April 25th

Psalm #74

The blessings that hallow our days

The Temple has been destroyed.  The key symbol of Jewish life has been lost.  This is a violation of the sacred glue that holds a communities’ life together.  “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.  Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”   (Yeats)

One OT scholar (Claus Westermann) shows how this Psalm prayer speaks to the three parties in this catastrophe:  the foes who have done it, the people who have suffered, and the God who must now deal with it.

The prayer begins with an urgent plea to YHWH to ‘remember’ (vs. 1-3,9-11).  In other words, they know that it is not another Temple that they need but God who is the ground of their hope.  God is not just a fixture in the Temple.  God is an agent who stands beyond the Temple, indeed beyond all our religious structures, and thus can act freely to restore.

Verses 4-8 give a play-by-play account of the destruction just in case YHWH does not know the depth of the problem.  Note that these are ‘God’s enemies;’ God must act to protect God’s honour and integrity.

¹⁰ How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
   Is the enemy to abuse your name for ever?
¹¹ Why do you hold back your hand;
   why do you keep your hand in your bosom?    

But then in verses 12-17, our psalmist turns his attention to the character of God and how God has acted in the past.  Two great memories from Israel’s history are cited: the Exodus, the peoples release from slavery to Pharoah; and creation, God’s triumph over chaos to provide for life for the world.  This God, who defeats empires, and the monsters of chaos, is the God in whom the community pins their trust.  YHWH alone is the answer to the chaos. 

There follows a set of imperatives for God to act.  Note the images: 

       your dove

       your poor

       the downtrodden

       dark places of the land

What strikes us in these closing verses (v.18-23) is that there is no demand on God that He shall repair the ruined sanctuary, restore the desecrated symbol, or return the exiled prophet.  It is the soul and life of God’s people that must concern God.  It is God’s cause that must be re-established.  We  are reminded that the experience of a living faith is not dependent upon the indestructability of its institutions.  Now, institutions are helpful but when mere preservation becomes an end in itself, then dry rot sets in. 

A church that is filled with the Holy Spirit is never allowed to settle down.  That is because the church is the body of Christ on earth, and Christ is on the move leading this world home to his Father.  This is one of the fundamental distinctions between the OT and the NT.  The Hebrews were a people of a particular place, who had a hard time worshipping God when they were not in that place.  Their worship centred around a holy city that had in its midst a holy temple.  And inside was the Holy of Holies which was the meeting place between God and the people.  So when Jesus began to describe himself as the temple of God that would be destroyed and resurrected, his listeners had no idea what he was talking about.  What he was claiming was that he was the new meeting place with God.    [C. Barnes –Searching for Home, 143]

One of the gospel songs we sang in my childhood church was ‘In the sweet bye and bye.’  The first three verses indicate a longing for a new hope ‘on that [faraway] beautiful shore.’   Sung by settlers on the frontier, perhaps the longing for a heavenly home, much superior to their current situation, the sentiment seems almost escapist.  But then comes the fourth stanza:

‘To our bountiful Father above                                                            

We will offer our tribute and praise;                                                   

For the glorious gift of His love                                                                    

And the blessings that hallow our days.’

The hope of heaven wasn’t simply an escapist dream they nurtured.  It was a means of finding sacredness in the days they had.  That is the function of hope.  It isn’t about fantasies for tomorrow, but about living in the day we have with a vision of how life ought to be and will be one day. 

As OT scholar, Walter Brueggemann writes: ‘Hope reminds us that the way things are is precarious and in jeopardy.  Hope reminds us not to absolutize the present…because it will not last’   (Hope within History, 80).

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=qS8026RnOD0&feature=share – The peace of God