Why I love the Psalter (first attempt)...

I have been thinking a lot lately about why I love the Psalter so very much.  I shall bungle this and will probably need to try many times to speak clearly what is in my heart.  But I wanted to try:

For me, there is no condemnation in the Psalter.  There is Law.  Do not hear me wrong.  There is Law, but there is no condemnation. 

I know that Romans 8:1 tells us that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but I do not "feel" that is true.  I was plenty condemned as a Protestant for my struggle with sin as a sign I was not trusting Jesus enough, I did not have a right relationship.  Specifically, with words.  As  Lutheran, I have felt condemned again.  I do not understand things I wish to understand.  I know I am hearing Gospel because I am told it is Gospel but it sounds like Law to me.  It was taught as Law.  Just because I know it was taught wrongly and that it is, in fact Gospel, I do not understand how it is not Law, especially because what I am hearing or reading condemns me.

But the Protestants do not, at least in the many churches I have been to, teach the Psalter as the prayer book of the bible.  They do not teach them as prayers Christ prays for us, as prayers we can pray because we pray them in Christ.  Other than the "Jesus ones," the Psalter isn't really taught.  And what is taught is not the same. 

For example, Psalm 23 is probably the only Psalm I have been been taught in its entirety--the rest are really only verses plucked out...mostly plucked out and stuck in praise songs that emphasize how great a job I am doing worshiping God.  But I never once heard Baptism and the Lord's Supper taught in Psalm 23.  Once you know the Sacraments are there (that they actually are Sacraments and not ordinances is another discussion), you cannot help but see them and rejoice in the beautiful song/prayer/reminder of these good gifts and how they strengthen and sustain us.

So, for me, since it has not been taught wrongly, there is no condemnation in the Psalter.  There are far, far, far many things I do not understand, I do not even see in the Psalter.  But I, as I have told others, this does not matter to me.  Yes, I want to learn the full meaning of what I am praying, but I can pray in confidence because they have been given to me to pray and it has been promised that the Holy Spirit, who does know their full meaning, will carry my groanings to Christ, who takes those words of my heart to the Father.

When I talk about the Psalter, I usually talk about how I am awed, over and over again, that the very words of my heart were set down for me to pray thousands of years ago.  How could that possibly be?  When I ponder such, I think that my Father in heaven must love me to give me, a struggling wretched sinner, such a powerful gift that contains blessings and riches beyond measure.

The most perfect example of this (today, for I change my most perfect examples all the time because there is not a psalm I do not love for one reason or another) is Psalm 77.  In it, the psalmist is despairing.  At one point, he says that it is his grief that the right hand of God has changed.  For the longest time, I puzzled that God would have me pray that Christ changed when He is immutable.  I prayed it anyway.  I also kept coming back to it in times of hurt and confusion.  Then, as I wrote earlier, one day I realized that I was reading it wrong.  The psalmist was not grieving that the right hand of God had changed, but that it was his own grief clouding his mind and making him think that the right hand of God had changed.  Because he realized this, he turned to confessing that which he knows is true.  The very lesson I needed...still need!  Even when I am struggling and I pray this psalm, when I get to that part, my heart will leap a bit at the wonder and awe I still feel over the discovery of the gift of those Words.

In the Psalter are prayers for every occasion.  In the Psalter is the Gospel.  In the Psalter is the holy history of what God has done.  In the Psalter is the Law.  In the Psalter is the nature of God.  In the Psalter are the doubts and fears and struggles and longings and joys and triumphs of the human heart.  In the Psalter are the Sacraments.  In the Psalter is our Triune God.  In the Psalter is the wonder of creation.  In the Psalter are the promises of God, including the Promised One.  In the Psalter are our enemies and how to rightly pray for and against them.  In the Psalter is the cross.  In the Psalter is the life God has for us.

And, for me, in the Psalter there is comfort beyond my ability to explain or convey, for in the Psalter there is no condemnation.  There is no doubt or confusion or unbelief.  There is simply utter trust in this good gift from God that I have received by faith in Christ through the Holy Spirit.  In the Psalter, I taste and hear and see Jesus the way I suspect I should be able to do elsewhere in the bible. 

If I am overset with grief or fear or confusion or hurt, all you really have to do is read the Psalter to me long enough and I will find a measure of peace, sometimes almost against my will.  I believe this is so because there is no condemnation there.  I am not hearing wrongly as I oft do elsewhere.  The fact that it does this, even though I experienced its power several times now in such a circumstance, still amazes me and humbles me.

Please do not get me wrong.  I love the Living Word.  I cherish all of is message.  I still count as one of my most precious and desirous gifts in the world for someone to read it to me.  One of my longings is for someone to read me John in one sitting, to pour that into my ears and heart.  I know full well that the condemnation I find and struggle with and despair over is of the devil, the world, and my flesh.  I know that.  So, even those parts that trouble me so I still welcome.

But I also relish and rejoice in the Psalter each and every day.  I have been thinking deeply about why.  And so I realized in this process that it is because I find no condemnation in the Psalter.  In the Psalter, I can truly see that I am whole and pure, without spot or blemish.  That I am one in whom God delights.  That I am clean.  That I have no shame.  In the Psalter, I find love and grace and mercy.  I find forgiveness.  I find peace. 

I know these are throughout the whole of Holy Scripture.  I know that it is my sin that I often cannot see them, find them, in the same places as do others.  I pray each day that God will somehow teach me to see and hear correctly that I might be free of the condemnation I wrongly find elsewhere.  Be this.  Do that.  I want to be and do.  I cannot. I fail.  I despair.  I fear for my salvation.  And I drown in shame because I know God does not mean for me to despair and fear but I am too stupid or too dense or too blind or too sinful to see what is true.

I long for all of the Living Word to be for me as is the Psalter.  But I am also exceedingly thankful that at least one part of it is as it should be.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!