Sunday 3rd
December, First Sunday of Advent
Smile your blessing smile/Envoyez sur nous ton sourire de
bénédiction
Psalm
80, the appointed psalm for the first Sunday in Advent, is a prayer for
the restoration of Israel. Commentators think it dates from the time of the
fall of the northern kingdom of Israel between 734 and 722 BC. In spite of the
old rivalry between the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of
Judah, the psalm expresses great distress at the break-up of the old family.
…in
the original Hebrew, writes Eugene Peterson, the Psalms are not genteel;
they’re earthy and rough. They are not the prayers of nice people, couched in
cultured language. But they have an immense range of gut-level honesty and
passion that provides them with terrific energy.
So
Peterson’s version of vv.2-3 reads:
Get
out of bed - you’ve slept long enough! Come on the run before it’s too
late.
God,
come back! Smile your blessing smile: That will be our
salvation.*
In
vv.8-11 the psalmist recalls the history of the people of Israel; how God
brought them out of slavery in Egypt; how he enabled the kingdom to expand under
David and Solomon. But now:
You
put us on a diet of tears, bucket after bucket of salty tears to drink.*
Although
God himself had planted the vineyard (see the Song of the Vineyard in Isaiah
5), he had now allowed the walls to be broken down. And the land to be
plundered. By wild pigs. And other animals. And the invading Assyrian
army.
The
psalmist pleads for God to turn back to his people. So that they (we) can turn
back to Him:
We will
never turn our back on you; breathe life into our lungs so we can shout your
name.*
We
look in penitence at the continuing ecological crisis; at temperature rise and
plastic oceans. We look with horror at the continuing wars; in Syria, in
Afghanistan, in the Yemen, in southern Sudan. We look aghast at the behaviour
of our political leaders. We look with anger at the activities of some banks
and multinational corporations. Maybe we could learn from the Psalmist, and
use Advent to cry out to God about some of these things. And to urge
him to intervene:
God,
come back! Smile your blessing smile: That will be our
salvation.*
Chris Martin
*Editor’s note. Taken from The Message.
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