Psalm 129

A very different psalm today. It’s all about Israel’s enemies and God’s consistent deliverance of Israel from those enemies (Ps. 129:4) – from Israel’s infancy (Ps. 129:1-2) through to her growth years. Although Israel has seen the Lord’s deliverance, the enemies remain.

Is that a picture of our Christian culture today in the USA? It seems that with the COVID shutdowns that the church has lost membership throughout the USA. We see political battles over same-sex issues and for abortion rights. Christians are mocked as judgmental and discriminatory – a same-sex issue is going before the Supreme Court today, where a wedding website designer chooses not to do websites that celebrate same-sex marriages, but the LBGTQ-rights people want to force the issue instead of moving on to a more accommodating company.

It’s not just the USA. European Christianity has seen huge declines; Christians are no longer the majority in some European countries. Plus there are atheistic Communist countries and Middle Eastern and African and Asian lands where Christians are actively, physically persecuted. Where is God in all this? How will His people respond? As Kerry told us yesterday, pray “Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus, Come!”

Psalm 128

Not a whole lot this morning, ahead of our RTB gathering after coffee hour.

Family. The psalmist specifically mentions the wife (spouse), the children, and the grandchildren. Each is his/her own blessing! He uses the vine (fruit, wine) and the olive tree (oil, food, lubricant, wood) as metaphors of the blessedness of family life. I’m regularly thinking of our new vision at St. Andrew’s, specifically “community” this morning, seeing St. Andrew’s as “family”. So often I’ve heard Christians say something like this or that person is closer than my own brother. That’s nice, especially if we are not disparaging our own blood relatives! I’ve long believed that we already have a good community at St. Andrew’s, a wonderful congregation. But “Bread Breakers” is a nice start for something even stronger. And we need to grow more, to get to know one another outside the church building, to encourage one another. Let’s do our part, folks. Get to know those faces at church you’ve never met. We can do this!

Psalm 127

The header of today’s Psalm 127 includes the addition, “…of Solomon”. And the Psalm itself truly sounds like Solomon’s writings – proverbs not unlike the book of Proverbs!

Ps. 127:2 speaks of an addiction that we have seen in Freedom Road: “workaholics” are addicted to work! And to what end? Verse 2 suggests that excess labors are “in vain”, especially if those labors are “anxious” (ESV) or “painful” (NASB). Solomon is not rejecting our daily toil; he is suggesting that adding more hours to that daily toil is not in our best interests. Do the work responsibilities given you and trust God to meet your needs. Additional painful or anxious work is of no benefit.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. (v. 1) I was in charge of funding for a new church building at our old church. I had this verse at the top of every piece of correspondence that I wrote to our congregation. They’ve got their new building now, but it was the Bishop who funded it for them. With that particular Bishop, I was never confident that it was the Lord who was building that house!

But for us today at St. Andrew’s, we’re not talking about physically building a house. I think verse 1 serves as an apt metaphor for us growing spiritually as a congregation. The Lord has to lead if we truly desire to “Glorify Jesus Christ as a Community of Disciples on Mission”.

Psalm 126

My NASB phone Bible labeled Psalm 126, “Thanksgiving for Return from Captivity”. The most obvious reference to a return from captivity is when the Israelites were released from their Babylonian Exile, sometime around 500 BC. As they returned to Jerusalem they would find that the Temple had been destroyed, likely not one stone standing on another. What a loss that would have been to the few who remembered it so well. They still had the site of the Temple, the “Temple Mount”, but not the Temple itself. However, their approach to Jerusalem would not have changed. Jerusalem was, itself, a city on a hill: Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah… (II Chronicles 3:1). Mount Moriah was the hill where Abraham went to offer his son Isaac. (Genesis 22) So their joy would have been strong as they approached the city.

I was thinking of our own returns from captivity. The closest that I can relate to that is my appointment to EKU after five years in a government non-teaching job at USDA in Washington, DC. It had not been “captivity”, but it had also not been fun! I attend Freedom Road on Thursday afternoons. I daresay some of the folks there can relate deliverance from alcoholism or other addictions to freedom from captivity! But the most prominent return from captivity to which I can relate is when Carol and I were working with refugees from Kosovo in 1999. One six-person family had waited in a refugee camp for six months before being approved to come to Kentucky. They still celebrate November XX as their personal independence day. Another relative family, the Maliqi’s had earlier come to Kentucky in July 1999 and were waiting for them when they arrived. The later story of the Maliqi family is an even stronger “return from captivity”. I’ll share that story when we gather as an RTB group this Sunday after coffee hour.

Psalm 125

Back to Psalms, to close out our reading for the year. Continuing with the “Songs of Ascents” that began with Psalm 120 – psalms that the pilgrims sang or prayed as they journeyed to Jerusalem for the annual feasts. As we think back to these earlier psalms and even in these first two verses today, we get a feel for the depth of love that the Jewish people had for Jerusalem. This psalm may have been written before, during, or after the Exile and the Temple could have been in place or been destroyed in years past, but in whatever state Jerusalem or the Temple was in, the pilgrims loved the city. No doubt Jesus was among those who loved that city: Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings… (Matthew 23:37)

I can remember the first time that I saw the White House, the Capitol Building, the Lincoln Memorial – I was taken with pride!! Humbled at the sight of being so close to those places that I had only seen on television… I felt a sense of patriotism – joy at having been born in this great land! That hasn’t changed these 44+ years later. Whenever I go back to the DC area and have a chance to go downtown, I remain in awe at the beauty, the history, the messages that these structures send to my heart. That’s as close as I can come to the pilgrims on their journey, having arrived at Jerusalem and the Temple. Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. (I Chronicles 29:11)

Song of Songs 8

The last chapter of Song of Songs ends in several different sections.

Song 8:1-4 begins with her longing to have her Lover to herself, commenting that she could be with him without social disgrace if he were her brother. She desires to give him all the delights of her love, but warns, “… Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” (v. 4), a repeat of Song 2:7 and Song 3:5, which caution against arousing love/sexual desire artificially, but rather letting it be spontaneous and genuine.

The Beloved’s speech in Song 8:6-7 is perhaps the greatest affirmation of true love ever written:

… love is as strong as death, its jealousy (also translated “ardor”) unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.

Song of Songs 8:6-7

Great description!

Song 8:8-9 shifts focus; her brothers, responsible for her until marriage, speak of guarding her until the proper time.

The last speeches of the Beloved and the Lover conclude the book. She affirms her intention, her choice, to give herself to him: “But my own vineyard is mine to give…” (v. 11). He cries out for her, “… let me hear your voice” (v. 13). Finally, she calls to him, “Come away, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the spice-laden mountains” (Song 8:14‬ ‭NIV‬‬), to delight her with his physical beauty and strength.

They are together, happily married. We wish them well.

Song of Songs 7

We are on the penultimate chapter of the Song, and things are getting “steamy”: if we hadn’t read anything we considered erotic yet, this chapter can definitely break that illusion.

In previous chapters, the Lover’s descriptions have started with her facial features, and mostly stayed there. Here we start in Song 7:1 with descriptions of the beauty and allure of her feet, then thighs, navel, belly, breasts, and finally facial features. There is beauty and delight in all of the body God has given us, and in enjoying its delights, as has been amply demonstrated in the Song, especially verses Song 7:6-9 here.

In her response, Song 7:10-13, she invites him to enjoy her “wine” and “every delicacy, both new and old, that I have stored up for you, my beloved.”

That said, there is evidence throughout the Song that the desire they have for each other has been tempered with restraint until the time is right. Here they go to “see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, …” before she will “give you my love” (v. 12).

——

On another note, after John mentioned that he didn’t see the references to the shepherd that Fred had seen, we realized Fred’s bible often gives different translations of certain words. For example, in Song 6:2,3, both verses mention the Lover going to “pasture his flock.”

And so it goes, giving more weight to the alternate interpretation mentioned in my study notes about the shepherd vs. king motif. (Of course, we can make all kinds of connections to David as a shepherd/king, as well as Jesus as the Good Shepherd/King of Heaven, etc. etc. …)

Happy reading!

Song of Songs 6

Chapter 6 begins with a group of friends asking the woman, “Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? …” They offer to help seek him.

She answers that he has gone to his garden, to “graze” and gather lilies. If you have ever been in a really beautiful, well planted garden, you may be able to close your eyes and envision the metaphors that appeal to our senses in these chapters: glorious colors delight our eyes; soft petals brush our hands; fragrant, sometimes spicy flowers waft on a breeze; even different fruits are ripe for tasting. In other words, we are invited to enjoy love in every way we can experience it. And I suggest we are invited to enjoy God’s presence in these same ways, as best as we can in our hearts.

The intimacy and exclusivity of the relationship is once again affirmed in verse 3: “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies.”

Song 6:4-10 offers more descriptions of the beloved, but interestingly, they include comparisons to great cities and armies with banners (vv. 4, 10), giving her honor that is not simply physical beauty, but dignity and strength as well.

And among all women (“sixty queens and eighty concubines and virgins without number” —v. 8), to him “my dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the only one …” (v. 9). Wow.

Verse 13 ends the chapter with an interesting exchange between other men and him:

The Others:
“Return, return, O Shulammite, return, return, that we may look upon you.”
He:
“Why should you look upon the Shulammite, as upon a dance before two armies?”

Song of Songs 6:13

We see the other men desiring to look at her beauty—what good can come of that? But her Lover protects her and admonishes them. Can this verse be likened to our protection from evil in Christ? I’d like to think so.

Song of Songs 5

At the end of Song 4, the Beloved has invited her Lover into her garden to “taste its choice fruit”, and he is extolling her spices, honey, and wine as Song 5 begins.

And at this point Friends chime in, urging them to “Eat, O friends, and drink; drink your fill, O lovers.”

So let’s pause. What do you think? Are you enjoying reading through Song of Songs? Because as two of us were discussing it at church today, someone else exclaimed it was the “least favorite book of the Bible.” I wonder why. Does it make us uncomfortable, perhaps because it can be very erotic? Do we feel it is not a serious or useful book? I have the feeling that this person would gladly dig through Romans…

What then? I will make a case for embracing the Song, embracing it in all its beauty and glorious imagery, thankful for the permission it gives us to enjoy LIFE, to submit to the rapture and blessings of love between one another, and in our relationship to our Lord. And thankful for what it teaches us about what these relationships should be like: intimate, intense, delightful, exclusive, powerful—what a gift!

Okay, back to Song 5:

Song 5:2-8 gives us an odd episode: one night the Lover knocks at the door, but she is reluctant at first to rouse and open up. When she does, he’s gone. She goes out into the streets to look for him, but doesn’t find him, and is beaten by the city watchmen. As a metaphor for our relationships, it is a cautionary tale—don’t wait when your lover comes knocking (second chances don’t always come).

Song 5:10-16 finishes the chapter with our only lengthy description of the Lover: his radiance, his hair, his face, his body—all are described using gold and precious gems, cedar trees, and lilies. You get the picture…