In a previous Midweek Musings, we have mentioned that the Psalms, in all their glorious poetry, function as a ‘toolbox,’ a jumping off point for our exploration of our relationship with God. The simplest way to illustrate this perhaps is the association of Psalm 23 with funeral services.
And so to Psalm 27… My favourite bit is that first verse: “You are my light, and my salvation. Whom then shall I fear?” and the rest of the psalm flows from, and expands on this statement. When I read the rest of the Psalm there is an echo of what many of us have felt when seeing or hearing the news recently, a sense of uncertainty and worry. Traditionally the authorship of this psalm is attributed to David, and it is thought that David wrote this when he was fleeing from Saul, in fear for his life, so the association with uncertainty is not unreasonable!
The Psalm is a combination of a cry for help, mixed with a declaration of David’s belief in the greatness of God, and God’s power to save. Written against the backdrop of being a refugee fleeing for his life, it comes as no surprise that when David is talking about the Lord being his light and his salvation, he is not making polite conversation; He has a very deep, and very personal interest in this, and David is very clear about this: “The Lord is MY light and MY salvation, whom then shall I fear”. I don’t know about you, but I don’t always find this degree of certainty and faith easy to express in my own life, and it’s this strong assurance of David perhaps that makes this verse so attractive – we find it so easy at times to phrase our expressions of faith in the third person; we, our, us, but seldom I.
One of the songs we sang yesterday takes the words from Numbers 6:24 – ‘may the Lord bless you and keep you’ – and expresses them in the first person so that we found ourselves singing ‘may the Lord keep ME and bless ME’. I mean, it’s not very British, is it?!
If you feel able, I’d love to know how you feel about all this in the comments section below. If that feels too public, then feel free to email, WhatsApp, carrier pigeon, etc. what you think.
Go Deeper
In the meantime, have another look at the image we used at Sanctuary (courtesy of Emma), read through Psalm 27, and look at each verse; what is God saying to you through it? At what point do the words on the page become personal and real?
Perhaps while you do this you’d like to listen to the song I mentioned above, in which case here you are:
And may the Lord bless you and keep you, and shine His face upon you…
