O COME!

I believe that when the history of the latter decades of the twentieth century are truly recorded for posterity, the record will reveal what it means to live in a vast spiritual desert! More and more it seems that the spiritual resources of this once fair land are drying up. This fact could very well help explain some of the odd, strange and estranged relationships which testify to the wanting presence of the Holy Spirit. In O. Palmer Robertson's thinking, we as a society have lost even the concept of God. Then he goes on to discuss three consequences of this lack and focus. First of all he points out that human stability begins to evaporate and come apart. Second, every sense of accountability disappears and third, the sense of acceptance is also lost.

In this third aspect, he says that: "If a person is not sure that the eternal God has fully accepted him or her, then no other apparent manifestations of love will be permanently convincing". Well can we understand this last point as we look around at the shattered families in their growing numbers. Yet, this condition does not have to be the hallmark of the latter days of the twentieth century! O that people would listen once again to the soft spoken voice of the Spirit of our Father God. Yet how will they hear His voice if we do not at least speak to them so that the Spirit may speak through us.

As we turn to this first Psalm in our Christmas series let us learn of the King who has come that we may invite our worldly brethren to come and participate in His worship. In the Latin translation of this psalm, the first word may be well translated "O come". And by that simple "Venite" this particular psalm has been widely used as a call and guide to worship.

The second phrase is more instructive in an older translation where the Lord's people are called to "make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation." The rock theme here hearkens back to the desert experience of the people of Israel which we shall hear more of directly. We know of course from the New Testament that this rock in question was really Jesus Christ. So in the context of His expected coming we may focus on the coming of the King of Kings during this Christmas season.

In verse two our psalmist continues his instructions for coming into the Lord's presence to worship Him. In the first phrase we are encouraged to bring before Him the thanksgiving of our heart. Indeed we should enjoy being comfortable in His presence! Even the little children should be encouraged to smile and be happy in our earthly sanctuary. I know that many of us were raised with the attitude that the sanctuary of the Church was to be treated as a special solemn place where quietness was of the greatest order. God has often been viewed as a great librarian who would shush even the quietest whisper. Let us here gathered encourage our little ones to enjoy His sanctuary, so that they may later on enjoy the presence of their God. As time goes on let us instruct each one to hold a book when they are able and teach them at least the first verse of our most used hymns so that as they grow older they too may follow our psalmist by extolling Him with music and song. The Lord, the great God, the great King above all gods, has invited the little children into His presence when He was on earth and He also instructed us all that we ought to come as they come.

Remember, this is the Lord God of the entire universe to whose credit our psalmist naturally hands over the formation of the depths and peaks of the earth's surface. Even the sea is His, as well as the dry land. He who has formed the incredible depths and heights, ought to be worshipped humbly in spirit and in truth.

Again in verse six, we are invited to Come, bow down and worship. In that verse we are invited to kneel and look up and know how great is our Sovereign God. Do you remember how big that pulpit and sanctuary looked when you were once a wee one? Go back to that Church where you attended as a child, how small does it seem in comparison to what it seemed when you were three-fourth's smaller. Are we beginning to make a little sense here of what it means to come and worship and look up to someone greater than ourselves? Why do you think the Europeans built such grand cathedrals, except to visualize to the people the vast greatness of the One in heaven!

What the psalmist has in mind here is the necessity to humble ourselves before our God. There in verse seven we should accept the instruction that "he is our God". He is a very personal God who was willing to come down from heaven, appear in the flesh and fulfill the Covenant promises literally in His own shed blood and death on that Easter Tree of long ago. As we gather to worship Him, let us remember, we are the people of his pasture and the flock under his care.

At the end of verse seven and through to the end we see that in the midst of worship, our God would speak to us, if we would but listen. Tell your friends and loved ones that you have heard God the Lord speak to you in the midst of worship. Focus your invitation there on His greatness and let His glory shine through your enthusiasm. Of course the apparent harshness of the following words may put some people off. But still, if the Holy Spirit goes before us and uses His words, perhaps the others will open their hearts to the instruction of the Holy Spirit.

There are several things here in this transition verse that we ought to understand well. As we saw earlier in Hebrews, these words are not aimed at Israel alone. Derek Kidner tells us that the "Today" in the last phrase of verse seven speaks to this very moment. The you is none other than ourselves and the promised rest is not Canaan, but salvation. Here is the invitation to all of those in the dry, parched and desert land of contemporary America. These closing verses ought really to be in quotation marks because the speaker changes from the psalmist to God Himself.

And here the Lord describes the disputes and testings of the Exodus to highlight the sour, skeptical spirit of Israel. In this revelation we ought to consider how the Lord might speak of us! As a teacher and a farmer I often have often had oversight for some very interesting characters, in both the human and the sheep species. You know, its amusing sometimes to see the foibles of both species and begin to appreciate the biblical comparison between them.

Once I compared an orphan lamb with a wayward student to help other professionals understand and explain the bizarre behavior that we were dealing with. Now, orphan lambs are notorious for gaining the sympathy of shepherds and families. In fact, the only sheep with names in our flock were once orphaned. Very often, the abandonment of a little lamb is blamed on the mother ewe's stupidity or genetics. By that I mean, some ewes are so dumb that when they give birth to twins, they will clean up the first and while they are turned around in that direction have the second. The second may very well be ignored and never noticed. Other ewes for one reason or another have not enough milk for even one little lamb, let alone two. And so, most shepherds take the little lost lambs to heart and clean them up and care for them.

Very often these orphans never grow to the size desired and you wonder what you as a shepherd had done wrong. One year, we had such an orphan and I worried about him all season. He was only half the size of the rest and I finally figured out why. And knowing why will help us to understand the problem with the wayward Israelites in the desert! This particular orphan is what I am going to classify as a "grazer". By that I mean he was always intent on something other than eating. Even when he was bottle fed, we always had a problem keeping his attention on being fed. He would take a few mouthfuls, then wonder over to see what the cats were up to. Or look around to see what the calves were having for breakfast or supper! Once he was weaned and turned out to pasture you could see him wander from place to place taking only a bite of this and that. Quite regularly he would take a mouthful of grass out from under the nose of another lamb. They would then have to wander off to another spot, and off he would be to see what another lamb or ewe had found. I would be willing to predict that the growth of the whole lamb crop was affected by this particular "grazer".

The thing that made me realize what was wrong with the lamb was when a student was transferred to one of my classes. This particular human "grazer" affected the learning of several classrooms. Somebody asked me what we should have done with him and I suggested we put him out to pasture (excuse me), into a room all by himself so that the rest of the students could learn something!

Given these two shepherding examples perhaps we can better appreciate the tiresome task faced by Moses in the Exodus experience. He had almost a whole flock of grazers who wandered for forty years nibbling at the grace of God without ever partaking of it! I for one can certainly understand the Lord's feeling in verse eleven. I would urge you to not be put off by the abrupt ending of this psalm nor by the sense of urgency here in the midst of worship that the Lord would feed us, if we will but open our mouths and eat.