The words that hold your dearest treasure (Joy in the Journey 86)

With his trademark wry humour and punchy insight, Steve Turner wrote a poem about short poems:

Short poems

are fun.

You can see at a glance

whether you

like them

or not.

Psalm 117 comes and goes so quickly. It’s definitely in the category of ‘short poem’. It’s so easy to pass it by, to accept what it says and to hurry on to the larger pastures of Ps.118 and then on into the sprawling continent that is Ps.119.

But this psalm says, in compressed form, everything we need to know, everything that the rest of scripture opens up to us. You can tell at a glance that it holds your dearest treasure:

    Praise the LORD, all you nations;

    extol him, all you peoples.

    For great is his love toward us,

    and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever.

    Praise the LORD.

It insists, demands, that all nations are called to praise the LORD - that the whole story of the Bible is expansive and not exclusive. That embedded within the story of Israel is a larger story that will, in time, burst its banks and life will overflow to the nations.

This is a song of the most extensive hope and joy. For all peoples. A light has dawned over the whole earth - the sun of righteousness has risen with healing in his wings.

And at the heart of that story - its beating pulse and its pulsating power - is the great love of God. Love that is for us, towards us, tilting the whole life of God in our direction. Love that enters the fray and frees the captives. Layering divine love into all the crevices of the heart and every moment of our lives. Love that will heal the nations. Love that finds its fullest revelation on a hill just outside Jerusalem, “where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain.”

That love was enacted in the truest and most tenacious faithfulness - a commitment to embrace and save, to heal and restore. A pledge that endures for ever. Time and chance and all the malevolence of evil could not dampen the integrity and intent of God to enter time and space - the Son of God becoming the Son of Man, that the sons of men might become the children of God (as someone so helpfully put it).

With a few deft words, the psalm lays before us the whole sweep of human history and unveils the central reality of God and his ways. It needs no explanation (so please pardon these words); its beauty is plain for all to see and offered for all to savour.

Which is what we ought to do with it. Lay it before our sight and enter its lines, in wonder and worship. This is our God, this is his world, these are his ways. And we are his, forever his.

************

Timeless love! We sing the story,
praise his wonders, tell his worth;
love more fair than heaven's glory,
love more firm than ancient earth!
    Tell his faithfulness abroad:
    who is like him? Praise the Lord!

By his faithfulness surrounded,
North and South his hand proclaim;
earth and heaven formed and founded,
skies and seas, declare his Name!
    Wind and storm obey his word:
    who is like him? Praise the Lord!

Truth and righteousness enthrone him,
just and equal are his ways;
more than happy, those who own him,
more than joy, their songs of praise!
    Sun and Shield and great Reward:
    who is like him? Praise the Lord!

(Timothy Dudley-Smith, 1926-)