TURN ON THE LIGHTS! (Psalm 27)

(A continuing series on 48 psalms recommended by pastor/counselor David Seamands for getting through depression.)

I was a young teen piano student when I was first introduced to Psalm 27, via the 1897 musical version of English songwriter Mary Frances Allitsen. The piano score I tried to learn (my small hands couldn’t reach all the chords) starts out with grandiose chords, then settles down to reverential quiet before returning to a loud, assuring recap repeating the psalm’s opening verse:

The Lord is my light and my salvation,

Whom, then, shall I fear?

Years later as I read, re-read, and tried to “own” this psalm as hope in my difficulties, I realized how little of its stalwart truths I understood.

This psalm, attributed to David, is full of hope and strength as it expresses how God’s presence leads to the inner resources to overcome fear in difficult experiences. But its most poignant verses start with the simple phrase, “One thing.” The “one thing” the author wants above all else is to stay close to God. How does one do that? David describes it the best way he can, as dwelling in the safety of God’s house, meaning His presence.  

The psalm opens with a panned shot of David's enemies coming at him.  Then quickly, even as war breaks out against him, he finds safety and peace in the presence of God. And it’s not just the sword/knife/spear-wielding wild guys. Verse 12 points to verbal abuse, something I’ve experienced at different times in my life:

They accuse me of things I’ve never done and breathe out violence against me. (New Living Translation)

Unlike flesh-and-blood battles of old, where casualties decided how long a fight would go on, we don’t always see the “end” of our invisible battles. That’s why Psalm 27 leaves us with the reminder to “turn on the lights”—to reaffirm the Lord as our light and salvation:

I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.

Wait for the LORD, be strong and take heart, and wait for the LORD. (v.13-14).

If you want to read this psalm in a fresh and inspiring way, go back through it as an account of the life of Jesus Christ, particularly His suffering and death. Bible teacher and author William McDonald (1917-2007) in his Believer’s Bible Commentary saw many parallels. For example, Psalm 27:2 talks of enemies stumbling and falling when they tried to attack. Even more was that true of Christ’s arrest as recorded in Luke 18:6. When the rascals Judas rounded up came to the Garden where Christ had prayed, He identified Himself. Then, “When Jesus said, ‘I am he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground.”  

Tracing the parallels to Jesus’ last hours serves as a poignant reminder that He understands and has gone before us through all the mucky and murky stuff that life can throw at us through incidents and people. That’s also the reminder of Hebrews 12:2-3:

Run with perseverance….fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.  For the joy set before him, he endured the cross…consider him who endured such opposition from sinners so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Heaven: The Greatest Home Makeover--Day 20

LIGHTS
“The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its light.” –Revelation 21:23

If the sun suddenly stopped shining, scientists predict life on earth would cease in about eight minutes. Yet the Bible says Heaven’s holy city will need neither the sun nor the sun-reflecting moon. This leads us to believe it won’t need energy sources, like hydroelectric dams, solar panels, steam, coal, or nuclear plants. We may not need ceiling lights, track lighting, table and desk lamps, porch lights, street lights, search lights, flashlights, tiki torches, or camping lanterns.

Instead, said John in his vision of Heaven, there will be the dazzling glory of God the Father and God the Son (Rev. 21:23). The Old Testament prophet Isaiah predicted it: “The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory”(Isaiah 60:19). At the very beginning of time, God said, “Let there be light”(Gen. 1:3). He set in place our sun and untold millions of other stars. In eternity, He will be the light.

The Bible associates God with “light” more than two hundred times. Think of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from God on top of Mount Sinai. When Moses came back from the blazing light of God’s presence, his own face shone so brightly that he had to veil it in public (Exodus 34:29-34). God also lent His light to a huge cloud to guide the Israelites day and night through the wilderness en route to Canaan. Later, this became the glowing “shekinah glory” over the sacred Ark of the Covenant in the Jerusalem temple. David declared, “The Lord is my light and my salvation” (Psalm 27:1). Another psalm calls God “the light of life” (Psalm 56:13).

Daniel had a vision of “The Ancient of Days” with clothing “as white as snow” and hair “white like wool,” sitting on a “throne…flaming with fire” (Dan. 7:9). God arranged for a Heavenly light to herald Jesus’ birth. Toward the end of Jesus’ ministry, He took his closest disciples to a high mountain where He was transfigured into a Being of light: “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light” as He talked with two men in “glorious splendor,” identified as long-dead Moses and Elijah (Luke 9:29-35). At Jesus’ death, there was no light. Even at mid-day, the skies grew as dark as night (Mark 15:33). Gospel-writer Luke said, “The sun stopped shining” (Luke 23:45).

The apostle John interchangeably used the terms “life” and “light” for Jesus (John 1:4-5). “God is light,” John wrote, “in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). After Christ returned to Heaven, a Pharisee named Saul went on a rampage against Christians. En route to Damascus, Saul was blinded by an intense light from Heaven. Jesus spoke through it, and Saul (who became Paul) was converted on the spot (Acts 9:3). In the apostle John’s vision of Heaven, he saw lamp stands whose illumination paled next to someone whose “face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance” (Rev. 1:17), much like the day John saw Christ transfigured on earth. The book of Revelation shimmers with mysteries about God as His people’s light forever. “They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun,” says its concluding chapter, “for the Lord God will give them light” (Rev. 22:5).

God, who lives what the Bible calls “unapproachable light” (1 Tim. 6:16), is purity and holiness in unfathomable intensity. We won’t need dark glasses or to seek shelter from it. It will seem right for it will be home. It will be all we longed for as we suffered in the dark days of earth. World War 2 was one such time of intense darkness and discouragement. Seeking to encourage his nation to persevere against the Nazis, King George VI of Britain delivered a memorable address that included this profound quote from an obscure London lecturer: I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he said to me, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way. (1)

God still bids us take His hand, for He is better than any light we now know. He is safer than any other way as He leads us through death to the place of everlasting light.

Prayer: Dear God of glory and light, some of my days feel dark in my soul. Thank you for the promise that You are the Light that will never be extinguished. Amen.

(1) Quoted by Hudson T. Armerding in “The Hand of God,” Wheaton Magazine (Winter 2005), p. 59.