8/30/23
Are you a morning person? I am, and pretty much always have been. When I was in high school, I hated doing homework after school (I’m still pretty well brainless after 3:00 pm), so I would get up at 5:00 am, do my homework, then practice the piano for however long before breakfast. Sleeping in was 8:00, and if I slept later than that, I was sick!
For me, the morning is the best part of the day. This time last month, the sun was already up when I started my morning walk, but now as the days grow shorter, it’s pitch black outside. I love it. I love walking around before anyone else is up, watching my neighborhood wake up. Every morning a police officer who lives on the next block passes me on his way to work. I can count on seeing a group of friends jogging on Tuesdays. My path goes a block south and then west for about a mile before a long curve brings me back around East. Houses that are dark on my way west are waking up on my way back. Lately, as I’ve come back around toward the east, I’ve reached the “blue hour,” those beautiful blues and violets of twilight that herald the dawn. By the time I reach home, the blue has started giving way to the yellows and oranges of sunrise.
Invariably, that first light of dawn reminds me of our psalm from today’s reading, Psalm 57:8, “Awake, my soul! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.”
Isn’t that a beautiful phrase? “I will awaken the dawn.” The psalmist imagines himself rising before daybreak with his stringed instrument to waken the sleeping sun with his song.
That movement from darkness to light is perfect for this type of psalm. Psalm 57 is one of the psalms that says, “Life was awful, but look what God has done!” Verses 1-4 describe the darkness, followed by a refrain, then the light breaks in verses 6-10, and the psalm closes with that same refrain. And the words of the refrain are as if the awakening of the dawn at the eastern edge of the sky as the morning light spreads out over the earth is reminding the psalmist of God’s rule over all the heavens: “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth” – and so overwhelmed is he by the glory of God, he sings it twice (vss. 5 and 11)!
In complete assurance, the psalmist says, “God will send forth his steadfast love and his faithfulness” (57:4). Those two words are found together throughout the Psalms. For “steadfast love,” some of your translations will have something like “love,” or “unfailing love,” or “mercy.” The Hebrew word is hesed, and my favorite translation of it is “loyal love.” Because God’s love is loyal or steadfast or unfailing, God is faithful to keep his promises. Even when we are faithless, God is faithful – or as I pray each week in the Great Thanksgiving, “when our love failed, your love remained steadfast.”
Why does the psalmist call on God’s steadfast love and faithfulness? Because the psalmist is in real trouble. He describes his troubles as a fierce storm or as being surrounded by lions, and so, in the middle of his troubles, the psalmist cries out for God to be merciful: “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me.”
Why? Why should he expect God’s mercies? God promised to be merciful all the way back in the beginning, back when Moses stood before him on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 34): “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” – wait a minute! “Steadfast love and faithfulness” . . . does that sound familiar? “Steadfast love and faithfulness” make an appearance in both verse 3 and in verse 10 of Psalm 57. The psalmist is in trouble, so he’s calling on God to be who God said he would be for his people back on Mt. Sinai.
And the psalmist knows by experience that God can be trusted. The book of Psalms is full of unforgettable images of God’s love and care. In Psalm 56:8, we read that God is so compassionate, he collects our tears in a bottle and counts every one. Here in our psalm, the psalmist throws himself on the mercy of God, saying: “In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by” (for those going through Hurricane Idalia today, that’s a good prayer to pray!).
We all know what it’s like to face “destroying storms.” But, like the psalmist, we also know that God’s steadfast love and faithfulness are there to carry us through whatever storms of life we are facing, and knowing that makes it possible for us to stand firm. “My heart is steadfast,” the psalmist sings, “my heart is steadfast!” Why the heart? The Hebrews didn’t know that understanding was in the brain – they thought it was in the heart. So, in our modern way of thinking, instead of “my heart is steadfast,” we would say “my mind is steadfast, O God, my mind is steadfast.” And speaking of misplaced organs, in Hebrew, instead of “awake my soul,” the Hebrew literally says, “awake my liver!” In the ancient world, the liver was the center of the soul and the seat of emotions. Mind might be better than heart, but I definitely prefer soul over liver!
Heart . . . mind . . . soul . . . liver . . . the point is, the psalmist is praising God with his entire being.
And we can, as well. Just as the light of day spreads out over the earth, so God’s glory is exalted over all the heavens. In light of the greatness of our God, we know we can trust him with whatever we’re going though. We can turn to him in times of trial because we know the Object of our faith is not a “religion,” but God in his steadfast love and faithfulness. As Lamentations 3:22-23 (the source of one of our favorite hymns) remind us, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”