The Delight of Faithfulness
Most people are allergic to commandments. And the same people associate the church with rules and commandments. But that is not how the ancient Israelites looked upon commandments. Psalm 119 is the longest of all the psalms in the part of the Bible that Christians call the “Old Testament.” We call it Old, but there’s nothing old about it. Many parts of it read like yesterday’s headlines. And of course, let’s remember that what we call the Old Testament just happened to be our Lord’s Bible!
Our Lord Jesus Christ knew only one Bible, and it consisted entirely of what we call the “Old Testament.” There was no “New Testament” yet; that came decades and eventually three centuries later in the form we have it today. Jesus lived the Bible; he lived especially the Psalms and the Prophets. They were his daily bread; his daily prayers; and his daily support as he pursued his own prophetic and redemptive ministry. And undoubtedly Psalm 119 was often on his lips.
Psalm 119 is divided into 22 blocks of 8 verses each, for a total of 176 verses. Each block of eight verses is headed by one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew language. The verse highlighted above comes in the fifth block (verses 33-40). Here is that block in its entirety in a modern transaltion:
ה
Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end.
Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart.
Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it.
Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.
Confirm to your servant your promise, that you may be feared.
Turn away the reproach that I dread, for your rules are good.
Behold, I long for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life!
The psalmist delights in God’s commandments. The Law, the Torah, was the foundational document of the Jewish people and it still is. It is revered and held in the most sacred space of every synagogue. The Torah consists of the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. All God’s commandments and ordinances are found in those five books. For the Jews they are as foundational as the four Gospels are for Christians. If you look at the eight verses in the above section of Psalm 119 you get a sense of how important these five books of the Bible were for the Jews: They were the guide to life and they gave life! They were not mere words to be read and put away. How could the psalmist not delight in the words that gave and nourished life?
In every Orthodox church the book of the Gospels is placed on the altar table and it is kissed every time it is opened and read at a church service. We treat the book of the Gospels with the same reverence the Jews show the Torah. In the Gospels we hear the voice of the Lord himself – the same Lord, the same Word of God, that spoke to Moses and the prophets; the same Lord to whom the psalmists addressed their magnificent odes of faith and faithfulness. The Gospels should delight us as the Torah has delighted Jews for thousands of years. The life of faithfulness should be a life of delight.
Our lives today are filled with distractions that purport to entertain or make us happy, but more often than not simply clutter our lives with cumbersome and unnecessary baggage that we then have a hard time getting rid of. Who takes delight in reading the Bible? Even in churches that claim to be biblical, the Bible is read in a dry, propositional way. Don’t read the Bible to find theological truths if you can’t first delight in it. Don’t read the Bible to find comfort and reassurance, if you can’t first delight in it. Psalm 119 has it right: Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Delight comes first and it is delight that God wants to share with us.
We don’t always do things with delight in our Holy Trinity Church, but we try. We have enriched our liturgical services with chants and music that glow with spirit and evoke the enrichment we have received from some of the Orthodox traditions represented in our diverse community. By expanding our use of modern English, we are better able to enter into the joy of our Lord as he delights in the trinitarian unity with the Father and the Spirit. And indeed, it is the trinitarian life that we aim to live and delight in. If you are not an active member of our Holy Trinity Church you are missing on a precious and irreplaceable delight. Come and be part of a community that seeks to grow in faithfulness and the delight of faithfulness.