christianity

Psalm 85 Christmas in July!

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Psalm 85 is the appointed Psalm for the week in the Christian Church. Yes. It’s July, but Psalm 85 points to Bethlehem’s Manger and the Christ Child.

 
Christmas & Land?
Psalm 85:1-3
1          LORD, you were favorable to your land;
                        you restored the fortunes of Jacob.
2          You forgave the iniquity of your people;
                        you covered all their sin. Selah
3          You withdrew all your wrath;
                        you turned from your hot anger.
 
   The Thanksgiving dinner is finished. The guests have gone home. Family members from out of town remain to help consume the remainder of the turkey. Ohhhh! There’re are thousands of turkey recipes just for this time of the year.
   The next week, Thanksgiving gives way to Christmas. What are some of the first things you think about as the Christmas seaon approaches: getting the rest of the decorations up, where will you get the tree, who’s on my gift-giving list that I haven’t shopped for, what are the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals? There’s so much to think about as we get ready for Christmas.
   And of course, the very first think everyone thinks about is—LAND. “What??!! That came out of left field Pastor. What does land have to do with Christmas?” Well, I’m glad you asked.
   In Psalm 85:1 the psalmist bases his prayer on God’s promises and His faithfulness. Note he begins with you were favorable to your land. Land theology is important in the Bible, but it’s not something we consider or really think about at all, especially during Christmas.
   Humanity is intricately linked to the land. In Creation God created water and land. He created the ground. From the ground God created Adam, and from Adam God created Eve. Rev. Dr. Reed Lessing, a Lutheran Old Testament theologian and scholar, has written a wonderful excursus (article) on land theology and it’s importance to the Christian. This excursus can be found in Lessing’s commentary on Amos from Concordia Publishing House. Lessing writes this:
 
   The Hebrew “Adam, mankind” (אָדָם) comes from the noun for “ground” (אֲדָמָה). The two are linked to each other in life, in death, and at the resurrection. After death the body decomposes into the dust of the earth until the bodily resurrection when “the earth will give birth to the dead” (Is 26:19; cf. Rev 20:13) and those “sleeping in the dusty ground” shall awake and be physically raised—believers to everlasting life and unbelievers to everlasting contempt (Dan 12:2–3).
   The tragic result of Adam and Eve’s sin was that the ground brought forth thorns and thistles (Gen 3:17–18). Death came to our first parents and through them to all humanity. Death also came to animals and plants—all living creatures. As a result of rampant sin, the world was inundated by a flood (Genesis 6–8) that killed most of humanity and most of its animals. Sodom and Gomorrah became an ecological disaster because of human wickedness and the sexual perversion of homosexuality (Gen 13:10–13; 19:24–28). The plagues were disruptions in the created order that God caused in Egypt as part of his plan to save his people from slavery under Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt (Exodus 7–11) so that he could lead his redeemed people into the promised land. Prophets repeatedly link human sin with cosmic destruction (e.g., Jer 4:22–26; Hos 4:1–3) and also promise the new heavens and new earth that is the inheritance of all God’s faithful servants (Isaiah 11; 65–66).[1]
 
   The Christian awaits the time when the heavens (stars, universe, plants, etc.) and earth will be renewed. We wait for the time when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the cow and the bear will graze together (Isaiah 11). This will take place on land. In Isaiah 35 we also hear that there will be a reverse of the curse upon the land: the wilderness and dry land will rejoice, the desert will blossom abundantly, waters will break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert, and so forth. The land is really important to God because He made it, and it belongs to Him.
   The first Adam blew it. What’s needed is another Adam, the second Adam, another One from the earth, but without sin. That One is the Christ child (Romans 5:14; 1Corinthians 15:22, 45).
   God incorporates you into the second Adam, the last Adam, Jesus. In Christ, God makes you a part of His new creation. This is something to ponder, but don’t wait until Christmas to do it!
 


[1] R. Reed Lessing, Amos, Concordia Commentary (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2009), 74.

Psalm 30:8-10 To Dust You Shall Return

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Friday, July 5

To Dust You Shall Return. The End?

  • Psalm 30:8        To you, O LORD, I cry,
  •           and to the Lord I plead for mercy:
  • 9      “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?
  • 10      Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me!
  •           O LORD, be my helper!”

     How did Mankind come into existence? What is the purpose of Man? What’s your purpose here on this planet? Each person will answer this according to their worldview: “Is there a god? If so, what are his or her demands from me? If there is no god, then I’m in charge of my own destiny.”

     Ancient religions and civilizations had their story of creation and the purpose for humankind coming into existence. Jack Klien is Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and the Department of Bible Studies at Bar Ilan University. He holds a Ph.D. in Oriental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in the Bible from Bar Ilan University. He summarizes an ancient Sumerian composition from extant texts concerning humanity’s creation. According to the Sumerian composition it was a contest between ENKI AND NINMAḪ.

“This archaic and still partly incomprehensible myth praises Enki, the god of the subterranean fresh waters, wisdom and magic, for having planned and directed the creation of mankind and for having devised ways in which the physically handicapped could adjust to society. The myth seems to consist of two originally independent stories. The first part tells the story of the creation of man rather briefly (lines 1–43). Man was created from pieces of clay, placed in the womb of the mother-goddesses where he obtained his form and was given birth. He was created for the purpose of relieving the gods from their hard labor, and especially from digging canals for irrigation agriculture. The second part (lines 44–139) tells of a contest between the mother-goddess Ninmah and Enki during a feast celebrating man’s creation. At first Ninmah creates a number of crippled and handicapped human beings, challenging Enki to solve their problem. Enki cleverly “decrees their fate,” assigning them a function in society whereby they earn their living in an honorable way. When Ninmah gives up, it is Enki’s turn to create an abnormal creature. Enki creates a human wreck, whose nature cannot be precisely determined (either an aborted fetus or an old man), and with which Ninmah is unable to cope. The end of the second part is damaged and obscure, but it is clear that Enki prevails over Ninmah in the contest. The myth concludes with the following statement (lines 140–141): “Ninmah did not equal the great lord Enki/ Father Enki, your praise is sweet.” In spite of its fragmentary state of preservation, the myth is highly important from the point of view of the history of religion because it is the earliest composition dealing with the theme of man’s creation, and as such it is a forerunner to the First Tablet of the Babylonian Story of the Flood (see text 1.130), as well as to the two parallel stories of creation of man in the Bible (Gen 1–2).”[1]

     The One true and only God created humanity for a completely different reason and purpose. We are the crown jewel of God’s creation given the privilege to worship and praise God, live in harmony and peace with Him for eternity, and be stewards of His very good Creation.

     The powers of Sin, Death, and the devil turned this upside-down. Nevertheless, God’s purpose remains unchanged, including giving Him worship and praise. This is why King David says to God during his time of lament, “If You let me die and I return to the dust, how in the world can I praise you from the grave?”

     Because of sin all people will die sooner or later including you and me (unless Christ returns before that). God created humanity to live forever. Little wonder we don’t relish dying and death. We heard this in the Gospel reading for this week. Jairus’ daughter was ill and on the brink of death. And because Jesus was held up by the woman in the reading today, Jesus didn’t arrive in time to heal the little girl. Jairus’ daughter succumbed to death. Not only did Jairus lament her illness, but now he lamented her death.

     This is the judgment that we incurred upon ourselves. Yet God would not let the devil and death have the final word. God would still receive praise and worship from His creatures—today as well as for eternity. Death and dust are not a period. They are merely commas. Jesus is the period.

     Saleska comments:

“The nation of Israel walked in this rhythm. It was in the morning, after a terrifying night, that Yhwh delivered his people from the Egyptians (Exodus 14). When the Assyrians were set to wipe out the nation, the author of 2 Kings writes: ‘And that night the angel of Yhwh went out and struck down 185,000 in the Assyrian camp. And the people arose early in the morning, and behold, these were all dead bodies’ (2 Ki 19:35). God’s ways with his people are summed up by Isaiah: ‘For a brief moment, I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In an outburst of wrath, I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you’ (Is 54:7–8).

In moving from God’s wrath to his favor, God’s people will go from weeping in the evening to a ringing cry in the morning; from sowing in tears to reaping in joy; from mourning to dancing. For us, it will be like being drawn up and out of a dark well.

… Death always seems to have the upper hand. And yet the types and shadows are not irrelevant. They get our attention and urge us to look beyond them. And when we do, we can see that they come together and end in Jesus. He is the center of the pattern. He brings coherence to these scattered fragments of hopes and dreams. What the psalmist has hinted at we see in all its glory. ‘A moment in his wrath—life in his favor’ (Ps 30:6 [5]) takes on full colors when we see the experience of Jesus at the hand of his Father, who ‘was pleased to smite him’ (Is 53:10), but then dramatically raised him from the dead (at the break of dawn, as one could have expected). And this one is alive never to die again.” …

It is true that ‘dust’ cannot praise God (30:10 [9]), and so the Father raised Jesus for the glory of his name. And it is this Word that we proclaim in song and sermon and prayer. This Word is where we put our hope. He gives a shape to ‘a moment in his wrath—life in his favor; in the evening, weeping takes lodging, but in the morning—a ringing cry’ (Ps 30:6 [5]). It is not just an abstract truth. It has its concrete incarnation in the death and resurrection of Jesus, God’s Word to the world.”[2]

[1] Hallo, William W. and K. Lawson Younger Jr., eds., Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World. COS 1, p. 516. Accordance electronic edition, version 1.0. Leiden: Brill, 2003.

[2] Timothy E. Saleska, Psalms 1–50, ed. Christopher W. Mitchell, Concordia Commentary (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2020), 500–501.