Ode to the Law

  Introduction:  This week is a great and glorious milestone in my life.  As I shared with my most intimate friends – “Mr Lincoln be com'n with His chariot and I’m free at last!”  Free after twenty-five years in a humanistic house of fools.  Over the course of those years, I have seen any number of good, decent and hard-working intellectuals who loved their academic subjects turn not only their stomachs, but their noses as well against the educationist administration of American public schools.  One of the sad facts for people who know they could do much better if allowed – is the fact that their health is too often affected.  “Emotional holidays” and other terms were often used to excuse those days spent at home recovering from some affliction of stupidity in the workplace.  “Grip” was another favorite term for the stress of participating in the ongoing Archipelago of ignorance and stupidity.  For that reason, I was drawn immediately to the words I have used in the translation of verse fifty-three:

“Indignation has gripped me because of the wicked,

who have abandoned Your law.”

Yes, there are many good and decent people trapped in that Archipelago of ignorance and stupidity, and like Joseph, Daniel, Esther and countless other saints down through the ages – the willful purpose of the Lord is only accomplished in and through the worldly degradation and denigration of civilization so that a pop worldly culture may only be achieved prior to the destruction of that culture.  Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a favorite hero of mine in the seventies.  I had to wait three to five years for the whole of his Gulag Archipelago to be translated and published in English.  Either in those volumes or in another, he spoke of teaching mathematics in the Soviet school system as a prisoner of that system.  His heart was strained through having to weaken his methodology and the substance of is material in order that the ends of the worldly administration might be met.  He finally achieved some peace of mind in the knowledge that his perceived failure, through no fault of his own, would only hasten the downfall of the Soviet system.

Through the brilliance of his literary analysis, the notation of his conversion while in the worldly prison, and the comfort and encouragement of the Word of God, I completed the necessary time to be set free at long last to do more important things.  Of course, I do have the comfort in knowing that countless lives were snatched from the smoldering coals of ignorance through my witness and that of other honest Christian laborers.

Development:  Just as Solzhenitsyn admitted, the unpleasant experience heightened my awareness of the ongoing conflict between the two kingdoms in this life: the worldly, secular-humanistic culture and the Kingdom of the Spirit.  And for those of us who realize the reality of the prison house of sin, the preciousness of the lawful word of God is a sustaining grace – granted and protected by the power of the Holy Spirit day-by-day down through the many years.   

“Your statutes have themed my songs

                in the house of my pilgrimage.”

My title this morning “Ode to the Law” comes from this fifty-fourth verse in our study of this grand and glorious psalm of life-long affection for the very law being sung about.  The word pilgrimage here reminds me of the life-journey that we all must participate in – even as did David the King in Israel live, work and write.

Well has it been said of the Christian faith that it is a singing faith.  The very law, which condemns us, also points us to our Redeemer and it is that redemption of which we sing.  We ought to have pity for the poor miserable worldlings who have no songs to put joy in their souls.  Theirs is a bleak future, while ours is a blessed hope indeed!  Of course, we are also blessed in the knowledge that we are His, and He is ours as we travel through time towards the blessed hope of eternity in heaven.  Pilgrimage is an apt description for our temporary stay in this brief body and world.  The world is not our home, even as Christ tented among us as John observed, so too are we pilgrims much as those saints celebrated by John Bunyan.

“I remember Your name in the night, O Lord,

                And I observe Your law.”

Verse fifty-five encourages us in our rest, as well as in our singing of the day, to remember the word of our precious God and King.  Over the years, I have spent many fitful nights – sleeping not and praying neither as I ought.  How much we all need to practice what the saintly David celebrates in the psalms?  And what was that practice – to pray and even to record those prayers.  Of course – we all have our specific callings in life: David’s was to write the songs, which may gladden our hearts.

After my father had passed away, we found a large set of journals where he recorded the daily weather on the family farm from 1939 to 1997.  No wonder, he always knew how to plan his farming – he was almost one with the local environment.  The few years that I kept sheep and gardened extensively – I learned an intimate knowledge of the local weather patterns.  One of my neighbors once told me that they knew when it was going to rain because my barn doors would be closed up a hours before.  Now – I did not keep as extensive records as did my father – but for the good of my flock I learned to read the weather from day to day.  During a particularly bad blizzard, my flock was safely tucked away in the barn, another flock a few miles away wasn’t found for six weeks until the snow melted and their frozen bodies were discovered only to be buried at quite a loss to the other shepherd.

One of the grim facts of growing old is that there are more times awake at night – where the soothing practice of prayer can easily make the time pass more quickly and restfully.  While it is far from a perfect habit for me, there have been days that I dreaded going in to work.  Whenever – I copied David’s practice I was more rested than if I had slept more soundly.

The New Year’s eve when so many expected Y2K troubles, I slept right through most of the transition.  I had intended to watch through the night, but the last thing I remembered was a report from a small island in the pacific where the natives were standing with primitive torches in the light of the television camera to announce that there were no problems in their small island paradise.  The rest of the events I saw as reruns, and as I had time to consider the events, I enjoyed the humor of those islanders, who with their ancient torches assured the world that all was well! 

Conclusion:  Even so, may we encourage the world that in the light of God’s word, there is security, comfort and a richness of wonder that we can sing odes of joy to the God of law and grace.  And why is that?  Look at the last verse in our section today:

This blessing has fallen to me,

                that I have kept Your precepts.”

There is in the words of my translation the implication of how we are blessed.  Do you sense the caught nature of living in the Spirit?  I remember early on in my training in Sunday School the wisdom of the Reformer who insisted to us young people that the whole of Christianity was more caught than taught.  It was a principle that the whole congregation did not honor, because the concept was not as popular as it ought to be.  However, I have always remembered my first knowledge of the work of the Spirit in my life.  I was in the little Two-by-Four class as we were humorously called.  The lesson for the day was simple:  “God is Light”

And dear Mrs Gordon had us each take a turn standing on the chair and flipping the light switch on when we recited the verse correctly.  The classroom was in a dark corner of the church and, I can still remember that when my turn came, something more than just the light bulb came on!  I still had much to learn and while those who grew up outside of Christ’s Church have a more profound understanding of what God has done, nevertheless, those of us who grew up as Covenant Children were systematically sanctified by wise and loving parents long before we realized what that civilization really was that we were learning.

With that all said, let me return to my opening remarks where I began.  After twenty-five years in the trenches of teaching civility, history, language and all the hallmarks of what it means to be civilized, it is truly the opposition to all of that, which has grated upon my soul these many years.  Today’s young people are not allowed to have the benefits of the classical and Christian education that I grew up with.  To put the contrast in perspective, let me share one final story with you this morning.

A perceptive student once asked me what I considered to be a dramatic difference between his generation and my own.  Very simply I replied with an experience I had at Fort Knox, Kentucky – when my busload of recruits was being welcomed into Uncle Sam’s Army.  The Drill Sergeant went through a long list of offenses, which he expected us to avoid.  When he announced that no queering would be tolerated, the young black man from Detroit next to me whispered:  “Is that a honky thing?”  I responded – that I had no clue what so ever!  Would that such civilized ignorance and innocence were more rampant in our day and age.  Amen!