Monday • 4/8/2024 •
Today’s Scriptures are: Psalm 1; Psalm 2; Psalm 3; Exodus 14:21–31; 1 Peter 1:1–12; John 14:1–17
This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum(“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)
Psalms 1,2,3. The Daily Office lays out the Book of Psalms in such a way that if you read each day’s morning and evening psalms, you will get all the way through the book every seven weeks. If you follow the schedule in the Office, you will cycle through each psalm about seven times over the course of a year. Seven cycles of seven. Nice biblical numerology, huh?
It’s also an amazing way to immerse yourself in the biblical story. In the 4th century, Athanasius wrote that while all the other books have their own particular theme (e.g., Genesis, creation; Exodus, rescue; Joshua, conquest), the Book of Psalms includes all the themes (e.g., Psalms 19 & 24 on creation; Psalms 78, 106, & 114 on rescue; Psalm 105 on conquest). Not only that, but the book of Psalms gives you the opportunity to engage the biblical story in poetic form (that is, with the heart), or even to sing it, if you are of a mind (for most psalms are hymns, after all).
The first three psalms are a perfect keynote to what the psalms as a whole are all about. I encourage you today to linger over each of these three.
Psalm One and God’s Law as the Way of Life. Psalm One points the reader back to Mt. Sinai, when God gave to his newly rescued people his Law as a way of life, a way to remain free from the more insidious slavery to sin. The entire Mosaic vision of life is that there is always a choice between two ways: back into slavery to sin and death (“walk[ing] in the counsel of the wicked”), or ahead into the freedom of knowing God in the journey toward the promise of life. That journey requires, ironically, rootedness.
Psalm One’s invitation is to “meditate on his law day and night.” To do so is to plant yourself beside “streams of water,” where your roots can find rich nourishment. And the life that flows into you will flow through you and out to others (“bearing fruit in due season”), and you will find that even as you age, your inner being can grow and flourish (“with leaves that do not wither”).
Psalm Two and the Prophets’ Plan for God’s Kingship. Psalm Two points the reader ahead to the day when God would establish his Son as King on “my holy hill of Zion.” The entire prophetic vision is that world history is the backdrop for the drama of God’s reestablishing his gracious rule in the face of the world’s chaos, and of “the kings of the earth ris[ing] up in revolt, and the princes plot[ting] together against the Lord and against his Anointed.”
Psalm Two’s invitation is to look beyond the folly and the frustration of any day’s headlines and any era’s crisis to the victory that God wins in his decree: “I myself have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion;” and when he says to his Son: “You are my Son; this day have I begotten you.” At Eastertide we celebrate the victory already won on a hill in Zion made holy by the cross raised upon it. At Eastertide we rejoice in God’s fulfillment of his promises, as the apostle Paul proclaimed in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, “by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’” (Acts 13:32b,33).
Psalm Three and God’s Nearness When You Suffer. Psalm Three points the reader to the present as a time of frustration, failure, and fear—a time to call upon the nearness and the aid of the Lord. The superscription of this psalm (in all the ancient versions) shows its dramatic backdrop: “A Psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom.” At the zenith of his career, David had fallen. At long last he had been crowned king, but then he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and had murdered her husband Uriah. Though forgiven after his confession to Nathan the prophet, he had nonetheless already sown bitter seed. His son Absalom, witness to the sad events, had acquired his father’s erring ways, and has now risen up to usurp his father’s rule.
2 Samuel 15 describes the pathetic scene: David is forced to flee Jerusalem, going up the Mount of Olives “weeping as he went, with his head covered and walking barefoot,” publicly humiliated, and leaving behind ten of his concubines to serve Absalom’s lusts (compare 2 Samuel 12:12 with 15:16 & 16:21-22). This, according to the superscription, is when David composes Psalm Three, calling out in the face of his “many adversaries” and the “many who rise up against me”: “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me; you are my glory, the one who lifts up my head.”
Hopefully, whatever shame or disgrace, rejection or enmity—whatever “fall” you experience— again, hopefully it will not look exactly like David’s. But this you can count on: the same Lord who enabled David to “lie down and go to sleep” that night, and to awaken the next day “because the Lord sustains me”—that same Lord will give you rest and sustenance. However you “fall,” the Lord will raise you up. He is your glory and the lifter of your head.
I pray you are able to bask this day in the power of God’s Word to nourish and feed your “inner being,” and to keep you walking in the way of faithfulness (Psalm 1). I pray that you will see in the face of all the counter-evidence—all the ways that history seems to be under the control of godlessness—that above it all stands the rule of King Jesus, Risen and Conquering Lord (Psalm 2). And I pray that in spite of whatever discouragement, and even failure, you face, you will know that your Lord hears you when you cry, “Set me free, O my God,” and that he truly is one who blesses his people, including you (Psalm 3:7a,8b)!
Be blessed this day.
Reggie Kidd+