Psalms 22 and 23

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POST VIII OF LX

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The Book of Common Prayer (1979) includes a plan for reading the Book of Psalms in morning and evening installments for 30 days.  I am therefore blogging through the Psalms in 60 posts.

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ;

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 226

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The sure provisions of my God attend me all my days;

oh, may thy house by mine abode and all my works be praise.

–Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

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Most of Psalm 22 is a Good Friday text, for excellent reasons.  The author, apparently seriously ill, recovers then thanks God by the end.  One who reads the beginning of Psalm 22 without considering the conclusion of the text reads the psalm erroneously.

Part of the wonder of the Book of Psalms is that one can read its texts properly in a variety of settings.  Psalm 22 can be the prayer of a seriously ill person, for example.  It can also become the plea of a man or a woman in some other dire situation, with its ending offering hope.  Psalm 22 can also be a fine text for Good Friday.

Psalm 23 has become so familiar as to lose its power as one goes on autopilot when reading or reciting it.  Whenever one encounters a portion of scripture with which one is familiar, the temptation to use the autopilot setting might become difficult to resist.  Such a text is certainly one with which one can be more familiar.  The Biblical scholarly consensus regarding the end of Psalm 23 is that only divine goodness and mercy are pursuing the author; the enemies cannot keep up with God.  “Pursue” is a better word than the weaker “follow,” to be sure.  Yet there is another option.  Divine goodness and mercy might also attend one, as two attendants might accompany a deity in ancient mythology or a dignitary in real life.  Whether divine goodness and mercy pursue or attend the faithful, the text offers comfort.

Psalms 22 and 23 offer comfort to the faithful in the midst of enemies.  One might recall the words of St. Paul the Apostle from the Letter to the Romans:

If God is on our side, who is against us?

–Romans 8:31b, The Revised English Bible (1989)

This does not mean, of course, that the faithful will never suffer and that some will not experience martyrdom, but it does not mean that, in the end, enemies will fail to have power over one.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

AUGUST 2, 2017 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF GEORG WEISSEL, GERMAN LUTHERAN PASTOR AND HYMN WRITER

THE FEAST OF ANNA BERNADINE DOROTHY HOPPE, U.S. LUTHERAN HYMN WRITER AND TRANSLATOR

THE FEAST OF CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED GEBHARD, GERMAN MORAVIAN COMPOSER AND MUSIC EDUCATOR

THE FEAST SAINT PETER JULIAN EYMARD, FOUNDER OF THE PRIESTS OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT, THE SERVANTS OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT, AND THE ORGANIZER OF THE CONFRATERNITY OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT

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