Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Wisdom Wednesday: Pause Psalm 63

Grace and peace to you, I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Today is Wednesday, March 6, 2024 During the season of Lent, we at Peakland are reading this book, Pause: Spending Lent with the Psalms. We’re at the midpoint of Lent and we are at the midpoint of the book right now, and we’ve spent some time with three Psalms all attributed to King David, who lived and reigned a thousand years before Jesus. In Psalm 25, David is seeking the pathways of God. He is surrounded by enemies and tormented by his present and past sins, and he seeks to follow God, trusting that even if God seems absent, David has faith God will guide him. In Psalm 27, David is dancing between hope and fear and between faith and doubt. David’s doubt and fear lead him to cry out as he seeks God’s face and to know God’s presence with him, and yet David still has enough faith and hope to say at the end of Psalm 27, I believe I will see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living. This week we at Peakland are considering Psalm 63, which may have been written by David before he was king, and when we was on the run from his enemies and living in the desert wilderness. Even as David’s life is hard and brutal, Psalm 63 is a love song to God. David hungers and thirsts for God. In the Psalm, David yearns for and clings to God, and David declares in this Psalm that his life will be a blessing to God. For these videos this season when I have been reading the psalms aloud, I’ve been reading the King James Version of Bible, which does well capturing the poetry of the Psalms. Today I want to offer three translations of three verses of Psalm 63. Each translation provides different poetic nuances and perhaps leads to a deeper understanding. The text of each translation will be on your screen as I read… Here’s the King James version of Psalm 63, verses 2, 3, and 4. To see thy power and thy glory, as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live: Here’s a translation by a Biblical Scholar named Robert Alter, who wanted his English translation to capture the rhythms of the original Hebrew: So, in the sanctum I beheld You, seeing Your Strength and Your glory. For Your kindness is better than life. My lips praise You. Thus, I bless You while I live. Eugene Peterson created a translation of the scriptures called The Message in which he uses contemporary English and modern expressions. Here’s his version of Psalm 63, verses 2-4 So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open, drinking in your strength and glory. In your generous love I am really living at last! My lips brim with praises like fountains. I bless you every time I take a breath. I hope you are finding a multitude of blessings this Lenten Season. Peakland hopes to be a blessing to the students in our area these next couple of weeks. Beginning this Sunday, March 10, Peakland will be handing out these empty teal bags from Park View Community Mission’s Food for Thought program, which provides weekend food supplies for the students in our community. Each of these empty teal bags has a QR code on it. Scan the code with your phone, and you’ll see the webpage for the specific items Food for Thought needs now. Cans of tuna, cans of ravioli, fruit cups, mac and cheese cups and more. Take a teal bag or two or three, fill it up with the items Food For Thought needs and then bring it back to Peakland anytime over the next two weeks. Food for Thought will be here at Peakland on Friday, March 22, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. to collect all the bags, and I trust that we at Peakland will provide a generous blessing for the students in our area. I’ve included a link to Park View Mission Community’s website in the description, (http://parkviewmission.org) so you can check out all the ways they are blessing our neighbors. We’ll keep spending time with Psalms as we get closer to Holy Week. This upcoming Sunday, March 10 in worship and then in next week’s in-person discussion and in next Wednesdsay’s video, we’ll consider the crown jewel of the Psalms: Psalm 23. You can find more about our fantastic church at peaklandumc.org . If you would like to learn more finding your place here at Peakland, reach out to me at peaklandpastor@gmail.com . Thanks be to God!