Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to our Academic Dean, Rev Dr Linda Stargel, for writing this devotional. You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
PSALM 89 (select verses using NRSV)
1 I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever;
with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.
2 I declare that your steadfast love is established forever;
your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.
3 You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one;
I have sworn to my servant David:
4 ‘I will establish your descendants forever
and build your throne for all generations.’ ” Selah
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28 Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him,
and my covenant with him will stand firm.
29 I will establish his line forever
and his throne as long as the heavens endure.
30 If his children forsake my law
and do not walk according to my ordinances,
31 if they violate my statutes
and do not keep my commandments,
32 then I will punish their transgression with the rod
and their iniquity with scourges,
33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love
or be false to my faithfulness.
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38 But now you have spurned and rejected him;
you are full of wrath against your anointed.
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46 How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?
How long will your wrath burn like fire?
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49 Lord, where is your steadfast love of old,
which by your faithfulness you swore to David?
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
Today’s lectionary passage is limited to verses 20-37 of Psalm 89. That section remembers God’s commitment to David and his successors and the permanence of the throne. It remembers these promises in the context of a psalm that praises God’s sovereignty over both creation and history. Seven times in the whole psalm the psalmist remembers God’s steadfast love (hesed) and seven times he remembers God’s faithfulness (emuna). (The number seven is symbolic in the Ancient Near East of fullness or completeness.) In our section (vv. 20-37), God even promises that if David’s children are rebellious and wayward that God will not remove his steadfast love and faithfulness (vv. 30-37)! The concluding section of this post-exilic psalm (38-45), is filled with protest. The monarchy has failed, Israel has been abandoned, and it appears that God has failed to keep his promises. Real life is much different than what was promised, and the psalmist laments: “How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?” (v. 46) “Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?” (v. 49).
We cannot ignore this final protest lament (38-51) even though it has been removed from our lectionary reading. The fulfilment of God’s promises is often hidden from us in our present lives. We share the psalmist’s reality. We lament that we still live in the “not yet” of God’s kingdom. But, during this time, along with our lament, we must remind ourselves and others of what the psalmist has emphasised to us: the sevenfold (full and complete), steadfast love and faithfulness of God. Our hope and strength is not in circumstances but in this God of steadfast love and faithfulness.
PRAYER
God, we believe in the sun even when it is not shining, and we believe in love even when no one is there. But most of all we believe in you, God, even when you are silent, even when we your promises seem far away. In our times of joy and our times of lament, we trust in your steadfast love and faithfulness. AMEN