Psalm 27:1-9
- This week’s Psalm is David’s
triumphant prayer to God to deliver him from all those who conspire to bring
him down. The prayer presupposes the Lord’s covenant with David. It is faith
which publicly testifies to the Psalmist’s confident reliance on the Lord.
When it got dark in biblical
times, they lit lamps -- not the brilliant LED lanterns you can purchase today,
but simple pottery lamps, with a single wick and flame, casting just enough
light to see a short ways ahead. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path.” If we follow
God’s will, we do not know what the road will look like in a few miles or
years. God gives us just a pottery lamp’s worth of light, just enough to take a
few more steps. You have to trust God with that kind of light.
“The Lord is my light; whom shall I fear?” We fear the future -- but
with God as our light, that small flicker banishes the darkness, and we are not
alone.
“One thing I asked of the Lord; that will I seek after; to live in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in his temple” (verse 4) is one of the Bible’s most
eloquent, emotionally powerful, visionary verses, well worth memorizing, or
installing as your life’s mission statement, etching it into the core of your
soul.
So many pregnant phrases in Psalm
27 beg for reflection.
“Now my head is lifted up” (verse 6) -- that we do not hang our
heads any longer, but look forward, with dignity, because of God's salvation.
“Your face, Lord, do I seek” (verse 8) -- for we do not seek some
vague, ephemeral deity, but a God with a human face, the compassionate, strong
face of Jesus, God become like us.
“I believe I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living,” (verse 13) -- that faith is not merely about the pledge of eternal
life in another world, but it is in this world, not merely some spiritual
realm, but the real, physical world, in my body, in my neighborhood, in
politics, in economics, everywhere that is anywhere now.[1]
Prayer for Psalm 27 – Gracious
Father, protector of those who hope in you, You heard the cry of your Son and
kept him safe in your shelter in the day of evil. Grant that your servants who
seek your face in times of trouble may see your goodness in the land of he
living; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. [2]
[2] Collect for Psalm 27, For All the
Saints A Prayer Book for and by the Church Vol.2 © 1995 American Lutheran
Publicity Bureau, Delhi, NY
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