PSALM 123 LOOKING UPWARDS TO GOD (A pilgrim's song)

 

PSALM 123      LOOKING UPWARDS TO GOD (A pilgrim song)

APPOINTED PSALM - SUNDAY 15TH NOVEMBER 2020

MISSION SUNDAY

This brief and unpretentious prayer is grouped around a single word-picture imbued with moving tenderness. It springs from disposition of heartfelt and profound piety. Here an individual takes the affliction of his people so greatly to his heart that he makes it the object of his prayer; even from a purely stylistic point of view this has been expressed by the transition from the style of personal prayer to that of community prayer.

1   To you I lift up my eyes:
you who are enthroned in the heavens.

The background of the psalm can be inferred from vv. 3 f. The nation has long been exposed to the contempt and scorn of arrogant adversaries. This may be that the poem was written when the pressure weighed heavily upon the people in post-exilic times under the overlordship of Persia; it is, however, also possible that their affliction has been due to conflicts within the nation itself. The words which the worshipper uses in his opening prayer make clear how he conceives of his own position in relation to God. Amid the distress caused by his depressing situation he has lift his eyes to him who sits enthroned in heaven. In doing so he is aware of the immense difference between his human powerlessness and the greatness of the power of the heavenly King, on which alone he depends. His words express humble submission, but at the same time also firm trust.

2   As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master:
or as the eyes of a maid toward the hand of her mistress,

His consciousness of the attitude that is fitting before Yahweh is expressed even more distinctly in the peculiar line he takes in meditation in v. 2. He no longer visualizes himself as being alone face to face with God—after all, it is not a private concern which he presents in his prayer——but unites in a fellowship of prayer with his fellow believers, who with yearning await their encounter with God. The poet expresses in a simple and impressive simile what links the members of the congregation together before God in their common affliction. Like the eyes of the servants to the hand of their master and the eyes of the maids to the hand of their mistress, so their eyes look to God, their Lord. It expresses reverential awe, submission and humility, which are the result of the awareness of being utterly dependent on the sovereign will and power of God, as on the Lord with whom nobody can interfere; but at the same time it also expresses devoted love and trustful hope in the fatherly care that God, as the Lord, will give his own. It is only when both these sentiments combine that the genuine attitude of prayer is achieved. Reverential awe restrains the worshipper from encroaching upon the majesty of God through importunate petition, while trusting love alone makes it possible for him to pray with confidence and to confide his affliction to God in prayer. Thus at the end of the verse the waiting for the moment when God will appear and ‘look graciously upon’ his people is not to be understood in the sense that the members of the congregation want to press their human desires on God, but rather that in spite of the utter urgency of their concern they are yet satisfied to wait patiently upon the Lord, to whom they show the honour due to him by their whole-hearted surrender to his mercy. This has nothing whatsoever to do with a cowardly ‘slave mentality’; on the contrary, only by humbly submitting to God is man set free from any kind of cringing submission to the power of men, so that he is able to resist any attempt to bring him low through human pressure.

3   So our eyes look to the Lord our God:
until he shows us his mercy.

4   Have mercy upon us O Lord have mercy upon us:
for we have had our fill of derision.

The humble trust with which the worshipper lifts his eyes to God provides the background for his petition, ‘Be gracious to us, O Lord.’ The poet is a man of few words. His attitude expresses the spirit of prayer more effectively than an abundance of fine words could do. It is not until he adds a reason to his petition that the tenderness of his trust and the purity and restraint of his surrender to God appear in their true light; for it makes us realize how grievously the worshipper and his people suffer from the contempt of the proud oppressors, so that the lifting up of his eyes to God is the only light that shines in that darkness.

5   Our souls overflow with the mockery of those at ease:
and with the contempt of the proud.

And when he candidly confesses before him that humanly speaking all patience to endure such scorn is at an end, even these words of bitter complaint still reflect that heartfelt trustfulness which makes the whole poem one of the finest examples of piety, expressed in prayer – simple, truthful, natural and sincere.

Thank you Fr Graham Alston for your weekly narrative on the appointed psalm.