Skip to main content

The steadfast love of God endures forever

Psalm 89.1-4, 15-18 (NRSVA)

This is one of the royal psalms which may have been sung at the coronation of a new ruler or on other national holidays. It begins by celebrating the rock solid reliability of God’s promises and then focuses specifically on his covenant with the royal house of David. God is supposed to have promised David that his descendants would rule over Israel forever, although building his throne from generation to generation - which was probably intended to mean the same thing - is in fact a slightly different idea. It implies only the continuity of the government and nation state established by David.

Be that as it may, God’s favour towards Israel can only mean that the people of Judah can afford to be joyful and should exult or rejoice in God’s name. Their horn of plenty should always be full and they should expect to be shielded from harm. The king is God’s appointee, so what could possibly go wrong?

This is the sort of sentiment which encouraged Hananiah to oppose Jeremiah’s prophecies of doom. They had to be a delusion, because God is always on Judah’s side.

Hananiah’s prophecies didn’t survive - except to be ridiculed - but the majestic poetry of the psalm saved it from the same fate. There is enough enduring quality here to keep it out of the dustbin of history. So believers can always say, with the psalmist, that God’s love is steadfast, righteous and faithful. Christians can always see Jesus as the fulfilment of the promise to David. And those who walk in the light of God’s countenance can indeed be happy, to a degree, even when things go wrong.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I don't believe in an interventionist God

Matthew 28.1-10, 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 I like Nick Cave’s song because of its audacious first line: ‘I don’t believe in an interventionist God’. What an unlikely way to begin a love song! He once explained that he wrote the song while sitting at the back of an Anglican church where he had gone with his wife Susie, who presumably does believe in an interventionist God - at least that’s what the song says. Actually Cave has always been very interested in religion. Sometimes he calls himself a Christian, sometimes he doesn’t, depending on how the mood takes him. He once said, ‘I believe in God in spite of religion, not because of it.’ But his lyrics often include religious themes and he has also said that any true love song is a song for God. So maybe it’s no coincidence that he began this song in such an unlikely way, although he says the inspiration came to him during the sermon. The vicar was droning on about something when the first line of the song just popped into his ...
14 comments
Read more

Luther and Loyola

James 1:17-27 Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Within Christianity there has always been a tension between two poles. At one end of the spectrum stands Martin Luther, who said that Christian faith is about trusting in God to put us right - or make us righteous - through the saving death of Jesus. Luther came to this conclusion when he was a professor of New Testament studies in a little town in Germany called Wittenberg. One year he decided to teach his students about Paul’s letter to the Romans and that’s when it suddenly dawned upon him that Christian faith is all about trust. At the other end of the spectrum , stands someone like Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Society of Jesus. He spent a lot of his later life in crisis, first struggling to overcome severe wounds that he had suffered when he was a soldier and then during two short periods locked up in a cell by the Spanish Inquisition. He came to believe that the Christian life is a similar sort of struggle, a lifelon...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sharing the Good News With People of Other Faiths

Together with other local Christians, clergy and lay people, I find myself – from time to time – giving thought to how we share our Christian faith with people from other religious backgrounds. It is a ticklish issue, because converting from one faith to another is a huge decision to make and it may not be appropriate for everyone. Becoming a Christian is always a life changing event, but for someone from another faith background it can sometimes cause immense dislocation and hardship, including estrangement from family members and friends who cannot accept their decision. It may even cut a person off from their entire cultural heritage, so it is not something that we can expect people to enter into lightly or thoughtlessly. Nor is it likely to be easy for them to make a gradual progression or pilgrimage to Christian faith. At some point they may have to choose whether or not to make a radical break with their past, unless they decide to be secret or closet believers. And they may deci...
2 comments
Read more