The Lord is my light and salvation: A Sermon

Preached a sermon at the Sung Eucharist at Croydon Minster on the Second Sunday of Lent: Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3.17-4.1; Luke 13.31-end.

+

 

This morning, as at every Eucharist, a psalm has been recited.

 

This morning it has been sung. This is right and proper because psalms, when first composed some two and a half to three thousand years ago, were written to be sung. The word psalm means ‘song’.

 

The origins of the psalms are for use in the worship of the Temple in Jerusalem, and in the liturgical life of Israel. By tradition the author of the psalms is King David.

 

The psalms are an integral element in the Liturgy of the Word, that part of the Liturgy which contains the readings from the Old and New Testaments and the Gospels . After all, Jesus himself says, ‘everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled’ (Luke 24.44).

 

Psalms are from the Old Testament and have always been a feature of Christian worship from the earliest days, because they represent the fulfilment of God’s promises in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

 

It’s also the case that of all the books of Old Testament that Jesus quotes, the psalms are quoted most frequently. At the end of the Last Supper, Jesus and his disciples sang a hymn, which we could assume to be a psalm, and headed to the Mount of Olives where Jesus would go to Gethsemane to pray. Jesus’ dying words on the Cross – ‘my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ – are from the Book of Psalms; they’re the opening words of Psalm 22.

 

The psalms are the backbone of the Divine Office, what we know as Matins and Evensong, the Church’s prayer in the morning and evening.

 

Psalms lead us through times of exultation and praise: ‘O praise God in his holiness, praise him in the firmament of his power!’ (Psalm 150)

 

they go with us to the very depths of human experience; ‘O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee : O let my prayer enter into thy presence, incline thine ear unto my calling. For my soul is full of trouble : and my life draweth nigh unto hell’. (Psalm 88.1,2)

 

they express deep questioning; ‘Nevertheless, my feet were almost gone : my treadings had well-nigh slipt. And why? I was grieved at the wicked : I do also see the ungodly in such prosperity’. (Psalm 74.2,3)

 

and they articulate the most profound words of trust and assurance. ‘The Lord is my shepherd, therefore can I lack nothing’ (Psalm 23.1); ‘I will sing forever of the steadfast love of the LORD forever (Psalm 89.1)

 

We don’t need always to be searching for words of our own composing; what we can do is turn to the book of psalms for their words are given to us.

 

Today’s psalm is a psalm that I first became familiar with through the most simple of chants from the community of brothers at Taizé, in France: ‘The Lord is my light, my light and salvation, in him I trust, in him I trust.’

 

At times of danger, or fear or when I am uncertain, they have been words on my lips. Psalm 27 became a song to feed my heart.

 

The custom in Jesus’ day was to quote the first verse of a psalm which was an indicator of the whole psalm. So Psalm 22, ‘my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ triggers to the hearer a psalm that is not just saying that God has forsaken the speaker, but actually becomes a song of praise of what God has done in raising up the afflicted from rock bottom.

 

Likewise, ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation whom then shall I fear?’ opens up a wider story.

 

The Ukrainian Catholic Church have quoted this psalm many times over the last two weeks. It is not a casual or unthinking expression of hope in God when everything is going wrong, but a deep expression of trust in God:

 

Though a host encamp against me,

my heart shall not be afraid,

and though there rise up war against me,

yet will I put my trust in him. (verse 3)

 

The psalm concludes with words that could almost be written by a Ukrainian today:

 

Deliver me not into the will of my adversaries, 

for false witnesses have risen up against me,

and those who breathe out violence.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord

in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord;

be strong and he shall comfort your heart;

wait patiently for the Lord. (verses 15-17)

 

The words of the psalm are directly from someone in a situation of being attacked, when people are out to kill him. Indeed that echoes David’s own situation when he was being pursued by King Saul. The words ring true for Ukrainians today and attacked people throughout the ages. They are true as well for Jesus as his enemies encircled him, as the Pharisees told him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ (Luke 13.31).

 

Jesus walks into the darkness of his impending death, not shying from the Cross, as threat encircled him. In so doing he walks with you and me into the darkness we face, such that we are not alone and can still sing, ‘The LORD is my light, my light and salvation, in him I trust, in him I trust’.

 

The psalmist seeks to worship God in God’s holy temple and seeks the face of the LORD. Jesus inhabits and fulfils this psalm.

 

Jesus is the New Temple, the place of sacrifice and reconciliation. This is accomplished on the cross, and the bitter irony is that this takes place in Jerusalem. Jerusalem means ‘city of peace’; yet is a parody of peace. The temple of Jerusalem is supposed to be the place of encounter with the Living God, yet the Living God, made flesh and given a face in Jesus Christ, is rejected and killed.

 

The face of the LORD is not in vengeance and destruction, but seen in the face of the Crucified and Risen Lord.

 

Seeking the face of Jesus enables us to see in the darkness, and leads us deep into the heart of God, the heart and wellspring of life and light. Celebrating the sacraments and receiving their grace, personal prayer and devotion, feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting for the sick and imprisoned are the ways we seek to see the Lord’s face.

 

The psalm revels in seeking ‘to behold the fair beauty of the Lord and to seek his will in his temple’ (Psalm 27.5) and to ‘offer in his dwelling an oblation with great gladness’ (27.9). Offering that oblation is what we do now in the Eucharist.

 

As we seek Christ’s face in the temple and in his world so we will know the power of the final words of the gospel reading today, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord’ (Luke 13.35b), words we know as the Benedictus and, believe it or not, they are words from a Psalm too (118.26).  

 

We come now in the name of the Lord, seeking blessing and entrusting ourselves to the Lord, our light and salvation.