were they part of Jewish liturgy and prayer? Why have the been incorporated as part of Christian worship for the entire history of the church? How are these words remotely Christian?

Interesting questions regarding an even more interesting set of verses. It is remarkable that these verses stand as they are in the Biblical text. They are not followed by a rebuke our a denunciation for a bad confession. They are not followed by a discourse on the omniscience of God to correct the obviously true fact that God cannot and does not forget us. Neither are they set forth as an example of someone wavering in faith as if they had a long way to grow in trusting God.  Rather this text is in a collection of songs to be sung in the regular worship of the people of God. Possibly even more striking is that this text is not alone in the book of Psalms but is one among many like it with its climax possibly being Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” Rather than corrected with qualifications, these verses and the cries that they express in the heart of every human being are left to stand.

The Holy Spirit and the compilers of the canon deemed it fit that these words were important for the life of the people of God throughout the ages. However, at times we run across the attitude of “trust” and “faith” in God, in which one is confident that everything is turning out the way God wanted it and everything is working out the best possible way and thus we can be at peace. This faith seems to overshoot the faith of the Biblical witness itself and almost seems like “trusting God too much.” The Psalmist here and in other places apparently recognized that everything was not turning out the best possible way and in a sense perceived her god-forsaken status in the fallen world.

How can these prayers be ours as Christians who affirm the tender-hearted and tenaciously faithful love of the all-powerful God? Is there room for the recognition of our god-forsakenness without all the qualifiers immediately rushing in? How can we as believers in the promise of God express our pain and grief over the apparent non-fulfillment of the promise and the radical disconjunction between what we hope for and what we know should be? Every prayer we offer screams of this gut-wrenching, painful contradiction between what we believe God to be like and what we experience as reality in the world. Is the problem truly just in our perspective? If we understood from God’s perspective would that make all of our pain an unmixed blessing? Not many answers on this end, just a conviction that I want the real me – the perplexed, in pain, aware of my shortcomings me to know God and what He is like. I don’t want the “me” with no problems and everything is working out great to believe that God loves me and is faithful towards me. I want the isolated, god-forsaken, broken, longing-for-something-beyond me to glance outside my shell and somehow learn to trust and hope in a God who loves and delights in me.

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