Our God, why have you
completely rejected us?
Why are you so angry
with the ones you care for?
Remember the people
you rescued long ago,
the tribe you chose
for your very own.
Think of Mount Zion,
your home;
walk over to the temple
left in ruins forever
by those who hate us.
Your enemies roared like lions
in your holy temple,
and they have placed
their banners there.
It looks like a forest
chopped to pieces.
They used axes and hatchets
to smash the carvings.
They burned down your temple
and badly disgraced it.
They said to themselves,
“We’ll crush them!”
Then they burned each one
of your meeting places
all over the country.
There are no more miracles
and no more prophets.
Who knows how long
it will be like this?
Our God, how much longer
will our enemies sneer?
Won’t they ever stop
insulting you?
Why don’t you punish them?
Why are you holding back?
Our God and King,
you have ruled
since ancient times;
you have won victories
everywhere on this earth.
By your power you made a path
through the sea,
and you smashed the heads
of sea monsters.
You crushed the heads
of the monster Leviathan,
then fed him to wild creatures
in the desert.
You opened the ground
for streams and springs
and dried up mighty rivers.
You rule the day and the night,
and you put the moon
and the sun in place.
You made summer and winter
and gave them to the earth.
Remember your enemies, Lord!
They foolishly sneer
and won’t respect you.
You treat us like pet doves,
but they mistreat us.
Don’t keep forgetting us
and letting us be fed
to those wild animals.
Remember the agreement
you made with us.
Violent enemies are hiding
in every dark corner
of the earth.
Don’t disappoint those in need
or make them turn from you,
but help the poor and homeless
to shout your praises.
Do something, God!
Defend yourself.
Remember how those fools
sneer at you all day long.
Don’t forget the loud shouts
of your enemies. (Contemporary English Version)
God’s temple was violated. The center and symbol of Jewish worship, culture, and life was gone.
Although we know that nothing lasts forever, that doesn’t mean we are always okay with it.
Asaph, the psalmist, was definitely not okay with the temple’s destruction. It was more than the loss of a building. For Asaph and his people, Jerusalem and the temple were the glue which held the world together.
They lost their center of being. And it was devastating to them.
Everyone and every society has their center, those values and practices which makes them a people. We all need a public center that defines who we are and what we are about. There must be a gravity that holds us to our place and doesn’t allow us to stray into oblivion and nothingness.
The central core of the people was eviscerated. So, today’s psalm is a lament for Jerusalem. It is a painful emotional and spiritual cry which goes well beyond bricks and mortar and the mere physical.
The ruin of the temple, Asaph complains, is the ruin of their God. Yes, it was the Babylonians who came and did the destroying and the de-centering. But it was God’s temple. God is the One responsible. It was God’s action. So, Asaph contends with God and comes at him with full challenge.
Asaph appealed to the Lord much like we do today. “Hey, God, remember how things were back there. It was good, right!? Now look at everything. It’s a mess.” The language is all meant to persuade God that things are so bad, that they are completely intolerable; thus, the Lord should do something about it.
God is bigger than the temple. So, therefore, God can and should restore the temple and make things right again, Asaph reasons. He sounds much like a person in the throes of grief, desperately trying to bargain with God to get things back to the way they were.
Point by point, the psalmist gives a sort of play-by-play to God about the awful situation and what happened. These guys who came and did their dirty work are ultimately your enemies, God, not just ours. So, take notice and act!
Remember the good old days, God, when you performed mighty acts of power against formidable foes, Asaph insisted. Against all odds, the Lord came through for the people… But now… there’s nothing. No divine action. The Babylonians came to Jerusalem, destroyed the city and temple, and got away with it.
Like a person experiencing extreme dizziness, Asaph and the people had a terrible spiritual vertigo which left them unable to get their balance and find their center.
Along with Asaph, in our horrible grief, we not only appeal to God, but we also insist, even tell God exactly what he must do, as if we were the Creator and Yahweh the creature. “Listen, Mr. Almighty God, you made a covenant with us and now you’re reneging on it with all this ridiculous silence and inaction.”
Yet, Asaph really knows better. He knows that, although the temple and the city are important as visible structures, the invisible God transcends all the tangible things we hold so tightly to.
We live in a day and age when all our religious structures are being dismantled, destroyed, done away with. Few persons now look to an institutional and visible building or system for their spirituality and worship.
And, although many believers may lament the changes and the disappearance of churches and religion, there still remains an invisible God to whom we can address – the very same God whom Asaph addressed all those millennia ago.
We are not, therefore, reduced to despair. In the end, it isn’t about buildings, ministries, programs, budgets, or church attendance – it’s about the source of life and hope in the absence of past knowable structures. It is a naked faith in the God who is there.
Lord Jesus Christ, by your patience in suffering you hallowed earthly pain and gave us the example of obedience to your Father’s will: Be near me in my time of weakness and pain; sustain me by your grace so that my strength and courage may not fail; heal me according to you will; and help me always to believe that what happens to me here is of little account if you hold me in eternal life, my Lord and my God. Ame
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 