Psalm Meditation 497
First Sunday of Christmas
December 27, 2009

Psalm 45
1 My heart overflows with a goodly theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.
2 You are the most handsome of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever.
3 Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your glory and majesty.
4 In your majesty ride on victoriously for the cause of truth and to defend the right; let your right hand teach you dread deeds.
5 Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; the peoples fall under you.
6 Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity;
7 you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;
8 your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad;
9 daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.
10 Hear, O daughter, consider and incline your ear; forget your people and your father's house,
11 and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him;
12 the people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people
13 with all kinds of wealth. The princess is decked in her chamber with gold-woven robes;
14 in many-colored robes she is led to the king; behind her the virgins, her companions, follow.
15 With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king.
16 In the place of ancestors you, O king, shall have sons; you will make them princes in all the earth.
17 I will cause your name to be celebrated in all generations; therefore the peoples will praise you forever and ever.
(NRSV)

This psalms seems to be a wedding song for a princess who is being sent off to marry another king. There are praises to the king as a reminder to all that the king is the agent of God and the clearinghouse for all the good things that could possibly come to those of us who are not the king or queen. In the midst of all the wedding celebration is a reminder that all of the good things in our lives come as gifts of God whether we are kings or subjects of kings.

For those of us for whom royalty is a foreign concept there are still reasons to keep this psalm in the canon. Whether we are governed by hereditary rulers or by elected officials we do well to keep God as a central point in our lives. Years ago, when Becky and I got married, I heard from several people that there are three important people in a good marriage; the husband, the wife and God. The other part of that was usually that the order in which I just listed them was not the order of their importance. God is first, last and in between and the two people make their way together in the presence of God.

There are some couples who live with a constant awareness of the presence of God in their lives, individually and together, the rest of us have our moments. Our lives are filled with temptations; sometimes we give in to those temptations and other times we do not. We may judge those in the public eye more harshly as they give in to the variety of temptations to which celebrity is heir, however we each deal with our own infidelities as we are tempted to wander away from relationships of lasting importance to those of passing fancy. It could be a sexual relationship or it could be too much time and energy at work, a time consuming hobby or any number of ways we are tempted away from faithful relationships. Through it all God is with us and available to us as we discover our desire for God in our lives and relationships.

© December 21, 2009