Advent: Love
Advent dox
Call to worship:
OT:
Pastor zachary mcguire
Psalm 13
NT:
pastor andrew loginow
John 3.16, collect, & candle
song:
hark the herald
Historical reading:
pastor bobby owens
apostles’ creed
song:
what child is this?
Kids choir
Confession & Pardon:
dr. brett eckel
Xmas offering
song:
the love of god
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
Advent: Love
Introduction
“How long til Christmas?” We get this question daily from our little girls. We’re only 4 days from Christmas now. To the kids here that might seem like eternity. Parents may be stressing about everything they still need to get done because there’s only 4 days til Christmas.
The season of Advent beckons us to the perspective of the children. Advent is our annual collective ritual of embodying the longing, the anticipation, the desire of God’s old covenant people – they longed for the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one of God who would crush the head of the serpent. For much of this advent season we have seen that longing in the Old Testament. On the 1st week of advent Pastor Kevin preached from the Law, the Torah showing us how the peace offering anticipated Christ. The 2nd week we looked at the prophets – Isaiah, in particular – in anticipation of Christ. This morning, we meditate on the Writings – Psalm 13 – in anticipation of Christ.
4 Questions
The first thing to note is the superscript – To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The superscripts of the psalms are not uninspired additions like headings in your Bible, or even chapter and verse divisions; no, the superscripts are inspired Scripture. Psalm 13 was penned by King David and given to the choirmaster. This was to be sung by the people of God in worship.
In addition to the liturgical use of the psalm, we must also note its literary and biblical-theological place in the Psalter. Psalm 13 is one of a group of psalms King David wrote after he fled Absolom’s coup d'état. The superscript of Psalm 3 says A Psalm of David when he fled his son Absolom. The Psalms that follow parallel the narrative of 2nd Samuel 15-18.
Then verse 1 initiates 4 questions David asks the Lord – 4 times he asks, how long? How long, O yhwh? Will you forget me forever? God promised David his throne would remain forever, but now he’s exiled from Jerusalem by his own son. David is pleading with God to keep his promise – to remember David.
How long will you hide your face from me? In Psalm 10.11 David’s enemies say, “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.” David now offers their taunting as a prayer, as a liturgical song to God. This is not doubt. David is not asking whether God will keep His promises, but when?
Verse 2: How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? St. Augustine said, “There is no need of counsel but in adversity.” King David was facing personal, political, and theological adversity – Absolom’s rebellion was personally humiliating to David, it was a threat to David’s throne, and most importantly, it could potentially rob him of his trust in God and His promises. This inner counsel and sorrow of heart consumed David all the day.
As helpful as it is for us to understand the original context of Psalm 13, we are new covenant Christians, so we know something bigger is going on here. We get another glimpse of that here in verse 2. The Hebrew word enemy (אָיַב) is derivative of the word enmity in Genesis 3.15 – I will put enmity between you and the woman…There is something bigger than David and Absolom going on here; something cosmic; something eternal.
This psalm of David is pointing us to the humiliation of the Son of David – the Son of God, the eternal 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity who humbled Himself to be conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, who was born in city of David, who fled like David when the enemy sought to abort Him, living as a refugee in Egypt. Like David, Jesus was rejected by Israel. Like David, Jesus petitioned his Father when he was sweating like blood in the garden. Jesus is the true and final seed of the woman from Genesis 3.15 – the one at enmity with the serpent.
And in this season of Advent, along with David and the Lord Jesus we pray how long? In our sin and in our suffering, in our emotional turmoil, in this broken world we pray how long? We don’t pray in doubt, but we pray in faith. Our prayer is not whether God will keep His promises, but when?
3 Requests and Reasons
After David’s 4 questions, he now, in verses 3-4, makes 3 requests with 3 reasons:
Consider and answer me, O yhwh my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
His first request is for God to consider – consider His promises, consider His reputation, consider His love for Himself and His people. His second request is for God to answer. David petitions the Lord not merely to consider, to remember, but also to answer, to act. David’s third request is for God to light up his eyes – was David sick and asking for health, or was it simply the sorrow of his heart? We don’t know for sure, but what we do know is that David is asking yhwh that he might see clearly – David wants light to see, to see God’s faithfulness amid sin and suffering.
Then David gives 3 reasons for his 3 requests – all introduced with the word lest. (1) Lest I sleep the sleep of death – literally in Hebrew, lest I sleep death. (2) Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed,” and (3) lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. Shaken is the word אֶמּֽוֹט; a more wooden translation would be “totter.” There is a rich word in the Psalms – in Psalm 104, God set the earth on its foundations so that it would not totter; in Psalm 46 the psalmist says even if the mountains totter and fall into the seas, he will not be afraid. That’s what David says here – “God, please consider, answer, and light up my eyes so my enemies don’t rejoice when I collapse.”
David is begging God to keep His promise and protect His reputation. Absolom was on David’s thrown and sleeping with David’s harem in front of all the people. The rebel Israelites were mocking David and rejoicing at his collapse. God would keep His promise and protect His reputation, not only through Absolom’s death and David’s return to Jerusalem but ultimately through the Son of David, Jesus, the light coming into the world, who did sleep the sleep of death for us.
The Lord Jesus, the sinless Son of God “suffered under Pontious Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.” When Jesus was crucified the Jews and the Romans said they prevailed over him; they rejoiced because he was shaken as he endured the wrath of God against the sins of God’s elect. On the cross Jesus received the hell we deserve.
The Greek word in the LXX that is translated from אֶמּֽוֹט, totter, shaken, is σαλεύω. It’s used in Matthew 24 when Jesus predicts God’s judgment of the temple in AD 70. It’s also used in Hebrews 12, quoting Haggai, about the 2nd advent of the Lord Jesus. What does that mean? In Jesus, God is righting all of the wrongs. The enemies of God will not have the ultimate joy, but King Jesus and his people will.
Like King David, we feel like we’re tottering sometimes, don’t we? We feel shaken or even collapsed. But Advent beckons us, like David to beg God to consider and keep His promise. Advent allows us as a community to slow down and consider that God has kept His promise in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus – for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. The shaking of Mary’s contractions, not only brought about the shaking of the temple in Ad 70 but will bring about the shaking of the entire world. The child on Mary’s lap in David’s town is the one – all of the promises of God find their yes in him. And so Advent calls us to beg God to keep his promise – the promise of the 2nd advent. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.
3 Responses
Finally in verses 5-6 we see David has 3 responses. (1) David has trusted in God’s steadfast love. That’s what today’s all about, isn’t it? – on the 4th Sunday of Advent we light the final purple candle because we trust in God’s steadfast love. It’s the Hebrew (חֶ֫סֶד), which is probably best translated, “covenant faithfulness.” Despite David’s personal, political, and theological turmoil, most, if not all of it brought on by his own sin, yet David is still trusting God’s covenant faithfulness – God’s steadfast love.
(2) David’s heart shall rejoice in God’s salvation. In the previous verse David’s enemies rejoiced at his collapse, but here he declares he will rejoice because he trusts in God’s salvation. And (3) David will sing to yhwh because He has dealt bountifully with him. Remember the superscript – this psalm is to the choirmaster; this psalm is liturgical. This is to be sung by God’s people in worship.
The beautiful thing is on the other side of the empty tomb these words are even sweeter, even deeper, even truer. The word salvation here is יְשׁוּעָה. It’s the name Jesus. You will call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.
Like David, the Lord Jesus trusted – he trusted God would raise Him from the dead. Jesus rejoiced in God’s salvation of him and his people. Jesus sang to the Lord – after the Last Supper, Scripture says Jesus and his disciples sung a hymn, which would’ve been a psalm, before they left for the garden to pray. And on the cross Jesus utters the words of Psalm 22, Jesus sings out a psalm as he’s dying for our sins. And indeed, the Lord dealt bountifully with Christ – his bounty is the church, his bride, the elect from all nations – ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance.
And in him, in Christ Jesus, Advent calls us to trust – to trust in God’s steadfast love. Another way to say that is faith and repentance. We have faith in Jesus – we know the good news of Jesus; we assent to the good news of Jesus, meaning we confess it with conviction and do not deny it; and we trust in Jesus, whom God gave in love. We rest in the person and work of Christ. We repent of our sin – we humble ourselves, confess our sin, and turn from our sin.
This trust causes us to rejoice in our salvation. We already rejoice in our salvation. We rejoice that we have peace with God since we have been justified by faith in Christ. And even though it’s not yet, we rejoice that the Lord Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead; we rejoice because Jesus will raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new.
And because we rejoice, we sing to the Lord. This is why congregationally singing is an essential element of our liturgy every week. We sing because Jesus is worthy of our song. We sing because our hearts engage and express our love for him in a way that mere talk is incapable of. We sing to train our children to know, and remember, and love him.
My beautiful, brilliant, and talented wife has served our church by composing Psalm 13.5-6 to music. We sing it often at the beginning of the service. We’re going to sing it together after the sermon. How beautiful is it that by the inspiration of the Spirit, King David wrote these words to sing in worship and now some 3,000 years later we still sing them in worship?
Conclusion
You know, even if we get exhausted by the kids asking, “how long til Christmas?” that longing they have isn’t a bad thing. Advent reminds us that it’s ok, it’s even right to ask, “how long?” But we always do so trusting, rejoicing, and singing. We trust in God’s steadfast love. We rejoice in the salvation of Jesus. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we sing to the Lord because in Christ He has dealt bountifully with us. Advent means Jesus is coming.