The Old Man

Today I saw a man while I was walking through the park. He was an old man, and he sat alone. He had a book next to him, but it was unopened and looked new. He stared straight ahead. He reminded me of a cadaver; a blank, white stare from unfeeling eyes. I saw him, and he made me sad.

It's weird. I'm supposed to be writing a paper on the Garden of Eden in 1 Enoch, but I find myself writing poetry instead.
It gets more weird because I don't write poetry. I'm fairly confident that I should not be confident in it at all. It's really crappy stuff. On the up side, I'll get to play the "misunderstood poet" card if no one likes the stuff I write. Win win right?

It's coming in quips and snatches and writing it down before it wisps away is like chasing piglets. It has no coherence or literary unity, just turns of phrases that I like. It's new age man. Real deep stream-of-consciousness stuff, like Joyce.

And no, you don't get to read it.

SBL

I'm on day 3 of the SBL conference in Chicago, and I'm still geeking out.

Everytime I walk into the book exhibit, I have to bring 3 hankies for the drool.

The lectures are fantastic and aggravating and enlightening and marvelous.

And my famous-scholar-bingo-card is filling out: N.T. Wright, Dan Wallace, J. Ross Wagner, Adele Yarbro Collins, and others. Still looking for John Collins and John Dominic Crossan (and the Craigs: Keener, Evans, Blomberg).

Ps 130: Out of the depths

I thought I'd begin posting some of my sermon materials for y'all to take a look at (y'all being whatever nefarious miscreants still peruse this corner of the web). This is a sermon I gave over the summer on Ps 130. The audio can be heard here: http://cciwcollegegroup.com/cpt_sermons/psalm-130-out-of-the-depths/

  -->

Martin Luther, in addition to being a leading reformer, university professor, and prolific writer was also a man with a lengthy hospitality streak. He was known for talking theology around the dinner table and many of those conversations were recorded for us by those in attendance. Of course, he fielded questions from students and one student posed this question to Luther: “Which are the best psalms?” Now of course, this is a bit of a trick question. Are some psalms actually better than others? Would God have inspired an inferior poem, or would He esteem one as more important or ‘better’ than another? And Luther, being the man he was and being in the time he was in, knew a thing or two about trick questions and how to handle them. So when this question was posed, his reply was simple, it wasn’t Psalm 23 or the Davidic Psalms, but merely “The Pauline Psalms.” And that seems a bit odd. There are no psalms written by Paul, right? Well he clarified, and the psalms he listed are the ones where hints of God’s justification of sinners are found. Psalm 32, 51, 143, and 130, our text. In 130 especially we see, as Franz Delitzsch put it “the damnableness of the natural man, the freedom of grace, and the spiritual nature of redemption expressed…in a truly Pauline manner.”

            But this psalm has more going for it than just that. All this talk about theology, justification, etc. can be a bit dry at times. But this psalm is not dry. Rather, it has been water for generations of Christians – quenching a deep thirst for comfort and hope for this in distress. Just look at the first two verses:

            Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!

                        O Lord, hear my voice!

            Let your ears be attentive

                        to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

And here we have our first point:

I.     The Psalmist’s Plea (v. 1-2)

The imagery of “depths” here is of drowning in the sea. A sailor overboard. Lung-fuls of saltwater: a briny death. The image can refer either to one’s circumstances, as in Psalm 69:14, or it can refer to the consequences of one’s sins – as in Jonah’s prayer and so, I think, here.  The psalmist is contemplating his own guilt and I think this for two reasons: (1) he talks about forgiveness in vv. 3-4 so obviously he’s got iniquity on the brain and (2) there’s not enough lions around. No mention of enemies or arrows or traps set by wicked men. Now this doesn’t negate the fact that we believers can often find ourselves in saltwater circumstances because of something other than sin. There are plenty of psalms where the Lord’s faithful is faced with wicked people or temptation or fiery ordeals of one sort or another and he still turns to God. 

But it must be noted that the Psalmist knows he’s a sinner; he knows what condemnation he deserves; he stands in the midst of his consequences and instead of pridefully digging in his heels and persisting in unrepentance, he turns instead to God!

Where do you turn when you find yourself tossed off ship and joining Davy Jones? Where do you turn when circumstances cement your feet and drop in the Pacific? Do you turn to anything other than God? To a distraction? Do you plop in your ear-buds and let Lady Gaga drown out the drowning? Do you dull yourself with the X-Box? Do you take your pleas to God or to another person? Do you confess or do you complain? Do you try to claw your way out of the depths with your own works? Now that’s futile; like trying to avoid drowning in the ocean by swallowing the whole thing. It’s not gonna work. Nothing is gonna work. There is only one thing sinful, damnable man can hope for - our second point:

II.   Yahweh’s Pardon (v. 3-4)

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,

O Lord, who could stand?

But with You there is forgiveness

            that you may be feared.

If you ever venture into the secular marketplace of ideas, you’ll see one product often vended, a fallacy spouted out by unbelievers as if it’s a one shot wonder. And the fallacy is the claim that the God the Father (or God in OT) is harsh, condemning, and judgmental – a crotchety old man in the sky with a shotgun and indiscriminate aim; a squinty-eyed deity who gets his kicks by punishing Philistines. But this is not so, look – right here – Yahweh forgives! This is the Old Testament!

The word for “mark” has the idea “keep” or “guard” and is used often in the phrase “keep the commandments of the Lord” (Dt 4:2) or “keep the covenant” (Gen 17:9) So the verb can indicate an intense dedication to the object requiring watching. After all, it would not do if the ancient Israelites kept the covenant haphazardly. One cannot keep the covenant the way a 6-year-old keeps a hamster. It requires dedication in all of the details. So the Psalmist is saying, “If you, God, kept track of every, single sin I ever committed, day in and day out, perfectly retained on file for recording and referencing; if you kept track of my sins that way, what would happen to me?”

            I would be crushed.

Who can stand? The answer, of course, is nobody. But do you really believe that? Do you really think that you are completely incapable of standing before God? Or do you think you might just squeeze by? That you’ve gone to church enough and served in enough ministries and done enough youth group events and memorized enough AWANA verses that you can actually squeak by God’s wrath? Do you ever think that your works are sufficient for forgiveness? That God will let you off the hook from your sins because you gave money to that homeless guy earlier in the week? No, no works of yours can ever be good enough to endear you to God because all your works were empowered by God in the first place. Like a father giving his child money so the child could purchase a Christmas present for him, so God empowers his children unto good works. And we can never claim those works as sufficient unto salvation.

You see, the thing is, is that the Lord does mark iniquities, and nobody can stand. He, in his sovereign omniscience, does not forget. Every one of those iniquities will be accounted for come judgment day. Every sin will be punished. Yahweh does forgive, yes, gloriously yes! But we know that he does so through Christ! With God, punishment for your sins can either be levied on your own head, or upon Christ at the cross. That same secular marketplace we mentioned earlier pictures Jesus as a squishy, fluffy buddy-figure who appeases that angry curmudgeon Yahweh’s wrath with a message of free love and limp-wristed forgiveness that lets everyone into heaven. But that is not the case, Christ bore our punishment to enable God’s forgiveness and it is only by faith in Him that man can stand before God. Who can stand? No one apart from Christ.

Now there is something else to notice in verse 4 – a purpose statement:

But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.

            This is odd. I would expect something more like “With You there is forgiveness, that you may be adored.” And this is certainly a truth; Jesus says in Luke 7:47 that the one who has been forgiven much loves much. So that is true, but that is not what the psalmist says here. Nor is this a fear of God’s wrath, because forgiveness is the removal of that wrath. So it is not a fear of the punishment for sins, or a fear of God’s justice being executed upon us. So what is it?

            Well, the word for fear, as some of you may know, can have two, almost opposite meanings. The first is what we first think of, that of terror, and the second is that of reverence, or worship. And this is odd because terror connotes complete anxiety while worship implies trust. But this is how the Hebrew word is used. For example in Jonah 1:5, when the ship gets caught in a vicious storm, it says,

            “Then the mariners were afraid”            and that’s our word “afraid.” But later, same book same chapter, Jonah identifies himself as the one who “worships the Lord” and it’s the same word. And it has this kind of meaning all over the place. English has a few words with this kind of dual meaning, depending on context, such as “running fast” vs. “stuck fast” or if the batters swing and miss they get a strike but if they swing and hit it, then they strike the ball. Weird.

            So the forgiveness offered by God should produce reverence in the forgiven. You and I come to God completely unrighteous. No hope of innocence. Everyone in the courtroom knows you’re guilty. O.J. did it and we’re O.J. But, oh blessed conjunction, but forgiveness is with God! The only proper response to such full forgiveness is full worship. Instead of our heads being on the guillotine, we have been released. Instead of bowing for execution, we bow in adoration. What a glory to be pardoned.

            Of course, the story doesn’t stop there. This psalm moves a few steps beyond forgiveness. And that brings us to the third point – the forgiveness of God produces patience:

III.         The Psalmist’s Patience

If we throw on our observation goggles, we see that here there is a switch in how the Psalm addresses Yahweh. Previously it was in the second person “Out of the depths I cry to You, O LORD.” But now Yahweh is addressed in the third person, “I wait for the LORD” What does this mean; why does this shift occur? The Psalmist could be now addressing Himself, a sort of personal pep-talk. But my guess is that this shift indicates that the Psalmist has moved from pleading with God to professing to the community. The inner dialogue of personal conversation has led to an outer confession of public proclamation. The Psalmist knows he’s been forgiven and now he wants everyone to know that he is waiting, patient yet eager. How often does our personal confession of sins lead to corporate encouragement? How often do we fall on our knees in confession in God, find hope and joy in His promise of forgiveness, and then get up and do nothing about it. Go out and play ultimate Frisbee and say nothing about the marvelous work that God just did in our hearts.  O Israel, hope in the Lord! This truth about forgiveness, about God’s redemption, this is something we are supposed to tell one another about. I tell it to you and you tell it to me. We have never heard it enough. God’s forgiveness will never stop being relevant.

But of course, we were talking about being patient, so let’s look a bit closer at that.  I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope. God’s word is what the psalmist is waiting for. Now it’s hard to tell whether the psalmist is waiting for an answer to his prayer from v. 1 – Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! – or if he’s referring to the law of God. It could be either, it could be both. But either way, this Psalmist, while in the depths, has removed himself from wallowing, he has kept himself form complaining and now he waits on the Lord.

Now, how does he wait? Look at how it’s described: my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. I tried to think of an illustration, some night I had lived where I was waiting for the morning with this kind of eagerness, but the only thing I could think of was when I would stay up all night writing papers. And of course, when you’re doing that, you don’t want the morning to come, because then your paper’s due. The other reason that illustration doesn’t work is that watchmen are guarding a city from attack, and when I pull an all-nighter for a paper on economics, there is nobody trying to kill me. That makes the eagerness of the watchmen more palpable, I think. Morning means safety, it means relief, it means rest. Vigilance, unceasing and tense, is required of a night guard, but when the morning comes - oh the joy! How eager a guard on a city wall must be for dawn’s first light to gray the sky with relief.

Interestingly, the Hebrew word for “watchman” is the noun form of the verb we looked at earlier for “mark, keep, or guard.” Hebrew poetry is a big fan of wordplay, and here it comes out vividly. Diligently watch for sins like guards diligently watch for enemies. The Psalmist “watches” for the Lord who does not “watch” iniquities. The psalmist keeps vigil for God who does not vigilantly mark sins. And when the word of God is fulfilled, when our waiting for the Lord comes to an end, we will find that He is full of redemption. Our fourth point:

IV. Yahweh’s Plentiful Redemption

O Israel, hope in the Lord!

For with the Lord there is steadfast love,

and with him is plentiful redemption.

            And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Pardon is with Him. Redemption is with Him. Steadfast love is with Him. These characteristics almost sound like old friends of Yahweh – constant companions always coming and going with Him. You cannot encounter God without encountering them. He is full of redemption. But we can only appreciate redemption when we understand what we are being redeemed from, when we understand our sinfulness.

We must, in this day, name sin for what it is, for all sorts of false cures approach us. The world promises to do away with evil using psycho-babble, drugs, or Congressional Bill #534. But, if the problem is that the sin arises from within mankind, and make no mistake that is the problem, then all such external contrivances are merely tourniquets wrapped around the leg when we all have a gaping chest wound. They do not treat the real problem.  Sin is rebellion against God and His very nature. Sin is failure to match His character as outlined in His Holy Law. If man is created in the image of God, then we sinners are malefactors with chisels and mallets: pounding away, marring, corrupting that image. The problem is us, we propagate sins, and if God kept count, who could stand? And this, this is the truth from which the psalmist draws all his strength. He knows he’s sinned and he knows the consequences of not living up to God’s law. One cannot stand under God’s wrath.

            But the glorious, soul-filling gospel of grace is that we do not have to stand under God’s wrath. This is not because God just changed his mind about the wrath, as if to keep his blood pressure down. No, God’s character can never change, and His wrath must be carried out, and the gospel tells us the glorious news that it was poured out in full upon Jesus. God will redeem man from all his iniquities through Jesus!

The comfort that I find her is that the redemption is plentiful. It is not just enough redemption. No, when you go to God, penitent, contrite and hungry for forgiveness, He does not give you a wafer and expect that to fill you. He lays before you a feast; mounds of forgiveness; a Thanksgiving smorgasbord of forgiveness. The biblical imagery is profound, I can’t get enough of it.

Micah 7:19 – He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

End of Hosea 2 – And  in that day I will answer, declares the LORD…And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not my People, You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’

Ps. 103:12 – as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

Rom. 8:32 – “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?...For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor hight nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us form the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It’s all encompassing; it’s everlasting; it’s irreversible! This is the glorious gospel of God’s grace through Jesus. And this is so that God may be worshipped. This is so the believer can have hope for the future. We looked at guilt earlier, and guilt is all about what we have done in the past, but redemption is all about what God will do in the future, God’s forgiveness should produce reverence and hope in the forgiven.

The Walking Proverb

Those of you who are familiar with my competitive side will appreciate that I recently lost a rousing game of the card game "Hand-foot." Not only did I lose, I lost hard, and it hurt. Like a punch to the gut. Let me explain why.
The goal of the game of Hand-foot is to score 1,000 points. This is usually done over the course of several rounds of play, with scores varying greatly, from -200 to 400. Yeah, 400 tops.
We played a practice round, followed by a real round. I was solidly middle of the pack with aspirations of domination (as per usual). And then came the never-ending round.
One player, Cassy, was very close to "going out" which would end the round. In an effort to prevent this, several players (myself included) talked her into "picking up the pile." If you don't know how to play the game, this meant that she got a whole lot of points, both negative and positive, and bought us more desperate players some time to go out before her. I accomplished this persuasion with a bit of rhetoric that included the vow to name, not my daughter, not my firstborn, not just the girls, but all of my children after her if she were to acquire 1,000 points in one round. Yes, I would surely alienate my firstborn son, Cassandra, if she did this. I was confident that she would not, for surely someone would go out before her.
Nobody went out before her.
And all of my children now have to be named Cassy.

Luther From His Death Bed

"No one can understand Virgil's Georgics unless he has been a farmer for five years. No one can understand Cicero's letters unless he has busied himself in the affairs of a great empire for twenty-five years. No one can presume to have indulged in Holy Scriptures sufficiently unless he were in charge of all the churches for one hundred years with the prophets Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ, and the Apostles. Do not seize hold of this divine Aeneid, but adore its tracks with humility. We are beggars, this is true."

-Martin Luther

Intermission

I am consistently awed by the aptitude of my fellow grad-mates. As I listen to them in class and speak with them outside of class, I constantly come to the same conclusion: they are all at least as smart as me.
This is quite a shock, as I am accustomed to being the biggest head in the room. I'll just have to be more pious and humble than them. That'll show 'em.

P.S. I have heard your requests and am currently working on a "Brett On Demand" set of posts, in which I will attempt a re-telling of a Greek myth as well as articulate my thoughts on politics, particularly in regard to conspiracies. I will have these finished sometime in the next decade. Cheers!