Psalm 50 - This Psalm is the appointed one for this Sunday. Verse 1 is the key verse, “O Lord, make haste to help me.”
This is the prayer of faith. When we
reach out to the Savior with our burdens, joys, sorrows, and cares, He answers
every petition. Our only request, “Thy
will be done Lord, Thy will be done.”
Asaph was one of King
David’s music leaders. Either Asaph wrote this psalm, or someone wrote it for
him. Or perhaps someone wrote it long after his death, for singers that lived
after him. The psalm is very much like Isaiah 1:11-20, and Micah 6:6-9. Isaiah
and Micah wrote their books about 250 years after David and Asaph died. Psalms
73-83 are also psalms of Asaph.
The psalm is a picture
of a Court of Law. This is a place where people decide whether someone has done
right or wrong. If they have done wrong, the Court can send them to prison, or
worse. In the psalm, Israel is in Court. God is telling them what they have
done wrong. Everything in the sky and on earth must decide whether Israel has
done right or wrong. God says that they have done wrong and that he will punish
them if they do not obey him.
Now, read Exodus
20:2-17 and contemplate the difference between:
a) being safe at the Last Judgment because you
have obeyed every rule,
b) being safe at the
Last Judgment because you trust in the merits and work of Jesus Christ.
Collect for Psalm 50: Heavenly Father, because Jesus your
servant became obedient to death, his sacrifice was greater than all the
holocausts of old. Accept the sacrifice of praise we offer you through him, and
help us show the effects of it in our lives by striving to do your will.[1]
Image: The Ten Virgins, copyright © Ed Riojas, Higher Things
[1] Collect for Psalm 50, For All the Saints, A Prayer Book for and By the Church Vol. II © 1995 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Delhi, NY
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