One of my desires is to pictorially interpret the Songs of Degrees (Psalms 120-134); one composition per psalm. Psalm 120 and 121 are here and here.
I've been stuck on Psalm 122 for about 4 weeks; none of my sketches have been satisfying. There's so much in this psalm. Here is the first complete effort for 122, although it doesn't satisfy me either.
In this psalm, the wanderer finds himself already in the precincts of Jerusalem, the City of God and, in verse 3, he notices something.
This something is translated in our English versions as "Jerusalem is a city that is compact together," or "... is bound firmly together," or variations thereof. But I like the English translation of the Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the Old Testament. Here, verse 3 is translated this way:
"Jerusalem is built as a city whose fellowship is complete ..."
A city whose fellowship is complete.
I've been wondering and wandering over this for days.
Logos2Go
Psalm 122, ESV (121 in the Septuagint)
1 I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”
2 Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!
3 Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together,
(3 Jerusalem is built as a city whose fellowship is complete),
4 to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
5 There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.
6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you!
7 Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!”
8 For my brothers and companions' sake I will say, “Peace be within you!”
9 For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.
Psalm 122: where fellowship is complete
Somewhere over the rainbow
Upon seeing the above painting, my friend Joshua Gilstrap was reminded of Psalm 97. I think it is an appropriate passage to post with this image.
I had titled the painting "somewhere over the rainbow."
Oil pastels and color pencil on paper.
Logos2Go
Psalm 97.1 The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! 2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 3 Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around. 4 His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.
Psalm 121
Oil pastels on paper.
Logos2Go
121:1-8 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? / My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. / He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. / Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. / The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. / The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. / The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. / The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
Psalm 120
Oil pastels on paper
Logos2Go
Psalm 120.1-7 In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. Deliver me, O LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. What shall be given to you, and what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue? A warrior's sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree! Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war!
This Christmas, treasure up
This Christmas I am thinking of Mary. Over the centuries Mary has gotten a bad deal. The Catholics make her almost divine; they even pray to her. We Protestants go the other way: we keep her out of prime time. She's rarely held up as a role model like other women in the Bible: Ruth, Esther, even Dorcas.
Churches have Dorcas Funds to help those in need. But I’ve never heard of a church with a Mary Fund.
But Mary had a Fund. She had treasures in her heart. We all know the story. Shepherds came to worship the baby Jesus – and Luke says Mary "treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." Later on, they lose the boy Jesus for three days only to find him in the Temple. Imagine the panic: You’ve lost your kid, not for three hours, but for three days! What was Mary’s response? She treasured all these things in her heart.
But you say: she was Jesus’ mother! Of course she treasured things about her boy!
But this is what’s so remarkable. She was the mother of God; you’d think heaven would keep her in the loop about things:
“Okay these are the wise men … this is a planned visit … we’ve got sharpshooters on the roof … don’t worry …” etc.
You’d expect her to be treated like royalty. Think of Queen Elizabeth, mother of Prince Charles. No mean life here. No stables for her. What? Lose her son in a crowd? No!; secret service would be all over the place.
But not Mary the mother of God. One visit as a young girl by the angel Gabriel, and that’s it. No more heavenly visits. No more inside scoop. She’s left to her own natural wits to raise this child. She’s not given a palace to live in; not even the Davenport Hotel. She gets a stable. She loses her son and has to go find him. She goes to a wedding and frets about wine. She sees her son die on the cross, and gets handed off to John to be cared for. That’s it.
Brothers and sisters: if this for the mother of God, how about for us? Better than Mary, we have the New Testament to guide us. Better than Mary, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. We have it much better than the mother of God.
And yet do we treasure up in our hearts the circumstances of our lives?
Perhaps because of our comfort we take everything for granted. We forget that we are the continuing story of the advent of Jesus Christ into the world. Luke, who wrote the report about Mary, also wrote in Acts that he was recording what Jesus began to do in the world.
We continue to be part of that story.
We often pray to know the will of God. Jesus IS the will of God. But how his life unfolds in us is often unclear to us. We are not given a preview. We are simply brought into the circumstances of our lives with Jesus in our midst, in our hearts, in the Word. And far from taking our circumstances for granted -- or even griping about them -- we need to do some treasuring up.
What should we treasure? Not the circumstances themselves. But we treasure the mystery of Jesus Christ in our circumstances. Because he is in the midst, there is something about these circumstances I am going through that is right at the heart of God’s counsel for Christ in me the hope of glory.
In this sense they are holy; in this sense I need to give my best, my all, with humility and worship, and free from complaint.
Treasure up … this word in the Greek means to preserve, to keep from perishing, to protect from being lost. It means to value. This Christmas, thank God for the circumstances of your lives, because Jesus is in the midst.
And that is something worth treasuring up for.
Logos2Go
Luke 2.19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Luke 2.51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.
Acts 1.1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach...
de Tocqueville on Christianity and Islam
The Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville traveled in this country in the early nineteenth century. I came across this observation he made in 1835, and I think it makes for good discussion in light of current events (I break up his paragraph for easier reading):
"It has been shown that, at times of general cultivation and equality, the human mind does not consent to adopt dogmatical opinions without reluctance, and feels their necessity acutely in spiritual matters only.
This proves, in the first place, that at such times religions ought, more cautiously than at any other, to confine themselves within their own precincts; for in seeking to extend their power beyond religious matters, they incur a risk of not being believed at all. The circle within which they seek to bound the human intellect ought therefore to be carefully traced, and beyond its verge the mind should be left in entire freedom to its own guidance.
Mohammed professed to derive from Heaven, and he has inserted in the Koran, not only a body of religious doctrines, but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and theories of science. The gospel, on the contrary, only speaks of the general relations of men to God and to each other -- beyond which it inculcates and imposes no point of faith. This alone, besides a thousand other reasons, would suffice to prove that the former of these religions will never long predominate in a cultivated and democratic age, whilst the latter is destined to retain its sway at these as at all other periods ..."
Hmmm.
Logos2Go
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Henry Reeve, B&R Samizdat Express, 504
This is what it's all about ...
"What is Life?"
"What is Love?"
Big questions like these take up a lot of time without producing answers. Or they occupy huge tomes nobody reads. Some people, having talked long enough about them, might even earn tenure at an institute of higher learning. But the questions only get bigger.
At the Mission, I've been getting to know a man named Art; and Art tends to ask the big questions. Like last night over dinner ...:
... the dining room was overflowing with people and noise, the aroma of dependency freely mixing with the warmth of caring. In addition to the guys staying at the Mission, many had come in from the dreary cold. They were served hamburger patties smothered with chili, with curly fries and salad on the side.
As usual, it was a miracle: hundreds of servings ... with leftovers.
And Art blurts out:
What's any of this about anyway... ?
Art is a deep thinker in faded blue jeans; I'd even say he's tortured by his thoughts. That's why I find him a kindred spirit.
But I'm chomping down on my hamburger and mildly irritated at having to do philosophy at the same time.
"Pass the salt and pepper."
Yea but what's any of this about anyway ... I mean look at us ... nobody's interested in anything but eating and the basics ...
It was one of those moments when the jigsaw puzzle of thoughts aligned with insight from above; so I blurted out, probably helping myself more than helping him:
This is what it's all about: you are here; I am here; we are eating this meal together; this moment ... together ... here ... and we are thankful. All of this, NOW, is by God's grace. This is what it's all about, and we must capture the moment ...
Logos2Go
John 6.29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”