Psalm 102
Psalm 102 Notes
- A cry for help in a desperate state. (1-2)
- My state: short life, withered, can't eat, can't sleep, alone, attacked, mocked, sorrowful. (3-9)
- Cause: God's anger and actions toward me. (10)
- Despite my temporal and miserable state, YHWH rules forever, is remembered througout the generations, will have compassion on Zion. The nations will one day and forever honor YHWH when he rebuilds Zion (i.e. when he answers our prayers). (11-22)
- He has prematurely taken away my strength, so I cry out to him because he's the one who endures forever and his people will live securely in his presence. (23-28)
- The psalmist begins with a complaint, and puts the full blame on YHWH. But then, surprisingly, he has nothing but praise for him, especially in the comparison between his state and YHWH's state.
- First, he's simply recognizing that God is sovereign, even over the bad situations. He never suggests that God did anything wrong - just that his own state is the results of God's sovereign actions. Subtly, we see that even the psalmist's enemies are acting within God's sovereign design.
- Second, this seeming contradiction of blaming God then praising him comes together starting in 23. After explaning his own temporality against God's eternality, he reiterates the contrast in 23-24, but this time with the previous request included. I'm in this awful state (which you're responsible for), but your state is great. So, naturally, who am I going to turn to for help? To the only one who does not suffer my awful state! To the one who has sovereignty over my state.
- In his trouble, the psalmist has turned to the only one who:
- Never has this trouble.
- How the power over this trouble (obviously, since he's responsible for it).
- The psalmist must be assuming that whatever God did was good, even though it's about to completely crush him. He "blames" God in the sense that he acknowledges God's sovereign action, but he does not blame God in the sense that he accuses God of doing anything wrong.
- This is a rock solid faith, boosted by the sheer confidence that one day, God's realm will be fully established over the earth.
- Other OT examples of this kind of faith: Job, Shadrach/Meshach/Abednego.
- In Christ, Paul seems to have the same attitude: God is responsible for all his states, good or bad, and he has a good purpose in all of them. So, turn to him in every state, especially since he never suffers from them and he has authority over them.
- Who else are you going to turn to? Everyone / everything else has the same limitations and problems as you: temporality, suffering, and anxiety. No one / nothing else has the power over temporality, suffering, and anxiety.
- At the heart of idolatry is turning to anything that does not have this kind of absolute superiority over the state of fallenness.
