The appalling and deadly attack against Jewish people celebrating the beginning of Hanukkah at Bondi Beach on Sunday, December 14 raises many questions – not least the question of ‘Why?’ Why, in this age of so much scientific and technical achievement, is there still bitterness and anger, hatred and murder in the world? Why do events such as this happen?

Humanly speaking, the responses are complex and many, but when all is said and done, there is a deeper issue at stake – flawed humanity. Despite the wisdom of the wise, such is the brokenness of humanity that we are not able to rescue ourselves. None of us is good enough, wise enough, or powerful enough to achieve it.

And, to take up an idea that is rejected by many elite today; if there is a creator God who is all good and all powerful, why doesn’t he do something to clean up the mess – to inaugurate a world of stability and peace? The answer is found in the story-line of the Scriptures.

Over this Advent season we have noted that some seven or eight centuries before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah foretold that a young woman would conceive and give birth to a son who would be named Immanuel – God with us (Isaiah 7:14). We also read of the time when this was fulfilled with an angelic announcement to Joseph, Mary’s fiancée (Matthew 1:20-23).

But that is not all. In Isaiah chapter 9 we read that into the darkness of Israel’s experience at the time, a light would dawn in the north, the region of Galilee: Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who are in distress, Isaiah says.

Galilee was the region that had been invaded by the Assyrians. As Isaiah chapter 9 unfolds we read that a day of joy would come (verse 3); the signs of war would cease (verses 4 and 5); and the shadow of death would disappear. For, as verse 6 of chapter 9 says: To us a child is born, to us a son is given…

The sign of the dawning of the new day in God’s purposes would be something weak and insignificant – the birth of a baby. Yet, as Isaiah foreshadows, the government will be on his shoulders. His name was to be called, wonderful counsellor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (9:6).

Through the lens of the New Testament we see the beginning of the fulfilment of these words – the first instalment, as it were. Matthew chapter 1, verses 21 through 23 records the angel’s words to Joseph – who had a problem: Mary his fiancée was pregnant and he knew he was not the father. “(Mary) will bear a son,” he was told, “and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel”.

How important it is we consider afresh the message of Christmas.

Sixty years ago (December 1965), Charles M. Schultz’s A Charlie Brown Christmas was released. “What is Christmas all about?” is Charlie Brown’s question.

When A Charlie Brown Christmas was first released, the overwhelming positive response took the television network executives by surprise. It was watched by an estimated forty-five percent of the television viewing audience that night. Now, sixty years later, it remains a Christmas classic.

Tired of the commercialism of Christmas, Charlie Brown wants to know the real meaning. Snoopy’s answer is his participation in a Christmas lighting and decoration competition. For Sally, Charlie Brown’s young sister, Christmas all about getting.

When once more Charlie Brown asks his question, Linus responds by taking center-stage and reciting Dr. Luke’s record of the event of Jesus’s birth found in chapter 2, verses 8-14:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid: for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will amongst those he favors’.

In an interview later, Charles Schultz’s wife, Jeannie, commented that her husband pushed back against the idea that there is no place for a text from the Bible in a cartoon: he insisted that the Bible is not just for God’s people. It is for everyone.

Schultz understood that Christmas is the twinning of giving and getting. God gave; we get or receive.

So often we simply do not appreciate the full weight of this event. We may believe the baby born in Bethlehem to be the Son of God, but how often do we let the intense meaning of this birth pass us by?

How often do we pause and reflect on the reality that divinity walked the streets of Jerusalem? That infinite Wisdom and Power humbly took on human nature? That God poured his heavenly resources into rescuing us, even though it meant for Jesus the violence and horror of a crucifixion?

It is for our sake that Christ condescended to such monumental humiliation. The lowly birth in Bethlehem points to Christ’s voluntary decision to set aside his glory for our sake. He came and he gave, to rescue us from our brokenness and open a new era of justice and peace that would stretch into eternity.

God’s way of addressing human failure is so unexpected. But let’s remember, our wisdom is finite and imperfect. It cannot be compared with the infinite and perfect wisdom of God.

With the events that unfold in the pages of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings as well as the Gospel records, we learn that God has chosen to involve himself personally and at great cost in the events of the world to open the way for our rescue and restoration as people created in his image.

Colossians chapter 1, verse 13 sets out God’s action for all who believe: God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, …

In response, we will want to emulate, no matter how feebly, the unspeakable generosity of God’s gift. Because God gave, we will want to live God’s way as salt and light and also share with others the gift of joy and hope – not condescendingly or aggressively, but graciously and generously.

You may want to find a way to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas with your family. You may also want to give a copy of The Jesus Story: Seven Signs to family and friends. It’s available through Amazon.

May you know afresh the joy and rich blessing of God’s great gift this Christmas!

A prayer. Almighty God, you have given us your only Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin. Grant that we, being born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

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Uncertain times challenge us with the bigger questions of life and whether a good and caring God exists. Come with me to Jesus’s words in Matthew chapter 5, verse 17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill.”

These are remarkable claims. The Law, the Prophets and the Writings is the title in the Jewish world for our Old Testament. In speaking of the law and the prophets, Jesus was referring to the Scriptures at that time. What did he mean when he says that he did not come to abolish, but rather to fulfill the law and the prophets?

The events that unfold in Matthew chapter 1 provide an important clue to Jesus’s meaning.

Before Jesus was born, Joseph had a problem. Mary his fiancée was pregnant and he knew he was not the father. When Joseph planned to divorce Mary quietly, an angel spoke to assure him that everything about Mary’s baby was ‘to fulfillwhat the Lord had spoken through the prophet’.

Furthermore, in Matthew chapter 11, verse 12 we read Jesus’s words: “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, … For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John”. Jesus is saying that both the Old Testament prophets and the law pointed to him. He was not working in opposition to the Scriptures – our Old Testament. Rather he was bringing everything they said to fruition.

Think of it this way. Imagine the law and the prophets are light waves. They are travelling in parallel lines foreshadowing the coming of Jesus. As we now look back at his life, we could liken his coming to a lens through which the light waves of the law and prophets are filtered. We see that the climactic events of his death and resurrection are the focal point of the law and the prophets.

Jesus said so himself. In Luke chapter 24, verses 27ff, we read what he said to two grief-stricken followers with whom he walked on the road to Emmaus on the day of his resurrection:

“Oh, how foolish you are,” he said, “and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures (our Old Testament).

Let’s think about this and tease out some application. To return to the analogy of the light waves of the law and the prophets passing through the lens of Jesus’s coming to the focal point of his death and resurrection, the light waves are filtered as they appear on the other side of the focal point. Some of the ‘law and prophetic’ waves have come to an end, while others are given a new shape.

So, for example, the laws concerning sacrifice for sin pointed to the need for a sacrifice that would perfectly satisfy God’s righteous requirements. This is uniquely found in Jesus’s death – as we read, for example in Romans 3:22b-25 and Hebrews 12:12, 14-16. The principle of the need for a sacrifice for sin remains; however, the need for further sacrifices to atone for sin is now over. The 1662 Anglican Prayer Book rightly speaks of Jesus’s death as the one perfect and complete sacrifice for the sin of the world.

To take another example, the Ten Commandments set out God’s expectations of his people for their relationship with him and with one another. Unlike us, Jesus throughout his life perfectly kept God’s law. His life and teaching are the perfect exemplar of Godliness and goodness – not least in the way he honored God by loving and serving us, his neighbors, in our deepest need, in his sacrificial death on the cross.

Furthermore, to return to my analogy, as the filtered ‘light waves’ emerge on the other side of the focal point of Jesus’s death and resurrection, we come to understand more fully the high standards of God’s kingdom that Jesus sets out in his Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew chapters 5 and 6 especially, Jesus opens up the deeper meaning of commands concerning murder, adultery, love and prayer for enemies, prayer and possessions, self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

Jesus commands his people to practise and teach these things. In Matthew chapter 5, verse 19 we read: “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practises and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Significantly, we will only ever begin to keep them if we have discovered God’s love for us. For only then will we want to turn to him in honesty and deep repentance, asking for his forgiveness. We will also want to pray that his Spirit will so change our hearts and his Word so teach our minds, that we will want to honor and serve him with thankfulness in our hearts.

Furthermore, as we read in Matthew chapter 24, Mark chapter 13 and Luke chapter 22, Jesus specifically speaks of a time when he will return in all his glory and power, to judge the world and to gather his people into his kingdom. The world as we know it, will pass away. How important it is, as Jesus warns, that we remain alert and are prepared for his coming.

These truths are so encouraging in the midst of the uncertainties of life. They awaken within us true hope and a spirit of thanksgiving to the Lord, especially in this the season of Thanksgiving and as we begin the season of Advent – when we focus on the return of God’s King. In Revelation chapter 21 we read:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling of God is with men and women. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away’ (Revelation 21:1-4).

In Jesus fulfilling the law and the prophets, we learn of the God who serves – the God to whom we have every reason to give our heartfelt thanks at every twist and turn in life. And so, rejoice. With these thoughts in mind, may you enjoy a truly Happy Thanksgiving!

A Prayer of Thanksgiving.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give humble and hearty thanks for all your goodness and loving kindness to us and to all people. We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your amazing love in the redemption of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace and for the hope of glory.

And, we pray, give us that due sense of all your mercies, that our hearts may be truly thankful, and that we may declare your praise not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, now and forever.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Do you have any regrets? Perhaps words you have spoken and can’t take back? Or a relationship you should never have started?

Second Samuel, chapter 11 tells us of the time when King David was relaxing on the roof of the palace when he saw a woman bathing. Attracted by her beauty he invited her over. But she was the wife of one of his officers. He’s away, he may have thought. And, I am the king.

But Bathsheba became pregnant, and David’s attempts to arrange for her husband, Uriah to return home and sleep with her, failed. So he developed a more devious plan. Uriah was sent back to the battlefield and positioned so that he would die. Like the ophthalmologist in Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors who had an affair and then arranged a murder, King David seemed to have committed the perfect crime.

But David had forgotten God. In Second Samuel chapter 12, we learn that Nathan the prophet arranged to meet the King. Knowing the power of kings, Nathan told a story of a wealthy man who had many sheep and a poor man who had just one little lamb. When the rich man needed a sheep for a meal to entertain a guest, instead of taking a sheep from his own flock, he took the poor man’s lamb. David, a former shepherd, was furious: ‘The man should be brought to justice,’ he said. Nathan’s response? ‘You are the man!’

The heading of Psalm 51 reveals that David wrote it following his affair. It is a complex, very personal psalm, but is timeless in its application as it also speaks to us about ourselves and about God. It is so important that I am repeating, with tweaks, what I have written before.

Have mercy on me, O God, David begins. His cry for mercy reveals that he understood he had no right to expect God’s favor. But because God had sent the prophet Nathan to speak to him, David understood that God had not forgotten his promise. He therefore not only cries for mercy but also appeals to God’s covenant love and compassion: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. Have me mercy on me, O God, according to your abundant mercy (51:3).

Confession. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me, David continues (51:3). Fully aware of his guilt before God, he didn’t just regret what he had done. He truly repented of his actions.

It’s important we think about this. David had tried to cover up and excuse what he had done. It’s something we’re all tempted to do. Over the last 100 years or so, academia has provided us with more and more excuses for what we do. Freud taught us to blame our parents. Marx taught us to blame the capitalist system. And 21st century medicine tells us to blame our DNA. But our guilt can fester and re-appear. It’s sometimes why we can’t sleep.

We need to do as David did: speak to the Lord. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, he said. But what about Bathsheba and Uriah? With his words David is voicing something we all have to reckon with: our sin is first and foremost against God. Adultery and murder are second commandment issues. But when we break the second commandment – love your neighbor as yourself – we are in fact breaking the first, for the second is consequent upon the first. Sin against our neighbor is primarily sin against God.

Contrary to what psychology and psychiatry might tell us, guilt is not just a psychological hang-up. It is something objective, something real, because it arises from thoughts, words and acts that stand between us and our Maker. The God who rules the universe is not just some impersonal force. He is a moral being, an awesome holy judge. When we fail God, we offend him. As David recognizes, God’s anger towards him, as it is towards us, is just.

The pricks of conscience we feel, reflect our awareness of an objective moral order and the existence of God. It’s not enough for the psychotherapist to help us come to terms with our guilt. It’s not even enough for the human beings we have hurt to tell us they forgive us. We are all accountable to God.

See how David puts it: You are justified, God, in your judgment, for against you alone, have I sinned… And, he adds, Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me (51:5).

David knows that his sins are the outcome of a self-centered nature. He’s not speaking against his mother nor the nature of his conception; nor is he blaming her for his actions. Rather he makes a chilling statement about human nature: no one of us is intrinsically good. As Psalm 130 says, If you, O Lord, should mark our iniquities, Lord who could stand? And as Paul the Apostle writes in Romans, chapter 3, verse 23: We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Yet human wisdom today fails to recognize this reality. It is something that impacts every arena of life – politics and the courts, economics and education, family, local community and international relations. Malcolm Muggeridge, one-time editor of the English Punch magazine wrote: The depravity of humanity is at once the most unpopular of all dogmas, but the most empirically verifiable.

Cleansing: You desire truth in the inward being, David continues; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart (51:6). If we are going to find peace of mind and heart, it’s in our minds and hearts that the process of acquiring God’s wisdom must begin. What’s buried in our thoughts needs to be exposed before God.

Consider David’s further words:  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities (51:7-10).

We need more than the band-aid of education or more laws. It’s not just isolated acts of sin we need to be cleansed from, but the powerful grip of our self-centerdness.

Yet, as even the Old Testament reveals, God is willing to forgive. Psalm 130 tells us, But there is forgiveness with you (Lord)…

However, it is not until we come to the New Testament that we learn the true cost for God to cleanse us. In Colossians 2:13 we read: And you who were dead in your trespasses … God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Heart-Change. Create in me a pure heart, O God, David continues (51:10). Too often our problem is that we don’t want to pray this prayer. Indeed, unless God’s mercy and grace are at work within us, we won’t want to change. But David also knows that he can’t presume on God’s mercy. That is why he also says, take not your Holy Spirit from me (51:11).

How we need to pray with David: Restore to me the joy of your salvation (51:12). Restore reminds us that God was no stranger to David. He could recall times when things were different, when he had enjoyed an intimate close friendship with God. Now, more than anything else, he wanted to experience again the joy of that relationship.

‘All I can bring, Lord,’ David continues, is a broken and contrite heart (51:17). He knew that as well as being pure and just, God is also willing to forgive us and set us on a new course of life that is good and honors him. How often we need to meditate on this.

There it is. A very personal, complex psalm with many layers. King David’s cry for God’s mercy is not so much a psalm for a General Confession in the gathering of God’s people, but a psalm for our own personal reflection and prayer in the privacy of our own relationship with the Lord.

Before you go to sleep tonight, let me encourage you to reflect on your own relationship with the Lord with this psalm open before you. Be honest with him, asking him to forgive you for failing to honor him at all times in your life. Pray that his Word and his Spirit will bring about the changes that God in his perfect wisdom knows are for your best, so you may know the joy of his perfect forgiveness and love. Pray further that the Lord will give you the opportunities and the courage to share with family and friends the joy you have found in him.

Where is our hope in life? It is in Christ alone because of God’s amazing grace.

A prayer. Lord God, without you we are not able to please you; mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

The Bible is a book without pictures. This is because there’s an essential, impenetrable mystery about God. To try to paint a picture of God reduces his eternal nature to dimensions that can be comprehended by the human mind. But when we think about it, such a truncated, ordinary God is God no longer.

How then can we begin to grasp God’s awesome majesty, holiness and power? The answer is that because relationship is at the heart of his nature, we come to know him through words. When it comes to the Being of God, the pen can communicate the mystery of God in a way that an artist’s brush cannot.

Psalm 139, sometimes called the crown of Hebrew poetry, is an intensely moving meditation on the invisible attributes of God. In it the power of words brings us into the presence of God whom the Apostle Peter calls the majestic glory (2 Peter 1:17).

We can identify four themes in the psalm.

1. God is all-seeing. In verse 1 we read: O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

National security authorities have an extraordinary capacity to tap into our phone calls and read our tweets and email. Furthermore, our every move is increasingly watched by CCTV.

Three millennia ago, King David knew that he too, was observed by an all-seeing eye. But in his case, he knew that his thoughts, as well as his actions, were observed. He tells us in this Psalm that this Watcher is not a mere, passive, receptor of information like a spy satellite, but a master detective who sees every detail of our existence. ‘You know me, Lord,’ David is saying. ‘I have nowhere from which I can exclude you. Everything is open to your gaze.’

While we might feel threatened by the thought that we’re being watched by a ‘Big Brother’ figure, David doesn’t see it that way. Yes, his words in verse 5 seem to suggest he feels trapped, You hem me in behind and before, you have laid your hand upon me. But his words, you hem me in can also be translated, ‘you guard me’ or ‘you encircle me for my protection’. The wider context of the psalm supports this.

David views God’s all-embracing knowledge as a refuge: Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, he says in v.6. He is not resentful of God’s all-seeing intelligence. The more I learn about you, David is saying, the more awesome and mysterious I find you.

2. God is always-present. Consider verses 7 through 10: Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.

David, for a moment, considers flight from the all-seeing eyes of God. He wonders if there’s somewhere in the universe where he can escape from God. But the minute the idea enters his mind he sees how impossible it is. God not only knows everything, but he’s also everywhere. If David could blast off into the stratosphere, plunge into the depths of the seas, travel to the farthest reaches touched by the dawning light, he knows he couldn’t escape God.

At times we may feel frustrated with God’s presence. However, the context indicates that this is not what David felt. He didn’t want to get away from God. Rather, he is grateful for God’s all-embracing presence – to guide him and keep him secure.

Verses 11ff assure us that God is utterly dependable, no matter the situation, day or night: If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.

David’s response to God’s knowledge and presence is so different from our response to the ever-increasing surveillance systems around us. What if such information was to fall into hostile hands? Yet there is an irony here: the more we see our dependence on human surveillance capabilities, the less dependent we become on God. David knows that God is loving and just in all his ways. God isn’t fickle; he won’t distort and manipulate the picture.

3. God alone is the creator (139:13). For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

The birth of a child is a mysterious and wonderful thing. David had nothing of our 21st C knowledge of human genetics and embryology. He knew nothing of DNA or chromosomes, and had never seen a living foetus on an ultra-sound scan. But he knew enough to be amazed that something as complex as a human was formed inside a woman’s womb.

And he understood that there is only one explanation for this amazing miracle: the work of God. In verse 14 he says: I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

There is something immensely moving and immensely touching for David about God’s work and presence in his life. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! (139:17)

He is aware of God’s personal interest in every detail of his existence – including his weaknesses and fears. He is also aware that with every new day God is still at work, directing the course of his life. He finds it an immensely precious comfort in all his human vulnerability.

Significantly, David traces his beginning as a person, to the moment of conception: You created my inmost being, he says to God.

You knit me together in my mother’s womb (v.13).

Even in embryo he was a person, not just another part of his mother’s body. Psalm 139 speaks so plainly about the human identity of the unborn – from the moment of conception.

4. God – the all-holy One (Psalm 139:19): O that you would kill the wicked, O God,…

David is aware of intrigue and corruption around him – of godless, violent men and women who are intent on evil, who mock the spiritual and moral sensitivity of anyone who speaks of God. He has a choice: he must either identify with the ruthless and their unscrupulous ways, or he must find the courage to be different – to be a man of principle, godliness and integrity.

In this closing stanza David reveals his decision: to put God before personal popularity and personal safety. His decision is a challenge for us. We may be powerless to prevent godless people from carrying out their evil schemes. David prayed for God’s judgment to fall on them. He refused to number them among his friends.

His concluding prayer for himself, is a model for us. In verses 23 and 24 we read: Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

God longs that we pray this prayer, not because there is something he doesn’t know about us, but because he wants our friendship. He wants a relationship with us that will enable him to cleanse us from every offensive way and lead us in the way everlasting. For us who live on the other side of the blood that Jesus shed on the cross at Calvary, it means turning to him in repentance, laying the burden of our sin at the foot of the cross, and hearing his, I forgive you.

A prayer. Almighty God, we thank you for the gift of your holy word. May it be a lantern to our feet, a light to our paths, and strength to our lives. Take us and use us to love and serve all people in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

‘Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done,’ are words from an old Christian song. How easily we forget to thank God for the countless good things he provides for us. Most of them are unknown to us. We take it all for granted.

But there is something else we forget; King David writes about it in Psalm 103. It seems he wrote this for the great choir he established in Jerusalem. It reflects his personal growth in his understanding of God.

With his opening and concluding words, Bless the Lord, O my soul, we find that this song has the tone of a personal reflection. His exhortation is directed to his inner self – a theme that he especially develops in the first five verses.

In reminding himself of all God’s benefits he begins by focusing on the forgiveness and healing that God held out to him. This suggests the psalm was perhaps another reflection on his affair with Bathsheba and his illness in the aftermath when he was deeply depressed. Assured now that the sin that had caused his sickness was forgiven, he reflects on the extraordinary mercy of the Lord.

Significantly, David didn’t attribute his recovery to good medical care or healthy foods. Rather, he sees his deliverance as nothing less than God’s personal involvement in his life. He doesn’t even attribute his deliverance to the power of prayer. Instead, he reflects on God’s mercy: The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel (103:6-7).

‘My experience,’ he says, ‘is an example of a general truth about God that I read in the Scriptures.’ At the time of Moses God broke into the experience of an entire nation. He revealed what a just and righteous God he is when he delivered his people from oppression in Egypt and opened a way for them to enter the land of Canaan. God showed himself to be merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (103:8).

Now, it’s important that we think about this. We can’t scientifically prove that God is at work in our lives. Nor can we prove that God answers our prayers. If anyone wants to interpret events some other way, we can’t prove them wrong. All we can say is that our personal experience and the testimony of the Bible mesh together in a way that we find personally convincing. We know God is real because somehow everything hangs together and fits. It rings true. This helps us when we think about our faith, or we are looking into faith.

Years ago, when I was re-thinking my position about my faith, I looked for some kind of logical argument that concluded, ‘The New Testament is true’ and ‘Jesus did rise from the dead’. When I found that the Bible never even tried to offer reasoning along these lines, I felt let down. Then I realized that faith, as the Bible reveals it, is not a logical deduction. We can’t prove that God exists and then decide we’re going to believe in him. This doesn’t mean that faith is a leap in the dark: it is grounded in historical reality.

As others have observed, ‘faith isn’t a logical deduction, it’s closer to what scientists call a paradigm shift’ – what the Germans call a Gestalt phenomenon.

Faith is a new way of looking at the world that makes convincing sense of it. David wasn’t speculating when he spoke of a God who forgives his sin and heals his diseases. He was reflecting on the point that the Bible makes compelling sense of our human experience. The Bible and David’s experience of God meshed together. This is how it feels as we grow in our understanding of the Lord and see him at work in our lives.

Significantly, David didn’t go on to list all the specific things God had done for him. Rather he focused on essential features of God’s character – God’s justice and his steadfast love.

God’s just anger: God will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever (v.9). Martin Luther once commented, ‘Wrath is God’s strange work.’ Anger is alien to God: it is his response to our failure to honor him and give him the thanks that is his due. There was a time when there was no anger in God; equally, there will come a time when there will be nothing further to rouse his anger.

God’s steadfast love: For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him (v.11). Children sometimes ask their parents, ‘How much do you love me?’ and they open their arms saying, ‘This much, or this much?’ When David said this to God, he realized that not even the expanse of the universe can describe the vast dimensions of God’s love.

So he continues: As far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us (v.12).  We can’t watch the sun rise and set at the same time. We have to turn our back on one to see the other. Through the lens of the New Testament we see that through the cross of Christ, God found a way of detaching our sin from us, so he could condemn the one without condemning the other. The illustration means that when we ask God for mercy, he has to turn his back on our sin when he looks at us, because he puts us and our sin on two different horizons.

We have even more reason than David to bless the name of God, for we live on the other side of the cross that once stood on Calvary’s hill. That cross is a far, far greater measure of God’s love than the unfathomable depths of the universe about which David spoke. The arms of the cross show us the grief that tears the heart of God because of our sin. In Christ, God not only lifts us out of the pit, he lifts us from the depths of hell and raises us to new life forever.

How encouraging are the words of the second verse of Charitie Lees Smith’s 19th C hymn, Behold the throne of God above which says:

   When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within,

   Upward I look and see him there, Who made an end of all my sin.

   Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free,

   For God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me…

Is there any real praise of God in our hearts? It’s easy to go to church, to sing songs and hymns, and say Amen to the prayers, but to have no real personal connection with him. It’s easy to hear sermons that move us, but we’re not really listening to God because we’re more impressed with the preacher than we are with relating to God.

True blessing. Do you have a sense of God’s blessing in your life, a sense of connectedness with him that comes through knowing Jesus Christ? If you do not, then do what Jesus said: Ask, seek and knock. God promises to open our eyes to the truth.

A prayer. Lord our God, fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: have compassion on our infirmities; and those things which for our unworthiness we dare not and for our blindness we cannot ask, graciously give us for the worthiness of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason