C.S. Lewis has written, "Avoiding God, in many times and places, has proved so difficult that a very large part of the human race has failed to achieve it."
In today's psalm the writer tells us that all we have to do is to lift our heads, to open our eyes and our ears and we shall see the invisible God revealed to us in all His glory.
On first reading Psalm 19, it seems to be made up of three parts which fit uneasily together: a hymn to nature, some legalistic spirituality, and an irrational concern over unintentional sins. And yet C.S. Lewis calls this "the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world." The secret to understanding the psalm lies in discovering its extraordinary unity — what it is that binds its three parts together. The ancient writer would be surprised at our difficulty, for to him — a devout follower of the Mosaic Law — the connections would be so obvious that he would pass from one part to the other without realizing that he had even made a transition.
God reveals Himself to us in His created world. The psalmist looks at the sky and finds God there. The words the writer has chosen "declare" and "proclaim" are words not of uncertainty and doubt, but of conviction and assurance:
The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky proclaims the work of His hands.
The proclamation of God's presence is unceasing: day and night He reveals Himself to us — not just to Judaism, not just to the churched, but to the whole world.
The psalmist thinks next of the sun. It is likened to a young man: to an athlete as it runs its course from east to west; to a bridegroom emerging from his bridal chamber.
It wasn't until I saw an Israeli film called Marriage in Nazareth that I understood the psalmist's metaphor of the bridegroom.
A wedding was the concern of the entire village. Each villager dressed in his or her finery and sang and danced and feasted all day. When the bride and groom left for their house the villagers followed and sat outside, and waited, and waited, until the bridegroom emerged triumphant from his house, having successfully consummated his marriage. Then the festivities resumed and continued until morning. The emergence of the bridegroom from his chamber was a moment which belonged to the entire village, just as the triumphant emergence of the sun belongs to the whole world.
In the Middle East the sun gives intense light and heat. It is not the pallid January sun for which we are so grateful, but an intense burning white light in which nothing can remain hidden. Just as the desert sun reaches into every crevice, so the Law searches out all the hidden places of the soul.
The Law here does not mean the Ten Commandments, but the whole complex legislation — the religious, moral, civil and criminal law — laid out in the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy which governs every aspect of the life of the devout Jew. The psalmist impresses on us his great love for the Law in the words he chooses to describe it. The Law is perfect, right, clean, true, precious and sweet.
We might add, The Law is luminous, disinfectant, severe, exultant.
When the subject that is loved is a sacred one, the danger of spiritual pride is very great. It is easy to make the mistake of thinking that those who do not understand it or observe it, are not only inferior in our eyes, but are inferior in God's eyes as well.
The psalmist begs to be delivered from such spiritual pride and arrogance. He also asks for deliverance from sins which he commits unknowingly, inadvertently. He is a man of humility and a mature faith.
Clear Thou me from hidden faults.
The three parts of the Psalm which seemed at first not to belong together are in fact an integrated whole.
We are made aware of God's presence in nature, in the heavens, and in the sun whose searching light is reflected in the clarity and luminosity of the Law.
The writer understands the hazard of spiritual pride in his own love for, and knowledge of, the Law, and asks to be freed not just from that but also from those sins which he unknowingly commits.
He completes his beautiful poem with two lines which are very familiar to us:
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
Our thoughts and words are without worth unless God deems them acceptable and makes them accessible to those who listen. Amen.
Copyright © 1998 Robin Lee
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