A Watercourses-in-the-Negev type of Faith
Psalm 126 opens with rejoicing over fortunes being restored, over dreams being answered, over mouths being filled with laughter, over tongues shouting for joy, and over people far and near recognizing how good God is to his people: “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.”
But the verse next line, verse 4, raises an intriguing request: “Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negev.”
On most days, the “watercourses in the Negev” (the southern desert area of Judah), are dry ruts, just rocky and sandy creases in the barren land. But on those occasional times during the year, when rainclouds build up overhead and release their contents, the otherwise dry riverbeds fill with life-giving water, giving sustenance to the plants and animals of the desert.
Describing the desert that surrounds my home in Arizona, Christian Peterson writes, “The Sonoran Desert, while still arid, is lush compared to other deserts, supporting over 2,000 species of plants. Rains in the spring produce incredible flushes of greenery and flowers as the plants, dormant for most of the year, take advantage of the rain. Saguaro cacti reach enormous size, collecting and storing immense amounts of water when it does rain, and surviving for months until the next rainfall. Most deserts get what little precipitation they do receive in a few, heavy rainfalls, rather than many light rains spread out over the course of the year. This leads to seasonal lakes and rivers which may last a few months, or even only a few days.”
If the prayer of this psalm is for God to restore our fortunes like the watercourses in the Negev, then this is a prayer that recognizes that our “fortunes” are not likely to come sprinkling down upon us every day, but is a prayer that trusts in God to supply us adequately enough to get us through the dry times. Fortunes that are restored to us with the frequency at which watercourses in the Negev are filled teach us what it truly means to live by faith.
A Psalm-126 type of faith teaches us steadfastness and perseverance. We are not called to live a vending-machine type of faith in which a blessing spurts out every time we plop in a prayer. We are called to live a watercourses-in-the-Negev type of faith, where we learn to hold onto hope through the dry seasons, trusting that God’s goodness will yet come through.
In his book The Emotionally Healthy Church, Peter Scazzero shares, “John Milton in Paradise Lost compares the evil of history to a compost pile—a mixture of decaying substances such as animal excrement, vegetable and fruit peels, potato skins, egg shells, dead leaves, and banana peels. If you cover it with dirt, after some time it smells wonderful. The soil has become a rich, natural fertilizer and is tremendous for growing fruit and vegetables—but you have to be willing to wait, in some cases, years.”
The God who can do such miracles with “decaying substances” as well as with the evils of history, can be trusted to do the same even with the tears we deposit in his care. Thus, Psalm 126 concludes, “May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.”
Surrounded by the Unshakeable God
E. Stanley Jones pointed out, “The word evil is the word live spelled backwards. It is life attempting to live against itself. And that can’t be done…it is an attempt to live against the nature of reality and get away with it. It is an attempt at the impossible. The result is inevitable—breakdown and frustration.”
This truth is reflected in the third verse of Psalm 125: “The scepter of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous.” Wickedness, by its very nature, is not lasting but is self-destructive. God is eternal, and good is part of the character of God, so good is eternal. What is good will last forever.
Evil, on the other hand is the absence of good—the absence of God. Therefore, evil will not last. Indeed, evil is the corruption of good. That which is corrupt will always corrode or fall apart or implode. That is the nature of evil. It has no lasting power.
It is God who has lasting power. Thus, Psalm 125 opens with this affirmation: “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore.”
These verses pick up on the geographical nature of Jerusalem. The old city of Jerusalem was surrounded by seven mountain peaks, including Mt. Zion to the west, the Mount of Olives to the east, and Mt. Moriah to the north. The point here is that trust in God allows us to rest in the security of God’s care. The focus is not on how strong or consistent or courageous our faith is, but on how dependable and good is the One in whom we put our trust. It is not that we will be unshakeable if we can learn to hold onto God tightly enough; it is that we are unshakeable because God surrounds us and wraps his care around us forever.
J. Alistair Brown offers a helpful illustration: “The 3-year-old felt secure in his father’s arms as Dad stood in the middle of the pool. But Dad began walking slowly toward the deep end, gently chanting, ‘Deeper and deeper and deeper.’ As the water rose higher and higher on the child, the lad’s face registered increasing degrees of panic. He held all the more tightly to his father, who, of course, easily touched the bottom.
“Had the little boy been able to analyze his situation, he’d have realized there was no reason for increased anxiety. The water’s depth in any part of the pool was over his head. Even in the shallowest part, had he not been held up, he’d have drowned. His safety anywhere in that pool depended on Dad.
“At various points in our lives, all of us feel we’re getting ‘out of our depth’—problems abound, a job is lost, someone dies. Our temptation is to panic, for we feel we’ve lost control. Yet, as with the child in the pool, the truth is we’ve never been in control over the most valuable things of life. We’ve always been held up by the grace of God, our Father, and that does not change. God is never out of his depth, and therefore we’re as safe when we’re ‘going deeper’ as we have ever been.”
Thus Psalm 125 affirms, “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore.”
Do This in Remembrance of Jesus
Some 2500 years later, Jesus, who had come into this world as God-in-human-flesh, called upon his disciples to establish a memorial by which following generations would honor him. Jesus did not call upon his disciples to construct a pyramid. Instead, he took a loaf of bread, and broke it, and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Then he took a cup, and said to his disciples, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this in remembrance of me.”
The pyramid of Khufu was meant to broadcast to the world Khufu’s strength. That mighty structure has towered over the desert for more than four millennium as a lasting testament of the Pharaoh’s strength. The loaf Jesus held before his disciples was easily ripped apart by his own bare hands. If it had been set on a platform in the desert, it would have wasted away to virtually nothing long, long ago. It was not intended to be a testament to Jesus’ strength but of his humility, that the one who came into our world as God-in-human-flesh came to lay down his life for us: “This is my body that is for you.”
The pyramid of Khufu was intended to show off Khufu’s power, that he could command 100,000 workers to stack together over two million 2-ton blocks on top of each other. The memorial Jesus established gives no evidence of power but of sacrificial love, for the bread is broken and given to the disciples, just as his own life was sacrificed for us.
“The Pharaohs of Egypt were owners of great wealth and unlimited resources,” Param Davies points out. “Building larger-than-life structures as reverence to the dead ones was a way to flaunt the fantastic wealth they had amassed over years of royalty.” Jesus broke bread and poured wine not to flaunt his wealth but to testify to his generosity: “This is my body that is for you…. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we think not about any wealth that Jesus amassed for himself. Instead, we recall that he gave his very life for us!
When tourists stand before the Great Pyramid of Giza, looking 482 feet up to its top, they feel small in comparison to that massive structure. That’s what Khufu intended, he wanted everyone who stood before his pyramid to be filled with a sense of awe and amazement!
What does Jesus want from us when we take the bread and wine in the memorial that Jesus established?
The apostle Paul admonishes us, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.” What does this mean for us?
Since the bread testifies not to the strength of Khufu but to the humbleness of Jesus, may we join with Jesus in humbleness, looking out for one another as Jesus looks out for us.
Since the bread and wine attest not to the power of Khufu but to the self-sacrificing love of Jesus, may we take to heart Jesus’ words in John 13:34, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
Since the bread and wine do not flaunt the wealth of Khufu but point to the generosity of Jesus who gave his very life for us, may we join Jesus in using what we have to benefit others.
In the midst of life’s troubles, God is our Help
Dear Church Family,
Life is full of troubles!
Psalm 124:1-7 recalls, “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—let Israel now say—if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters. Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped.”
Life is full of troubles. Vernon Grounds shared, “By no means are we living in a rose garden without thorns. This is a fallen world. Our pilgrimage throughout space and time is painful and perilous. Even Christians experience confusion, conflict and crisis. What do we discover when we read about Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Paul, Peter and Jesus? One crisis after another. Or turn from Scripture to everyday experience. Recently I talked with a young woman who lost her baby at birth, lost her husband through infidelity and divorce, lost her support group because it was necessary for her to move, lost her job, lost faith in the church because of its condemnation and rejection, lost belief in the value of prayer, lost confidence in herself, lost faith in a caring God, and finally lost hope.”
Life is full of troubles. Yet Psalm 124:8 affirms, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
In discussing this psalm, Eugene Peterson confesses, “Every day I put faith on the line. I have never seen God. In a world where nearly everything can be weighed, explained, quantified, subjected to psychological analysis and scientific control, I persist in making the center of my life a God whom no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, whose will no one can probe. That’s a risk.
“Every day I put hope on the line. I don’t know one thing about the future. I don’t know what the next hour will hold. There may be sickness, personal or world catastrophe. Before this day is over, I may have to deal with death, pain, loss, rejection. I don’t know what the future holds for me, for those whom I love, for my nation, for this world. Still, despite my ignorance…I say that God will accomplish his will, and I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ’s love.
“Every day I put love on the line. There is nothing I am less good at than love. I am far better in competition than in love. I am far better at responding to my instincts and ambitions to get ahead and make my mark than I am at figuring out how to love another…. And yet, I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily—open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.”
Yes, life is full of troubles, but “our help [our ezer in the Hebrew] is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” When we cry to God for help, God is sure to respond.
Joni Eareckson Tada stresses, “God, like a father, doesn’t just give advice. He gives himself. He becomes the husband to the grieving widow (Isaiah 54:5). He becomes the comforter to the barren woman (Isaiah 54:1). He becomes the father of the orphaned (Psalm 10:14). He becomes the bridegroom to the single person (Isaiah 62:5). He is the healer to the sick (Exodus 15:26). He is the wonderful counselor to the confused and depressed (Isaiah 9:6). This is what you do when someone you love is in anguish; you respond to the plea of their heart by giving them your heart. If you are the One at the center of the universe, holding it together, if everything moves, breathes, and has its being in you, you can do no more than give yourself.”
“Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
Pastor Tom
The Greek’s View of Women was Woefully Wrong
Let’s set Paul’s letters to Greek congregations in context. Greek culture held a horribly low view of women. Greek philosophers taught that women were created by the gods for three reasons: for the sexual pleasure of men, for reproduction, and for completion of domestic chores that were beneath a man’s dignity. Demosthenes, regarded as the greatest of the Greek orators stated, “We have courtesans for our pleasures, prostitutes for daily physical use, wives to bring up legitimate children and to be faithful stewards in household matters.
Greeks believed that men possessed a soul that longed for connection with God, but that women lacked that capacity. Philo asserted, “The male soul assigns itself to God alone as the Father and Maker of the Universe and the Cause of all things. The female clings to all that is born and perishes; it stretches out its faculties like a hand to catch blindly at what comes in its way, and gives the clasp of friendship to the world of created things with all its numberless changes and transmutations, instead of to the divine order, the immutable, the blessed.” Indeed, Josephus argued that “the woman…is inferior in all things to man,” and he asserted that it was fitting for a woman to lead funeral processions, because she stands closer to death than a man does.
Since women were deemed to have so little value, it became common throughout the Roman empire to leave newborn baby girls on the streets to die of hunger and exposure.
But change began to happen when the Christian message began to spread in the Roman Empire.
An article on the history of Christianity in the March 29, 1999 issue of Newsweek magazine suggested that one of the major reasons for the rapid growth of the Christian faith was Christianity’s great appeal to women.
Paul stands at the center of this crossroad, writing to people who have been soaked in Greek thinking, with its abhorrent view of women, but advocating a revolutionary view of women as owning a soul that is designed for intimate relationship with God, and is good for involvement in Christian ministry, and is designed for a relationship of equality with their husbands.
Intimate relationship with God: Throughout this section of his letter to the Corinthians, Paul draws our attention back to God’s creation of man and woman. In verse 12, he writes, “For just as woman came from man [having been created from the rib of Adam in Genesis 2:21-22], so man comes through woman [through the process of birth]; but all things come from God.” By drawing our attention back to the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2, we are called to remember God’s purpose in creating us. Genesis 1:26-27 declares, “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness….’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” God designed both men and women in the likeness of God for intimate relationship with God. Scripture affirms that a woman has a soul that yearns for connection with God every bit as much as a man does.
Involvement in Christian ministry: In verse 5, Paul accommodates to the cultural norm that women of that day and that place should not be like the temple prostitutes or the courtesans who went about with short hair and uncovered hair, but don’t let the call for head coverings and for long hair distract our attention from what Paul is affirming in the women of Corinth: They are called to prophesy and to pray aloud in public just as the men of the church are. They have words from God to speak to others on behalf of God, and they have prayers to pray to God on behalf of others. They have callings in Christian ministry.
Relationships of equality with their husbands: Verse 3 has often been misused in Christian churches to advocate husbands as having authority over their wives (“I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ.”) But this hierarchical view is based on a faulty reading of the Greek text. The Greeks had a word that carried the clear meaning of authority, archon, and archon was used regularly with that meaning in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, but Paul uses the word kephale to provide a different emphasis. Kephale means head in the sense of the head of a river being the source or origin of that river. As Berkeley and Alvera Mickelsen point out, “Paul used ‘head’ in verse 3 with the meaning of ‘source or origin.’ Man was the ‘source’ or beginning of woman in the sense that woman was made from the side of Adam. Christ was the one through whom all creation came (1 Corinthians 8:6). God is the base of Christ (John 8:42: ‘I proceeded and came forth from God’).” To say that God is the head of Christ is not to suggest a hierarchy in the Trinity. Christian theology has always stressed equality and unity within the Trinity. Likewise, to say that man was the source of woman (as woman is also the source of men ever since) is not to imply hierarchy. Instead, we should affirm equality and unity in the relationship.
Arrogance Injures; Mercy Heals
To understand Psalm 123 best and to appreciate it most fully, I find it helpful to start at the end and work our way back to the beginning. The last two verses of the psalm present the internal anguish that the first two verses resolve. So let’s begin with the anguish and work our way to the resolution. The last two verses read: “Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough contempt. Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.”
Many of us can identify with the psalmist’s anguish, having experienced injuries in our lives from someone(s) who looked down upon us and treated us as though we were inferior.
Arrogance is a deep and dangerous evil. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis comments, “According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: It was through Pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-God state of mind…. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people. And, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”
Psalm 123 is a psalm that rises up out of the deep personal anguish of having endured ridicule and contempt from the arrogant. It is a psalm that seeks restoration from such pain.
But where will such restoration be found?
Restoration is found as we turn from the anguish caused by arrogance and turn to the healing that comes from mercy.
Mercy and arrogance are significantly different. Arrogance is a character flaw of thinking of oneself as better, smarter, or superior to others. Mercy is a kindness toward others that flows out of a heart that is full of love. Arrogance has been defined as “bigging oneself up.” Mercy is an interest in “bigging others up.” Arrogance is a mask that is worn to cover up insecurity. Mercy needs no mask to cover up insecurity for perfect love casts out all fear.
Thus, we come to the opening verses of Psalm 123: “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.”
We begin to find the restoration our souls long for when we embrace for ourselves the mercy of God. In his book The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery, David Benner points out, “Neither knowing God nor knowing self can progress very far unless it begins with a knowledge of how deeply we are loved by God…. In order for our knowing of God’s love to be truly transformational, it must become the basis of our identity…. An identity grounded in God would mean that when we think of who we are, the first thing that would come to mind is our status as someone who is deeply loved by God.”
Such is the longing of Psalm 123: That the anguish we have carried within us from the contempt we have endured would be healed as we embrace the mercy and love of God.
Will my actions help others see God’s goodness more clearly?
“‘Everything is permissible’—but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible’—but not everything is constructive.” (1 Corinthians 10:23, New International Version)
In 1987, 2 million dollars in several bags of cash fell from an armored truck on a freeway in Columbus, Ohio. Only about $100,000 was returned. $57,000 was picked up and returned by an Ohio Bell repairman named Melvin Kiser. Not everyone was in favor of Melvin’s act of integrity. One of Melvin’s coworkers was flabbergasted that Melvin returned the money, exclaiming, “That was a gift from God, and you gave it back.” Melvin’s own father was shocked by Melvin’s honesty, remarking, “I thought I raised you better than that.” According to a telephone poll conducted by Columbus radio station WTVN, over half of the respondents (60%) said they would have taken the money for themselves.
What would you have done in such a situation? What would guide the decision you make?
Paul answers such questions by quoting a popular Corinthian slogan, “Everything is permissible,” but he adds to that a couple of qualifications: “But not everything is beneficial,” and “not everything is constructive.”
When we make decisions, we should ask ourselves not simply, “Is it permissible?” We should also ask ourselves, “Is it beneficial? And is it constructive?”
In his book On Press, journalist Tom Wicker shares how he learned to ask such questions: “As a correspondent for the Sandhill Citizen in Aberdeen, North Carolina, I covered a divorce case that involved one party who had futilely chased the other with an ax. It was the human comedy at its most ribald, and the courtroom rocked with laughter. I wrote a humorous account for page one. The next day I had a visitor: a worn-out woman whose haggard eyes were blazing. ‘Mr. Wicker,’ she said, ‘why did you think you had the right to make fun of me in your paper?’
“I have never forgotten that question. My story had exploited unhappiness for the amusement of others. I had made the woman something less than what she was—a human being. Seeing that, I saw, too, that I had not only done her an injury but had missed the story I should have written.”
“‘Everything is permissible’—but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible’—but not everything is constructive.”
In 1 Corinthians 10:31, Paul adds another bit of counsel to us in the decisions we make: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” The question we should be asking ourselves is this: Will my actions or words help people to see God’s goodness more clearly? Or will my actions or words obscure God’s goodness?
Late one afternoon, Jeffrey Collins faced a difficult decision. He writes, “It has been a trying week at our Love & Action office. At five o’clock on a Friday, I was looking forward to having a quiet dinner with friends. Then the phone rang. ‘Jeff! It’s Jimmy!’ I heard a quivering voice say.
“Jimmy, who suffered from several AIDS-related illnesses, was one of our regular clients. ‘I’m really sick, Jeff. I’ve got a fever. Please help me.’
“I was angry. After a sixty-hour work week, I didn’t want to hear about Jimmy. But I promised to be right over. Still, during the drive over, I complained to God about the inconvenience. The moment I walked in the door, I could smell the vomit. Jimmy was on the sofa, shivering and in distress. I wiped his forehead, then got a bucket of soapy water to clean up the mess. I managed to maintain a façade of concern, even though I was raging inside. Jimmy’s friend, Russ, who also had AIDS, came down the stairs. The odor made Russ sick, too. As I cleaned the carpet around Russ’ chair, I was ready to explode inside. Then Russ startled me. ‘I understand! I understand!
“‘What Russ?’ Jimmy asked weakly.
“‘I understand who Jesus is,’ Russ said through tears. ‘He’s like Jeff!’
“Weeping, I hugged Russ and prayed with him. That night Russ trusted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior—a God who had used me to show his love in spite of myself.”
“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.”
Rejoice to be “Bound Firmly Together”
Psalm 122 opens with the declaration, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together.”
Why would a person be glad to go to the house of the Lord? The psalm seems to present the fact that Jerusalem was “bound firmly together” as one of the reasons why we should be glad to go to the house of the Lord. How can that be?
The primary issue here is not architectural but relational. It is not the layout of the roads and buildings but the unity of the people that the psalm is referring to. The root of the word translated here as “bound firmly together” is the Hebrew word haver, which can be translated as friend or comrade. The word refers to someone who is very close to you. It has the connotation of joining two persons or two things together. The same root is used in Exodus 26:11 to describe the curtains of the temple being joined together as one. The word is still used today in modern Hebrew to indicate great affection between two people.
Derek Prince explains the significance of this: “So the basis of unity of God’s people is not that they meet together in a church building. It’s not that they attend a certain place of worship. It’s not even that they subscribe to certain forms of doctrine. But the real basis, that which closely compacts God’s people together, that which makes them truly one, is an interpersonal commitment between each member and each other member. They are comrades; they are fellows; they are committed to the Lord; and they are committed to one another. The mortar that binds God’s people together in true unity is not doctrine; it’s not the time or the place of a meeting; but it’s that personal commitment, heart-to-heart, that makes each of us fellows, comrades, brothers and sisters, members of the same home, members of the same family, committed one to another.”
The fellowship of God’s people is what binds us together and provides us with delight in going to “the house of the Lord.”
In his book on the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134), A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson shares the story of a pastoral visit he made to a member of his church: “The person I came to see was sitting at a window embroidering a piece of cloth held taut over an oval hoop. She said, ‘Pastor, while waiting for you to come I realized what’s wrong with me—I don’t have a frame. My feelings, my thoughts, my activities—everything is loose and sloppy. There is no border to my life. I never know where I am. I need a frame for my life like this one I have for my embroidery.’” (p. 48)
Our fellowship with one another—the love and care we share with one another in a family of believers—is the frame we need for our lives.
In the book How People Grow, Henry Cloud shares how this worked for him during a particularly difficult time in his life: “I was waiting for God to give me his grace through supernatural zapping; he was giving it to me through his people. I was waiting for him to speak to me directly; he was speaking to me through his people. I was waiting for him to give me direction in life; he was the strength behind the direction people were giving me. I was waiting for him to heal my depression; he sent special people to comfort me.” (p. 120)
This is how meaningful fellowship with one another provides a frame for our lives and binds us firmly together. Therefore, we can exclaim with Psalm 122, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’”
tomtrippblog 