Saturday, March 14, 2015

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Psalm 90

Moses begins Psalm 90 with a classic affirmation of the timeless vast age of God. By addressing God in this way, he both praises, worships and characterizes God as a being not at all like the frail humans he has created.

“Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

The contrast continues when Moses speaks of humans going from dust to dust. A thousand years in our world is only a day in the sight of God. Humans pass away like the grass that comes up fresh in the morning and is dry and withered by evening. God’s anger features largely in Psalm 90. Moses reminds us, by speaking to God of the secret sins of humans that stand revealed in the light of God’s presence. The sadness and frailty of human existence is captured in an amazing poetic phrase:

“All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.”

What a sad commentary on life. Moses does not let up. He reminds us of the seventy or eighty years that we might have if our strength holds up, but claims that the best years 

“are but trouble and sorrow, for we quickly pass, and we fly away.”

Then, he pivots into his request of God. He asks God for a heart of wisdom that only comes when humans number their days. How many times in our lives have we heard the idea: Live each day as if it was your last! I often hear that at funerals, when thoughts of mortality fill the funeral home or church. The passing of someone dear to us, or someone who died before they achieved old age gives us pause. So does the brush of death that comes so close to us we can feel the icy breath.

Today, I heard of a dear old friend, in fact a former student who sits in Intensive Care while multiple surgeries and infectious complications have brought her close to death more than once this month. Her son told me the details of how the family has hung on the scant few words of doctors and nurses with huge periods of time in waiting rooms where no word came out one way or the other. I’m waiting for an email from him that folks other than relatives can visit. I’m hoping a visit will cheer her as well as the prayers offered by her family and friends. With the heart of wisdom Moses asks for, and I ask for, we can count our days, not just when death comes close, but every day of the year.

Near the end of the psalm, Moses asks God for his love, so that we may sing in the mornings and be glad all our days. Again, typical of Moses – he asks for as many days of gladness as days where God has afflicted us with sorrow and troubles. He finishes with a prayer that God’s deeds be shown to his servants, his splendor to their children and that the Lord’s favor 

“establish the work of our hands.”

He repeats that last idea as well he should. Our imaginations can steer us into so many ways to use up our time on this earth. But with God to establish the work of our hands, we can rest assured we shall be doing God’s will, not our own.

So, while Psalm 90 has so many familiar contrasting images, the eternal God and the frail human who is like dust in the wind, the dark night swept away by the light of day, the sorrows and troubles of human existence and the joys of knowing a loving God – still, on any given day, the events of our lives bring such psalms to life and make them absolutely personal to any one of us. Connecting the dots, it is not a far stretch to say that a heart of wisdom comes for those who dwell in the Word of God on a daily basis. And for some of us, older than we care to admit, counting our days is a very important thing to do.

Friday the 13^th, March / 2015