Psalms in Lent: Psalm 105 - Lockdown Anniversary

The past week marked a year since the UK went into full lockdown.  Nothing in any living Briton's experience of life in the UK prepared us for that day and its subsequent year.

It also marked a year since our household went into lockdown when our nurse daughter came home from hospital with Covid symptoms.

We celebrated the unwelcome anniversary with an Indian curry and a sense of quiet gratitude to God for a year of provision and safety in the storm.

Psalm 105 seemed an apt place to be one day last week in our Lent readings.  In it the story of Israel is recounted, and the providence of God celebrated, which I abbreviate below.  Just one line at the end is, however, significant - that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws.

When the Lord is merciful to us, it is incumbent on us to respond in faithfulness back to him.  And if not - as Israel was later to discover - it all happens again  . .

O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name: 

. . . He is the Lord our God: his judgments are in all the earth.

He hath remembered his covenant for ever,

the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.

When they went from one nation to another,  from one kingdom to another people;

he suffered no man to do them wrong:

yea, he reproved kings for their sakes;

Joseph, who was sold for a servant:

whose feet they hurt with fetters:

he was laid in iron:

until the time that his word came:

the word of the Lord tried him.

The king sent and loosed him;

even the ruler of the people, and let him go free.

Israel also came into Egypt;

and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.

And he increased his people greatly;

and made them stronger than their enemies.

He turned their heart to hate his people,

to deal subtilly with his servants.

He sent Moses his servant;

and Aaron whom he had chosen.

They shewed his signs among them,

and wonders in the land of Ham.

He brought them forth also with silver and gold:

and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.

Egypt was glad when they departed:

for the fear of them fell upon them.

He spread a cloud for a covering;

and fire to give light in the night.

The people asked, and he brought quails,

and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.

He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out;

they ran in the dry places like a river.

For he remembered his holy promise,

and Abraham his servant.

And he brought forth his people with joy,

and his chosen with gladness:

and gave them the lands of the heathen:

and they inherited the labour of the people;

that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws.

Praise ye the Lord.

Psalms in Lent: Psalm 57 Mothers Day Plus

This amazing Psalm begins with the experience that we have all known as the Covid-19 pandemic: disaster barrels through in the manner of a great storm.

For peoples across the world there is nothing new about this, natural disaster, famine, plague, war and ethnic persecution.  For the people of the early/mid 20th century in the UK it came in the form of World Wars.  Yet for people in my generation in the West the coronavirus pandemic has introduced us to the experience this psalm begins in - helplessness in an incoming storm.

The remedy the Psalmist enjoys is the shelter of the wings of God, a motherly picture for Mothering Sunday.

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,

    for in you I take refuge.

I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings

    until the disaster has passed. (1)

How cosy is that?

But this Psalm is far from finished.  It unfolds a view of God which is infinitely greater than the mother bird's wings, ending (10,11):

For great is your love, reaching to the heavens;

    your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;

    let your glory be over all the earth.

What kind of God is above the heavens and underneath the storm at the same time?  What kind of God can shelter me personally, but also dwarf everything?

The God of the Universe who is the God of the Cross.

Happy St David's Day!

There are, and have been, a lot of us Robertses in Wales.  Some have been the extraordinary objects of God's power because some have regarded God as the extraordinary object of their love.

This is as good a day as any to remember that true revival doesn't begin in pulpits.