Psalms for Turbulant Times - Psalm 3: Trust in God under adversity

Trust in God under Adversity

¹ O Lord, how many are my foes!    Many are rising against me;
² many are saying to me, ‘There is no help for you in God.’Selah

³ But you, O Lord, are a shield around me,
my glory, and the one who lifts up my head.
⁴ I cry aloud to the Lord, and he answers me from his holy hill.Selah

⁵ I lie down and sleep;  I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.
⁶ I am not afraid of tens of thousands of people
who have set themselves against me all around.

⁷ Rise up, O Lord!    Deliver me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
you break the teeth of the wicked.

⁸ Deliverance belongs to the Lord; may your blessing be on your people!Selah

How do we find the words in these days to uphold people? What words of comfort can we reach for?

Politicians have their place: 'We will get through this together and we will beat this virus, I want to ram that message home,' says Boris Johnson today. And this evening, the State has come to the aid of many in the most extraordinary and unprecedented series of economic actions. 'We will not get through this alone,' says Rishi Sunak, our Chancellor. 'The Government is doing its best to stand behind you, and we ask you to do your best to stand behind your Government,' he said. 'Now more than any other time in history we will be measured by compassion and acts of kindness. When this is over, and it will be over, we want to look back on this moment and remember the many small acts of kindness done by us and to us... in a collective national effort. It is on all of us.'

But we also have the Psalms, and today's is Psalm 3. This is the first psalm which has the first prayer for help in the psalter. And the big theme is this - that God helps those who cannot help themselves, those who feel besieged, those are told that God will not deliver them. We live in a culture where self-sufficiency is the code of life - which is why the virus is such a devastating over-turner of this code. 

What I love about this psalm is its honesty, its faith, its portrayal of a real relationship between the pray-er and the one to whom the prayers are addressed. My commentary helpfully points out a rather wonderful theological point encased by the syntax of the first verse. It starts with the word 'Lord' and ends with the word 'me' and between these words are the 'foes'. 'Thus the word order represents what the foes are attempting to do - to stand between the psalmist and God,' writes commentator J Clinton McCann Jr. Verse 2 continues with a huge sense of being overwhelmed by enemies. Three times in three lines the psalmist emphasises the word 'many'. These foes even say God will not deliver him. In the NRSVA translation used today, though, the last word in vs2 is the word God. 'Thus the two references to the Lord/God open and close this section. God has the enemies surrounded,' he says, with a wonderful turn of phrase.

While it is quite true that the economic actions of the State announced tonight will sustain many millions of people through this crisis - and no doubt help to reduce stress and panic - the Psalm continues with the much bigger overarching picture of a God who is intimately concerned for our wellbeing. This God, in whom we trust. who always comes to the aid of those who cannot help themselves, sustains us as we sleep and as we wake (vs5). This God, in whom we trust, offers deliverance from our deepest worries and anxieties which neither Rishi nor Boris can deliver us. For they too are only human. They too are not gods. They too, like us, cannot do this alone. And they, too, like us, need the shielding grace of God. They too, like us, need the sustaining power of God who has given them life.

What words of comfort can we offer to others? What comforting words energise us to put others' first in these days? What comfort does this Psalm 3 bring you tonight as you lie down and sleep and wake again sustained by God's love? Perhaps you would like to sing the psalm using the Northern Irish singer-songwriter Ian White's setting.For from the Lord, at work in all of us, will come deliverence. 'We will get through this together, by God's grace.'