Links for today’s readings:
Dec 16 Read: 2 Chronicles 18 Listen: (5:51) Read: Psalms 119.145-176 Listen: (15:14)
Scripture Focus: Psalm 119.1, 176
1 Blessed are those whose ways are blameless,
who walk according to the law of the Lord.
176 I have strayed like a lost sheep.
Seek your servant,
for I have not forgotten your commands.
Reflection: A Lifetime of Joy — Joy of Advent
By John Tillman
Charles Spurgeon believed David composed Psalm 119 over his lifetime. Spurgeon pointed to the growth in the subject matter and argued that early stanzas showed a young man’s idealism and aspirations and later stanzas showed a world-weary elder’s humility and laments.
Comparing the first and last lines seems to support this. The first line praises those whose ways are blameless. The last line confesses straying so far as to become hopelessly lost. The psalmist needs God to seek him.
He has not forgotten the Lord’s commands but he also has failed to follow them blamelessly. Yet, he appeals to the Lord to seek him, save him, restore him, and sustain his life.
Even though the psalmist has strayed, even though he is lost, even though he has listed many ways in which he has been oppressed, attacked, slandered, and harmed, he maintains his joy through God and God’s word.
For the psalmist, God’s character is intimately bound up in God’s commands through scripture. It is in God’s written words, commands, prophecies, narratives, judgments, and songs that the psalmist sees God’s nature, will, and guidance.
It is the same for us. Jesus is the perfect image of the invisible God. When we see Jesus, we see the Father and we see Jesus most clearly through the scriptures. The Holy Spirit shaped scripture to show us God in the person of Jesus Christ.
The pattern of Psalm 119 shows the development of identity, wisdom, humility, and joy that cannot be dimmed by the circumstances of life. This development, this joy, comes from long and repeated devotion to the scriptures and their Holy Spirit-enabled transformative power.
Where are you in Psalm 119? Where are you in Advent? Are you the idealistic young person? Are you the world-wearied elder? Are you joyously seeking God? Are you crying for God to seek and find you?
There is room in Advent for every stage of our waiting, every ounce of our suffering, every emotion of our hearts, and every idealistic or cynical thought. Hope, peace, joy, and love abound despite circumstances when we focus our vision on Jesus through the scriptures.
Devote yourself not to the emotionalism of a sentimental season, but to the indefatigable joys scripture reveals in the character of Jesus and our future with him. Jesus is the source of Advent’s joy that cannot be dimmed by the dark.
Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading
Because you have kept my commandment to persevere, I will keep you safe in the time of trial which is coming for the whole world, to put the people of the world to the test. I am coming soon: hold firmly to what you already have, and let no one take your victor’s crown away from you. Anyone who proves victorious I will make into a pillar in the sanctuary of my God, and it will stay there forever; I will inscribe on it the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which is coming down from my God in heaven, and my own new name as well. Let anyone who can hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. — Revelation 3.10-13
– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.
Read more: The Garden of Psalm 119
It is our hope that each cycle of our two-year-long tread through the garden of scripture produces not pride, but humility.
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