Henes column: Returning to worship

The Psalms are special. Throughout church history, God’s people have understood that the Psalms are a different kind of writing. They are as inspired as every other part of Scripture, but they speak from a different perspective. In the law and prophets, God speaks to his people. In the Psalter, we hear God’s people speaking, calling out. As one commentator put it, “here the language of the Bible comes to meet the very thoughts of our hearts.”

I have a theory that this is why the Psalms are neglected. Our is a day of prosperity. We have learned to think of God as a genie in the sky who gives us our heart’s desires. All we need to do is rub the lamp, or say the right words, and God will appear bearing gifts. The Psalms expose the difficult realities of life. Over half of the Psalms are laments, crying out to God, questioning God, and wondering why life is full of so much chaos. We need the Psalms. Life is not about prosperity. Life is full of so many experiences. There are good times, but there are also bad times. There is joy, but there is also sorrow. There is rejoicing, but also weeping. As Solomon wrote, for everything there is a season.

Psalm 84 is one that is special to me and took on greater significance this past Sunday. Psalm 84 is about longing for God. In the context, this Psalm comes after several where God’s silence has been highlighted. The struggle of God’s people in this world was brought to the fore as they call out for God. The Psalmist’s desire comes out clearly in Psalm 84 as the author invites us to long for God’s presence.

The Psalm has three sections: longing for God’s presence; journeying to God’s presence; and arriving in God’s presence. Each of the first two sections is marked off by the Hebrew word "selah," which means "rest" or "pause." As he longs for God’s presence, we read, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.” Here the beauty of God’s presence is the focus, a beauty that can only be seen by faith. The Psalmist faces two opposite sensations: a desire to sing and a fainting in doing so. It’s the kind of excitement that leaves him breathless. 

The second section focuses on the journey to God’s presence and the troubles that are faced, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs.” These two verses are helpful as we think about our own journey to God’s presence. There are highways to Zion, or roads that lead us to God. These words reflect what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart.”

Saint Augustine writes in his  Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” But this is not the only road that we are familiar with. The Psalmist goes on to speak about going through “the Valley of Baca” or what is given in other translations as the ‘vale of tears.’ There are many sorrows in this life and what the Scriptures remind us is that God meets his people in their sorrows. God often turns our sorrows into places where he meets us. As CH Spurgeon once said, “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”

If this were not the case, our lives would be one of perpetual misery and we would drown under the weight of our sins. This is also the whole point of Jesus, God meeting us in our sorrows. In the incarnation, Jesus took humanity to himself and the infinite unsuffering God experienced suffering in the person of the Son. This is why Isaiah calls him “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” The Psalm ends in God’s presence, “a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.” Here, we find the joy of gathering with God’s people for worship. This past Sunday, I couldn’t do that, due to illness. It is a true sorrow to miss worship, but oh the joy to return!

Pastor Everett Henes, pastor of Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church, may be reached at pastorhenes@gmail.com.