Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.
Unfailing love and truth walk before you as attendants.
Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship,
for they will walk in the light of your presence, Lord. (Psalm 89:13-15, NLT)
We human people tend to think in terms of
either/or, I’ve found. We see it all the way from high school cliques (either
a jock or a geek or a goth, etc. rarely a combination of several types) to
adult career choices (are you going to be a real “career” person or make the
sacrifice and be “family”
person?) – after all, a coin can’t be both heads and tails at the same time,
can it? We just don’t do balance very well, at least not the people I’ve come
in contact with in my 38 years.
Luckily God is big enough to put opposites
together in a way that may not make sense to our puny little human minds.
Take his justice and his mercy, for example. Common sense would tell us that
we can either give judgment to the guilty or give mercy to them. But God does
both somehow.
This Psalm tells us that justice and
righteousness are the foundation of his throne, and that love and truth are
his attendants. In other words, everything thing he does is based on the
simple fact that God is righteous and just and he will never do anything to
contradict that. But the filters (if you will) through which he delivers
himself are love and truth. Or, everything he does, including dispensing
justice and demanding righteousness, he does in and with love and truth.
Our human courts don’t give us an adequate
understanding of this principle. When we think of justice, we think of people
getting what they deserve. But mercy would be the equivalent of a judge
passing down a ruling and then serving the sentence in the guilty person’s
place. That scenario would settle the accounts for being both just and
merciful.
No wonder then that, if that’s the way God
loves us, we would be happy to hear the joyfull call to worship and to walk
in the light of his presence.
Restore us again, O God of our salvation,
and put away your indignation toward us!
Will you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger to all generations?
Will you not revive us again,
that your people may rejoice in you? (Psalm 85:4-6, ESV)
Wow. When’s the last time we sang something this powerful, this emotional, this desperate in a church worship service? I dare say we’ve never known this kind of sheer desperation for God to act on behalf of his people and that because of that, we have probably never seen this kind of longing in a worship song or hymn. Besides, that kind of display has no place in a formal, organized and tidy service, does it?
Bah. Yeah, you heard me. Bah.
To the Jewish people, God was real, very real, so real in fact that he was just the type of king they could complain to like we might complain to a local political leader or educational bureaucrat when we don’t like something going on in our children’s schools.
Equally real was their sin and the depths and punishment they faced because of it. Experiencing political and geographical slavery served as a rather intense reminder or how serious God was in dealing with sin. In our post-Jesus’-death-and-ressurrection age, I think we may take that more lightly than serious. And the current sermon series will, I hope, cause us to reflect more on the effects sin can have on our ability to have a close relationship with God and thereby to really, honestly, truthfully worship him.
Maybe we need more of this attitude in us when we worship, the kind of desperation that would plead with God to restore and revive us, that we may rejoice in Him.
"Declare them guilty,
O God! Let their intrigues be their downfall. Banish them for their many
sins, for they have rebelled against you.
"But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for
joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may
rejoice in you.
"For surely, O LORD, you bless the righteous; you surround them with
your favor as with a shield." (Psalm 5: 10-12)
I chose this verse simply because
I appreciate that the ancient songbook (the book of Psalms) understands
that songs used in worship went beyond just simple adoration and "good
feeling" songs. If you read the book of Psalms with an open mind,
you will quickly find songs dealing with praise and adoration, but not
only that. You'll just as quickly also discover songs filled with repentance
and regret and sadness. And it gets worse. You'll also find songs demanding
retribution against enemies, songs expressing doubt about why the wicked
prosper and the righteous suffer, and songs about fond memories of being
able to worship freely that were written during the Jewish captivity.
Why is this important to me?
For me, this knowledge enhances my experience of worship. It means I can
worship in doubt and misunderstanding, as well as in joy and praise. It
means that worship songs don't always have to be upbeat and happy. It
means that when God demands that we worship him in spirit and in truth,
he means it.
Sure, our modern, contemporary
take on worship likes to highlight the adoration and praise elements,
but if we are going to worship in the way that scripture's songbook guides
us, we will have to be sure that our definition of "worship music"
is always open to be changed by the truth of God.
