Introduction
Psalm 1
Have you ever had a
commercial that stuck in your mind? I
have. Triumph (the sports car
company) put this one out. It
starts wordlessly, at an intersection large enough for three cars. In the left lane, radio blaring, hip hopping in his seat to
the music, sits a young man - the kind you don't want to bring home to meet
mother. Up pulls another Triumph,
driven by "Miss California Cool" - sunglasses flipped up in her blond
hair, not a strand of which is out of place (in a convertible). He looks at her with that "Hey Baby" look.
She gives him the "Drop Dead, Creep" look.
He guns the engine. She
ignores him. He guns it again. She ignores him. He
guns it again - and she flips down the sunglasses.
Drag strip racing is about to begin when a third car pulls up.
It's the law. Square jaw, trooper hat in exactly the right place, mirror
sunglasses - the image is perfect. The
young man turns down his radio, and we hear her radio - playing classical music.
The light changes. Three
cars leave the scene - sedately. The
wind blows a litter of paper through the intersection, and for the first time we
hear voice - the slogan, "Triumph. Looks
as good going slow as it does going fast."
OK, it's not
"Gone With The Wind." But
it is a good example of putting the message into images - it's poetry.
In this study, we will be seeing poetry and prayer as they are displayed
in the Psalms. The prime use of the
Psalms is not study but devotion, and devotion deals with the heart.
Psalms give us the
words and images we need to express ourselves to God. Think about the commercial.
Why did it stick in my mind? Because
I've met those images! I've met Mr.
Wonderful, the man who thinks that his sports car makes him too wonderful to be
believed. The arrogance of the man
is very familiar. I've met (and
been ignored by) Miss California Cool. And
who hasn't seen the cop? So it is
with the Psalms. We see in them the
things we wish we had the words and pictures to say.
How often does your prayer life include "I don't know how to say
this," or worse - saying it in words that don't fit prayer in the closet
but do fit prayer in public?
More than that,
Psalms mirror our own minds. So
often we feel that when we pray we must somehow be "perfect"
- that no unchristian thought could possibly cross our minds, or God
would utterly reject us. The Psalms cure us of that notion. To cite the one outstanding example:
{8} O Daughter of
Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us‑‑ {9} he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.
‑‑ Psalms 137:8‑9 (NIV)
Repentance,
suffering, anger - the human heart is laid bare in the Psalms.
"This is how I feel, God! I
know it's not right - but it is how I feel."
And as they lay bare our sinful thoughts, they lay bare the steps of
repentance, the path of suffering.
Finally, there is
also the unifying effect the Psalms have on the human mind.
Singing is the closest we come to it in worship.
For in praying through the Psalms, as in passionate singing (these after
all are hymns) the body and mind are working together.
We are, for a moment, entirely in Christ - and the pain is soothed away.
With these in mind, let us examine today's Psalm:
{1:1} Blessed is the
man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or
stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. {2} But his
delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night. {3} He
is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in
season and whose leaf does not
wither. Whatever he does prospers. {4} Not so the
wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. {5} Therefore the
wicked will not stand in the
judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
{6} For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of
the wicked will perish.
‑‑ Psalms 1 (NIV)
Delight in the
Law
How do you view
reading the Bible?
"I read the Bible every time you call on me in class to do it.
It's a good thing King James put tabs on the Bible - or I'd be totally
lost."
"Reading the Bible is like reading the encyclopedia - you have to do
it sometimes. Does Guinness have a
record for being bored?"
"I have it down to a system. I
know it's my duty to do it, so I do it regularly... I have this little schedule,
you see."
"I never get enough time to do the things I enjoy, and this is one
of them. It's like listening to an
old favorite song, or reading an old favorite book."
Yet here is the
Psalmist - his "delight" is in the Law of the Lord.
How can this be a delight? Several
answers can be suggested; here are
some:
First, it could be
the natural delight of the student of a favorite subject (I majored in girl
watching, myself). Sometimes we
love a subject because it's simply a favorite.
If you devote enough time to it, you will become fond of it.
This has its danger, of course: since
the "subject" is sacred, pride lurks in it.
You can get so good at it that no one else is good enough for you.
A second, and more
profound, point is the comparison to the alternatives.
Think what the writer had as "Option B."
Consider the worship of Molech, which required infant sacrifice -
throwing your newborn into the fire. This
brought economic benefit (sound familiar, abortionists?)
Today we have nihilism - the idea that life is meaningless, the random
accident of chance, with no possibility of worth.
Which will you have: unyielding
despair or glorious hope?
There is another
answer in the Hebrew. It is written
that God's Law is Truth - emeth is the word.
It means not just factually correct, but that which "holds
water" or "hangs together."
This delight is related to the glee which comes from finally putting the
last piece in the crossword, or remembering that one word which cracks the
crossword puzzle. In this case, the
puzzle is life itself - and God's Law is the missing word or the missing piece.
Finally, there is
the company of a favorite old friend. Have
you ever known someone who is just a delight to be with?
(I married her.) It's a pleasure to spend the time - and the time is never
tracked? Who more than the lover of
my soul, and where else but in the pages of His word?
Pictures of the
Righteous and Wicked
Another great theme
of this Psalm is the comparison of the wicked and the righteous.
We see the righteous as a tree; the wicked as chaff.
There is a problem with this. The
wicked aren't always in such trouble (or we'd quickly run out of wicked).
A contrasting point of view can be found in many Psalms - why do the
wicked prosper? The answer is found
in the use of imagery. This is an
image not of how the world is, but how it ought to be - and how it will be when
the Lord comes again. Art, in this
case poetry, is providing us a picture of the perfect.
We understand this
instinctively. When your at the
hospital, and the patient tells you that he has but a few painful weeks to live
- you reach for Psalm 23 and tell him that "the Lord is our Shepherd."
And then you pray that the Lord will shepherd this one back into health
and life. You are not stating the
facts; you are stating the future.
"Out in the corridors we pray for life."
And in the hospital rooms we reach for the Psalms.
We see pictures of
the righteous and wicked here. The
tree stands for the righteous. It
is stable - and draws its strength from its roots.
You can picture the tree; you
can also picture the righteous one. The
kind of person who will "be there" for you. His opinions don't usually change; he doesn't change his
friends like he does his shirt. Two
characteristics stand out:
Meditation - this is a man who reads and delights in the Law of the Lord.
He thinks about it. He
doesn't just listen to the lesson but goes and grabs it for himself.
Fruit, in and out of season - he is generous no matter the economy;
a friend in any weather.
The wicked are the
opposite. Blowing this way and
that, changing opinions and beliefs with the wind (read Harvard Business Review
for this week's direction).
This is a literary
device, comparison and contrast. There
is another one in here, the progression of the wicked.
We see it as "walk, stand and sit."
You can almost see the snaring of the innocent in this.
He begins by walking along the way with the wicked - not really involved,
just going the same way. They stop;
to be sociable, he stops too. Finally
they sit down to make their evil plans. There
is the innocent, wrong place and wrong time, and he sits down too.
Finally, there is
one other thought. The metaphor of
the righteous as a tree by the water happens one other place in the Bible, in
Jeremiah. In the midst of doom,
gloom, curses and woes, as if it were completely out of place, Jeremiah says
this:
{7} "But
blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in
him. {8} He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its
roots by the stream. It does not
fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear
fruit." ‑‑
Jeremiah 17:7‑8 (NIV)
It's a picture of
words. Two verses stick up, out of
all that worry and woe, as this bright green spot.
Picture, if you will, the weary traveler in the desert, seeking water
for his thirst. He looks all around
and see a tall tree. Where the tree
is, there must be a stream - for in no other way could such a tree grow.
We are such trees.
The world is full of thirsty travelers.
We are the trees planted by the stream of living water.
By seeing us, they may come, drink, and never thirst again.
