How to Write a Hymn

Praying Psalm 135 this morning, I kept being distracted by the lines lifted from elsewhere in Scripture.

• Verse 1 comes from Psalm 113.
• Verse 5 comes from Psalm 95.
• Verse 13 comes from Psalm 72.
• Verse 14 comes from Deut 32.
• Verses 15-18 repeat a section of Psalm 115.
• Verses 19-20 are a slight twist on a section of Psalm 118.

And that list doesn’t even include the other lines that I know show up in other biblical hymns but for which my memory doesn’t have a ready-reference of the citation ... nor does this list include the other places these lines appear.

The most important thing in hymn-writing is not to have some theological acumen plus some writing ability.  The most important thing is to be steeped in God’s word, to have His hymns and His stories and His catechism so deeply entrenched in your soul and your mind that His Word (not yours) spills out whenever your mouth or pen gets to movin’.

Tremble

The psalms often mention people trembling before the Lord.  It sounds like shaking-in-your-boots, terrified panic.  I'm pretty sure that's the intent of the word in the original language.

But there's another kind of trembling.  Trembling with excitement, with anticipation. 

The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble!  He dwells between the cherubim.  Let the earth be moved (Ps 99).  

Later in the psalm He is called "God-Who-Forgives" though He takes vengeance on sinful deeds.  He forgives.  He promises.  We have some things to anticipate, things to look forward to.

Jesus' Works in Psalm 115

Those idols in Psalm 115?  They have eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, mouths that do not speak, noses that do not smell, hands that do not handle, and feet that do not walk.  "Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them." 

I find it fascinating that the Gospels mention Jesus' healing-miracles for every single one of those body-parts.*  He healed cripples and made them to walk.  He gave hearing to the deaf and sight to the blind.  He loosed tongues.  He got into trouble with the Pharisees for fixing the fellow's withered hand that Sabbath day in the synagogue. 

It's almost as if the Man of Faith, who never had an idol in all His life, can even undo the idolatry that is part of our sinful nature.

* Footnote -- Except for noses.  That's

 not explicitly mentioned in the Gospels.

But Jesus did heal lepers, and it's likely

 that such healing fixed rotted noses. 

Psalm 26:2

Examine me, O Lord, and prove me;
Try my mind and my heart.

Integrity.
Trust.
Hatred of hypocrisy.

Sounds like I don't need lovingkindness (verse 3) or redemption (verse 11).  

This is true when the psalm is in the mouth of Jesus.

When it's in our mouth, it is true because of what God reckons us to be.

He Remembers That We Are Dust

Step on an ant or a beetle.  Crunch!
Swat a mosquito, and get blood on your hand.
Swat a fly with force, because it requires some smashing.

But swat a moth?
You barely have to touch it.
It doesn't leave a blood stain on the wall.
It practically turns to dust.

That always amazes me.  Moths are so dry.  There's nothing to them.  They are so easy to do away with.  And they're like powder.  Like dust.

"He knows our frame.  

He remembers that we are dust" (Ps 103).

The Lord remembers that we are dust.

But we don't. We think we've got substance.  We think we've got strength.  We think we've got lasting-power.  We think it takes somethin' big to knock us out.

But we are dust.
And the Lord is gentle with us dry dusties.

"As a father pities his children, 

so the Lord pities those who fear Him." 

Psalm 103:7

He made know His ways to Moses,
His acts to the children of Israel.

One perspective of God's ways:
God's way is to smash people who don't listen.
God's way is to give rules.

Another perspective of God's ways:
God says, "My people be protected from the calamities coming."
God says, "My people shall have light in the darkness."
God says, "My people shall be rescued when they are trapped."
God says, "My people shall eat the bread of heaven."
God says, "I forgive them and call them My own even though they are ... umm ... well, look at them.  I love them even though they are the rebellious mess they are."

Jesus, the Plagiarist?

Well, maybe it's not considered plagiarism, seeing as how the Lord wrote the Old Testament.  So if He takes the words from the psalms and "makes them His own" in the High Priestly Prayer, that's not really stealing words, is it?

John 17: Sanctify them in Your truth; Your word is truth.
Psalm 119 (resh): The entirety of Your word is truth.

What's extra-nifty, though, is that the bulk of the High Priestly Prayer is about Jesus' praying for the preservation of His apostles and other disciples.  They're about to face temptation.  They're going to fall away.  And He prays for the Father to keep them.

And that's what Psalm 119:153-160 is all about.  "Revive me."  "Plead my cause."  "Redeem me."

Cause Your Face to Shine, and We Shall Be Saved

The Aaronic benediction --
the way God told His priests to put His name on the people --
the way God designed for His people to be blessed:

The Lord make His face shine upon you
and be gracious unto you.

Psalm 31, right in the midst of the psalmist's plea to be rescued from those who are persecuting him:

Make Your face shine upon Your servant;
save me for Your mercies' sake.

I don't know about anybody else, but I think it's really cool that David, in his grief and his weakness and his prayers, grabbed hold of the liturgy to speak it back to God. 

And I think the psalm sheds light on what we hear at the end of every Service.  The pastor's not just saying some nicey-nice words about happy stuff happening to us.  He's not wishing us some inspirational, [temporally] abundant-life kind of week.  No.  The words of the Benediction are about mercy and salvation and rescue and the resurrection of the body.  These words are about Jesus and His suffering and death for us.

PS: In case I forget later where the line from

the title was drawn, it's from Psalm 80.

Sweet Honey from the Rock

Flipping through a homeschool catalog once upon a time, I saw a CD by the singers "Sweet Honey from the Rock."  I assumed the group's name came from the last verse of Psalm 81.  (Wiki confirms this.  For whatever that's worth.)

But the honey in the psalm isn't just about the stuff bees make.  And it's certainly not about richness and beauty coming from an unexpected location.  We read throughout Scripture* how the Rock-which-was-Christ provided for both physical and eternal needs.  We read how God's Word is eaten and tastes sweet.  Really, God?!  EAT a scroll?  And yet, Ezekiel and John both said it was true: the scroll was sweeter than honey.



* Ex 16, Deut 32:13
Ps 19:10, Ps 119:103
Ezek 3:3, Rev 10:9

Bowed Down

My posture has gone downhill significantly in the last couple of months.  I keep noticing how slumpy I am while driving, how my shoulders droop when standing.  I keep telling myself to straighten up, and my faked-out good posture lasts for a whoppin' five minutes.  Or less.

This week I noticed in the psalms where it says "I bowed down heavily, as one who mourns" or "my soul is bowed down to the dust" or "the Lord raises up those who are bowed down." 

Huh.  So it's not just a figure of speech.
The body really does end up "bowed down" when the heart grieves.

Hallel

Sometimes it takes a while for the pieces to come together for me.

Piece #1:  Psalms 113-118 are a unit (the "Hallel" or "praise") used in connection with the Passover.

Piece #2:  When the Lord called Abram, He promised that, in Abram's seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

Piece #3:  The Jews of Jesus' day thought they were the bees' knees, and that Gentiles weren't worthy.  Now, granted, that promise to Abraham was getting a mite "back-in-time" from their perspective.

Piece #4:  The Jews of Jesus' day were still singing the Hallel at Passover.  You can even see record of it in the chants of Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem. 

Piece #5:  Psalm 117 is about the Gentiles praising the Lord for His merciful kindness.


Wouldn't this mean that the people singing this liturgy should've gotten it that God's love is for the whole world and not just their own little selves?

(Shhh.  You don't suppose there are things in that we blow right past in the liturgy, singing without realizing what we're saying?...)

Despicable Offerings

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.
A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.  (Ps 51:17)

Overall, it's not okay to give broken stuff to God.

In Leviticus (chap 22) God tells His people that the animals they sacrifice cannot be lame or ill or damaged.  In Malachi (chap 1) the Lord rips into the priests for defiling the altar with lame and blind sacrifices. 

How different it is with our hearts!  Not only is brokenness acceptable, but being broken is the only acceptable way.




Weedon summarizes Kleinig's book Grace Upon Grace:

God keeps on taking things away from you, one thing after another.  And every time He does, He says, "But you still have Me, and I'm enough."

about 5:20 on the you-tube video

THIS is "not being moved"?

Psalm 66 tells us that the Lord "keeps our soul among the living and does not allow our feet to be moved."

Then it goes on to tell us that He has tested us.  He has refined us.  (Now, that may sound nice at first glance.  But it requires an awful lot of fire.  And burning up.  You know?)    He brought us into the net.  He laid affliction on our backs.  He caused men to ride over our heads.  We went through fire and water.

And THIS is what it looks like when He keeps our soul among the living?  [shudder]

And yet, after all this,
THROUGH all this,
no matter how we fall,
no matter how we are attacked,
He brings us out to rich fulfillment.
And He has not turned His mercy from me.

The Unjust Steward -- Shrewdness

Shrewd.  It sounds sneaky.  And slick.  And cheaty.  And bad.

So in Psalm 18, it seems weird to pray,

With the merciful, You will show Yourself merciful.
With the blameless man, You will show Yourself blameless.
With the pure, You will show Yourself pure.
And with the devious, You will show Yourself shrewd.

God is shrewd?  IF I were merciful and blameless and pure (in and of myself) I could look at this psalm and say, "Whew!  God needs to ante up.  He owes me.  He's going to be merciful and blameless and pure to me because I am SO good."

There's just one small problem with that ....




So with the devious, He shows Himself shrewd.
I've never been keen on that verse.  It seems damning.

But ...
if it's true that Jesus is "unjust,"
if it's true that Jesus is "shrewd,"
if it's true that the Father commends Him for
"shrewdness" and for "wastefulness,"

(Luke 16)

maybe ...
I can comfort myself in thinking that His shrewdness includes mercy to us who don't deserve it, thus changing our devious hearts.  Maybe He "brings down haughty looks" not by smashing people, but by bringing them to repentance so that they are no longer haughty but can humbly receive His wasteful forgiveness.

Shrewd indeed.

Psalm 119:176

I have gone astray like a lost sheep;
seek Your servant, 
for I do not forget Your commandments.

 "I do not forget Your commandments."  Worth a pat on the back for me?  "Oh yeah, man, I am such a good Christian and do such a fabulous job of obeying God's commands."

Then why, pray tell, do we need to be sought after?

How can someone go astray, be in need of rescue, and still say, "I do not forget Your commandments"? 

We're always so quick to make it all be about me ME me and my obedience.  But that just doesn't jive here.  If I am lost, I can't very well makes claims on God because of my obedience to His commands.

"I do not forget Your commandments" maybe, just maybe, means more about His promise to be faithful to us even when we're off gallivanting in selfishness.  Maybe "I do not forget Your commandments" is a bold prayer that He will hunt me up when in sinful blindness I am erring hour by hour.

Those Thin Tent Walls

God is my refuge.

It's all through the psalms.  Refuge.  Rock.  Fortress.  Strength. 

And yet, when David wrote those psalms, the temple was not yet built.  They still had the tabernacle as the place of the Lord's saving presence.  It was constructed of cloth.

Not what we usually think of as a stronghold.




It is not just plain cloth, but the Word of God in and with the cloth.  For without God's Word, the cloth is just a plain tent and no refuge.  But with the Word of God, it is a refuge, that is, a life-defending fortress.

Patient Angels

The angels must have been affected by our sin.

I never thought of it before.

They're created beings.  The whole creation groans, awaiting the redemption of the sons of God.  The angels fight in the spiritual dimension ("wield God's word, a weapon glorious...") to guard us from demonic forces.

Angels too, like the bunnies and the rocks and trees, will rejoice when Jesus returns and makes a new heaven and a new earth, and man is freed, and sin's effects are no more.

"See His Desire on His Enemies"

For He has delivered me out of all trouble; 
And my eye has seen its desire upon my enemies.  (Psalm 54)

The same sort of line shows up in Psalms 59, 92, and 112.  And I guess I'd always read it as, "Yup, you're so gonna get it!"

Now, I freely admit that I do not know Hebrew, and I'm basing this observation entirely on English translations.  But what if it's not about our enemies finally getting the punishment we think they deserve?

When they were nailing Jesus to the cross, He desired their forgiveness.  He prayed for His enemies.  "God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2).



Hmmm.  In the Good Friday reading from Isaiah we hear that the Christ will "see the labor of His soul and be satisfied."  Saving us is satisfying to Him.

That makes "My eye has seen its desire upon my enemies" take on an entirely different hue.

Psalm 111:4

He has made His wonderful works to be remembered. (Ps 111)


Not only has He done wonderful works.

But He also makes sure that we (we who are weak, we who cannot remember, we who cannot by our own reason or strength believe) know of His wonderful works.

Sometimes I worry that I cannot possibly remain in the faith for the rest of my life.  But hey, I'm not the one who keeps me believing anyhow.  He makes His wonderful works to be remembered!

Wrath of God

Even though we are sinners, parents know the conflicting feelings when kids do things to hurt themselves.  Maybe the child wandered off and got lost at Target.  Maybe the preschooler ran into the busy street.  Maybe the toddler reached out to put her hand on the red-hot burner on the electric stove.   Maybe the teenager fell in with the wrong crowd and is hanging out where crimes are committed.  The parents love the child.  The parents want to protect the child.  Mixed in with all this love and protection is some anger.  It's not sinful anger (although it's certainly possible for sinful anger to be mixed in too).  There is justified, righteous anger that the one you love --more than you love yourself-- is hurting himself.

Being angry does NOT mean the parents don't love.  Quite the opposite.  If the parents didn't love so profoundly, there wouldn't be anger. 

I spent decades confused by what it is to "fear, love, and trust" in God.  But when I experienced what it is to fear, love, and trust a person, I began to understand how those are not conflicting verbs.  Now I'm beginning to see, in the same way, that the experience of motherhood helps me have an inkling of how wrath and love co-exist.

Psalm 85 tells us that
the Lord has forgiven the iniquity of His people. 
He has covered all their sin. 
He has taken away all His wrath. 
He has turned from the fierceness of His anger.   

If He has "taken away all His wrath," that means there was wrath.  The forgiveness of sin took away His wrath toward us.  But it was there, and something caused it to cease. 

I suppose it's not reasonable to think that a loving God could be wrathful.  But there are lots of things the Bible says that our puny, reasonable minds cannot comprehend: the trinity and the incarnation for starters.  We don't jettison the clear words of Scripture just because our finite reason cannot understand.