November 12thPsalm 125
‘By gracious powers’
Those who trust in God
are like Zion Mountain:
Nothing can move it, a rock-solid mountain
you can always depend on.
Mountains encircle Jerusalem,
and God encircles his people—
always has and always will.
THE MOUNTAINS (vs.1-2)
Jerusalem was set in a saucer of hills. It was the safest of cities because of the protective fortress these hills provided. Mountains suggest agelessness and protection, as though the mountains and hills surrounding Jerusalem are like arms wrapped around God’s people.
Even better than military fortresses however, for the person of faith is to be surrounded by the presence of the Lord who is our ultimate security.
LIFE IS DIFFICULT (vs.3-5a)
The middle verses of this psalm offer two words of wise counsel: a word about anxiety, and a word about responding to evil.
First, we do become anxious. We are full of faith one day and empty with doubt the next. One morning I wake up singing, ‘I shall not be moved’ and the next day I am grey and moody. My faith feels like a thermometer that goes up and down with the weather.
But we should remember, feelings are not everything. They are valuable, they keep me aware of much of what is important and real. But they tell me next to nothing about God. My security comes from God, not how I feel. ‘As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people.’ This image suggests God’s absolute reliability and unchanging commitment to my life.
Secondly, we seem to be living in a moment in which corruption and dishonesty seem pervasive and they threaten the very foundation of our society and its institutions. We would do well to listen to the Psalm’s warning and prayer. Corruption breeds corruption, dishonesty debases the truth for all of us, anger sparks anger in return. We Christians need to be careful not to become what we are against. Our prayer can echo the psalm, “Lord, let not wickedness, tyranny, and lies continue, lest we be drawn into the same sins in our opposition to them.”
PEACE BE ON ISRAEL (v.5b)
The psalmist says, in our modern terms, ‘Relax, God is in control.’
As the apostle Paul wrote: ‘Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God's energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.’ (Philippians 2.12-13).
BY GRACIOUS POWERS
By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning,
and never fails to greet us each new day.
“From the Gestapo bunker in Prinz-Albert-Strasse, Berlin, to which he had been transferred to Tegel on 8 October 1944, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this New Year message to his friends on the last New Year’s Eve of his life, 31 December 1944; it was smuggled out of his prison, and has become one of Bonhoeffer’s best know compositions.” [2]
The singer is captured by the eloquence and depth in the first line: We are “sheltered” by the “gracious powers” of God, allowing us to “confidently wait . . . come what may.” The grace of God, pervading our existence, is “with us night and morning” and always “greet[s] us each new day.”
“The final stanza places the difficulties of our lives within the broader context of a life belonging to our Creator. “The joy we had, the brightness of your sun” overshadows the burdens of life and “all the days we lived through,” and we rest assured that “our whole life shall then be [Christ’s] alone.” [1]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, age 39, was executed April 9, 1945, at Flossenbürg concentration camp, just two weeks before it was liberated by the Allies.
This benediction may be a powerful way to tie the themes of the Psalm together as you pray this psalm.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
So the Lord surrounds his people
From this time and forevermore.
And the blessing of God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
be with you now and forever.
Amen.
By Gracious Powers, UMH 517, with Women's Quintet and ...
YouTube·First United Methodist Church at Chicago Temple·Jun 4, 2021
[1]
History of Hymns: "By Gracious Powers" - Discipleship Ministries
[2] Sadly, the life and teachings of Bonhoeffer are being misused by many on the Chrisitan right in the United States. They, falsely, enlist Bonhoeffer’s resistance to the Nazis as similar to Donald Trump’s criticism of Democrats and any who oppose him. Bonhoeffer opposed German Christians who embraced nationalism as the ideology of the day, which legitimated the persecution of Jews, the Roma people, and other minorities, and which justified violence.