Imagine you’re at home … watching some TV before you go to bed … when the power suddenly goes off. It’s dark. No lights inside. No lights outside. Might make you a bit nervous, you think? Even afraid? Now imagine that you have a big dog lying at your feet. Hum … you feel a bit more at ease, right? Now imagine that you have a big dog at your feet AND a loaded shotgun within reach. Feel a bit more confident? Now imagine that you have a big dog at your feet, a loaded shotgun within reach, AND four sheriff deputies guarding your house. Think you would feel safe and not worry about what might be lurking in the dark? What David realized is that even if you take away the dog, the loaded shotgun, and the four sheriff deputies you have nothing to fear because God is our light and our salvation and He is always with us, watching over us and protecting us.
I’m not sure what it says in your Bible but in mine it describes Psalm 27 as a triumphant song of confidence. Let’s read it together, amen? [Read Psalm 27.]
We don’t know when or what exactly was going on in David’s life that led to him write this prayer. His reference to adversaries and foes in verse 3 and false witnesses in verse 12 suggests that it was written during a time when King Saul put out a reward on his head because of the slander that some of David’s detractors had put in the ear of a paranoid king. As you may recall, the number one hit song at the time praised Saul for killing thousands of Philistines and David his ten thousand (1st Samuel 18:7). “Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him but had departed from Saul” (1st Samuel 18:12) and so “Saul eyed David from that day on” (1st Samuel 18:9).
This could have been written when David was king. Kings are surrounded by people who admire them but they are also surrounded by enemies who pretend to be their admirers. They are also surrounded by other kings and countries who wish to destroy them and take over their kingdom or region … so, in the words of William Shakespeare, uneasy is the head that wears the crown.
What we can tell is that David is under some kind of attack or believes that he is under some kind of attack and he does what we should all do when we are overwhelmed by life or feel like we’re under attack … we go to the Lord … and there we find hope and we find peace.
What is so scary about the power going off at night? It’s dark. And why is the dark so scary? Because we can’t see what may be lurking in the shadows or in the dark. What a sense of relief when the lights come back on, amen, and we can see again. David comes to the Lord at what appears to be a very dark time in his life and he goes to the Lord, who is his light. Not a light but “his” light … a light that shines in his darkness and reveals the truth of his situation. Was that bump in the night the cat knocking something down or a person creeping around in your house taking advantage of the power outage? If we know the truth then we know how to react, amen? If it’s just the cat, we can breathe a sigh of relief and ignore it. If it’s a burglar or an intruder, we can get out of the house and call 9-11. God is David’s light, a great source of comfort and confidence in a time when the only light there was either came from a heavenly body like the sun or the moon or from lamps and fireplaces. The darkness brings fear and anxiety … the light reveals the truth and knowing the truth gives us hope and confidence and hope and confidence can give us peace. The Lord was David’s light. Jesus is our light, who took on flesh and brought the true light into our spiritually dark world. “I am the light of the world,” proclaimed Jesus. “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Like David, we should all start out our prayers by reminding ourselves of the reason for our prayers and the Person to whom we are praying. The Lord is our light, our salvation, our stronghold … a three-fold cord that one Bible commentator said cannot be easily broken (Spurgeon, C. “Charles H. Spurgeon’s Treasury of David: Psalm 27.” Christianity.com). With God on our side, whom shall we fear, of whom shall we be afraid (Psalm 27:1)? Well, David tells us in verse 2 who he is afraid of … evildoers who are seeking to devour him and tear him apart like hungry lions … and yet, the plans and attacks of his adversaries and his foes will stumble and fail because his light, his salvation, his stronghold is God, against whom not one of his enemies or evildoers will be able to stand. Even though an army encamps around him and his kingdom and they wage war and try to crush and destroy Israel, his heart shall not fear because the Lord is his light, his strength, and his stronghold. Notice the note of absolute trust in verse 2. He doesn’t say “if” his enemies stumble or fall or “might” stumble and fall. What does he say? They “SHALL” stumble and fall. And when they do … when God has lifted his head up above his enemies, he will go to the tent … to the Temple … to the House of the Lord … and offer up sacrifices of thanksgiving while shouting and singing for joy. In the midst of his prayer he is already looking forward to celebrating the fact that God has answered his prayer. God, his salvation in the past, will certainly be his salvation now … and that knowledge, that truth, is what allows him to be so confident and to experience hope and peace in what appears to be a desperate and fearful situation.
Remember my scenario at the beginning of this sermon where your lights go out but you have a big dog at your feet, a loaded shotgun within reach, and four sheriff deputies on guard outside? While the enemies and evildoers assail David, it is they who will stumble and fall … not David. While his enemies are encamped around David, David is surrounded by God’s light and strength. You can’t really see it in English but the picture that David paints in verse 5 is that he is secure in a royal shelter or pavilion which is traditionally erected in the center of an army … something that David would have experienced many times as he went to battle … both as a warrior protecting the king and as a king being guarded and protected by many seasoned warriors. He may be surrounded by his enemies or his problems but he is also surrounded by God … his light, his salvation, his stronghold.
God’s “shelter” is more than just a tent or pavilion, however. David is referring to God’s house … in particular, the Holy of Holies … a place where no one dared to enter on pain of death … not even Moses or the priests except on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and then only after they had taken the proper precautions. So, while David may be surrounded by his enemies, he is in the safest place on earth … in God’s “pavilion,” God’s “shelter,” God’s house where he is in the Presence of God … his light, his strength, his stronghold. Whom shall he fear and of whom shall he be afraid? And when we are on our knees in prayer, whether here in this holy place or in the privacy of our bedroom or prayer space at home in the Presence of our Light, our Strength, our Stronghold, whom shall we fear and of whom shall we be afraid, amen? While we are on our knees, we are, in fact, being lift by God “high on a rock” where our enemies or the problems of life or this world cannot reach us.
The hope and confidence that David expresses in verses 1 through 6 prepares him for the prayer that he is about to make in verses 7 through 13. While verse 7 sounds like it expresses some doubt, it is, in fact, given what he has said in verses 1 through 6, a rhetorical question. He knows that there is no doubt that God will hear his prayer and answer it. “I believe,” he says in verse 13, “that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” God may not answer his prayer today or tomorrow, but he fully expects God to answer his prayer during his life time … a hope and faith and trust that comes from having seen God answer many of his other prayers already. In verse 9, he asks God not to hide his face from him, to not turn him away in anger and he knows that God will not because, in that same verse, God has been his help … in the past and up to this present moment.
Perhaps the closest relationship that we have with another human being is that of parent and child and yet, as close as parents may be with their children, they are human and, as such, can only do so much. David’s relationship, our relationship, with God is stronger than any relationship we could have with another human being. Though our father or mother forsake us, says David, the Lord with take us up … our light, our strength, our stronghold will always be there for us. He will hide us in His shelter in the day of trouble; He will conceal us under the cover of His tent, and He will set us high on a rock.
“Teach me Your way, O LORD,” David prays. God’s way … not his. “… lead me on a level path” … one that is clear and obvious. God never stops teaching us nor does He simply stand by and watch us struggle. Bishop Robert Skinner put it this way: “If a man travelling in the King’s highway, be robbed between sun and sun” … in other words, during the day … “satisfaction is recoverable upon the county where the robbery was made; but if he takes his journey in the night, being an unseasonable time, then it is at his own peril, he must take what falls. So, if a man keep in God’s way, he shall be sure of God’s protection; but if he stray out of them, he exposes himself to danger” (quoted in Spurgeon, Ibid.). Like David, we need to ask God to show us the way, to help us not stray off of His path where our adversaries or problems are waiting like hungry lions to attack us and devour us.
“One thing I asked of the LORD,” sings David, “that [one thing] will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His temple” (Psalm 27:4). One thing he asks for … one thing he seeks … like the merchant in one of Jesus’ parables who found a pearl of great value and sold all that he had to buy it (Matthew 13:45). David would rather live in God’s house … worshipping Him and singing His praises … than live in his own lavish palace … for what on earth can compare to the beauty of God … what better way to live than inquiring of God, talking to God, learning about the One … with a capital “O” … who will teach us His ways and lead us on a level path? What could possibly be better than forever being in the presence of our heart’s desire, amen? “Come,” David’s heart says, “seek His face! Your face, LORD, do I seek. Do not hide Your face from me” (Psalm 27:8-9).
One night, God showed His face in the land of the living … and it was the face of a baby born … not in a palace … but in a manger in Bethlehem. Not to parents or people of breeding or status or power but to a common laborer and his young fiancé. His birth was heralded by the angels of Heaven but was hardly noticed here on earth.
“Wait for the LORD,” David wrote over a thousand years before Israel would see the face of their Light, their Salvation, their Stronghold. Rev. Phillips Brooks describes that night as calm and peaceful. “O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie; above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by” (“O Little Town of Bethlehem, stanza 1). The image is peaceful … but also disturbing. The peace that he describes is like the peace of death … “how STILL we see thee lie” (stanza 1; emphasis mine). Corpses don’t move, amen? “…above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by” (stanza 1) … “deep and dreamless sleep.” In the Bible, dead people are often described as being asleep … a deep sleep from which they will one day be awakened and judged. In Revelation 20, John saw “a great white throne and the one who sat on it; the earth and the heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books” (Revelation 20:11-12). As the world sleeps a deep and dreamless sleep, and the stars silently mark the passing of time … the One … with a capital “O” … has come … the everlasting light, the strength, the stronghold of Israel and the world.
In 1865, Phillips Brooks did what many pastors did after the Civil War. He went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On Christmas Eve, Brooks hired a horse and began riding south and somewhat west of Jerusalem toward the hill country of Judea. As evening approached, he found himself coming to the fields and hills where he imagined the shepherds had been keeping watch over their flocks when an angel of the Lord appeared heralding Jesus’ birth. His mind and his heart were flooded with the images of the Advent story as he rode and walked through the silent streets of Bethlehem. “I remember standing in the old church in Bethlehem,” he wrote in his diary, “close to the spot where Jesus was born. And the whole church was ringing hour after hour with the splendid hymns of praise to God; how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voices I knew well, telling each other of the Savior’s birth.”
The night that he was in Bethlehem, the town was filled with music and chiming bells … and it got him to thinking about the night when Christ was born. There was singing … an angelic choir … but only the shepherds in the fields heard it. The rest of Bethlehem slept on. For them the night was dreamless and the heavens were silent.
Brooks wrote his poem about that night three years later. He then asked his organist … Lewis H. Redner … to set his poem to music so that people could sing and remember and experience the birth of Jesus in much the same way that he did that Christmas Eve night in Bethlehem and the result was the popular and well-known Christmas hymn or carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”
The main focus or feature of this carol is, of course, the identification of Bethlehem as the chosen birthplace of the Messiah in whom “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight” (stanza 1b). In the eight century BC, the Prophet Micah announced that Jesus would be born in the sleepy little nowhere town of Bethlehem. “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathat, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you,” says God, “shall come forth for me one who is to rule Israel, whose origin is from old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2).
David starts out his psalm with proclaiming that the LORD is his light and his salvation, the stronghold of his life. Brooks’ hymn makes a similar proclamation: “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight” (stanza 1). The Everlasting Light came down into our deep and dreamless world in Bethlehem … the answer to centuries of prayers of hope, prayers of desperation, prayers done in tears. Prayers for a personal Savior and prayers for a national Redeemer. “O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!” (stanza 4) … the beauty of the Lord in human form so that we would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living (Psalm 27:13).
David prayed that he might be with the LORD in “house of the LORD all the days of his life … to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His Temple” (Psalm 27:4). Christmas is about God coming to us and abiding with us so that we may inquire about God, to learn about God, so that God can teach us His ways and lead us on a level path (Psalm 27:4, 11). Christmas is about the fact that God came to be with us … that God WANTS to be with us … that God IS our light … that God IS our salvation … that God IS our strength, our refuge. The great promise of Christmas is that He will enter … not only into our world but “where meek souls will receive Him” (stanza 3).
If our hopes and fears are met in Him, then what or whom shall we fear? Some people fear the future because it is unknown. Some of us fear sickness and disease. Some of us fear the loss of someone or something. Some of us fear pain and suffering. The hope of Christmas is that the fears of all the years and all the people are met in Jesus, whose presence calms our hearts and our fears. Can we declare as David did … can we sing and shout for joy as David did because Jesus is OUR hope … Jesus is OUR light … Jesus is OUR salvation … Jesus is OUR stronghold? If you can … and I dearly hope that you can … then, again, whom shall we fear, amen?
Both Psalm 27 and “O Little Town of Bethlehem” speak of God’s presence. David longs to be with the Lord, to be in His Presence every single day of his life. “One thing I ask of the LORD, that will I seek after; to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His Temple” (Psalm 27:4). The Temple, like the Tabernacle in the wilderness, was a sign of God’s Presence amongst His people … until He became Emmanuel, living and moving amongst us in the flesh. When Jesus drove the vendors and money changers out of the Temple, some of the leaders came and demanded to know why He did that. “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jew then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?’ But He was speaking of the temple of His body” (John 2:18-20).
The one thing that David longs for … the one thing that he seeks … is to dwell in the House of the Lord … to be in God’s Presence every day of his life. What do you long for? What do you seek? For some, it’s constant pleasure or distraction. For some it is endless toys. For some it is unlimited amounts of money or power or fame. What is that one thing you long for? Honestly, what is that one thing that you seek? That one thing that will satisfy you or make your life complete?
The reason that we gather here on Sunday is to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit … not this building but the flesh-and-blood us. As beautiful our church is, it not anywhere as beautiful as the living, breathing Spirit of God that lives within us. “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given; so God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heaven” (stanza 3).
Advent is a time when we, like the angels, keep our watch of wondering love and join with the morning stars to proclaim the holy birth and sing praises to God the King and thank Him for coming as He did to bring peace on earth. When we are here together, the Holy Spirit is with us, in our presence and we get to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord through His Word and through our music and through the spirit of God that we see in each other. Charles Spurgeon put it this way: “We must not enter into the assembly of the saints in order to see or be seen or merely to hear the minister. But we must repair to the gathering of the righteous intent upon the gracious object of learning more of the loving Father, more of the glorified Jesus, more of the mysterious Spirit in order that we may the more lovingly admire, and the more reverently adore our glorious God.”
Emmanuel … God with us. Jesus, the Word, became flesh and dwelled among us. A more literal translation of John 1:14 is that “the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” God is no longer confined to the Temple or the Holy of Holies. He is among us … first as a baby in Bethlehem … then as a man teaching us and leading us on a level path … and then as the Holy Spirit that lives in us.
David ends his psalm the same way that he began it … with a declaration of faith. “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13). Not “I hope to see” or “maybe I’ll get to see” but “I SHALL see the goodness of the Lord” in my lifetime. And then he turns from his prayer to look at you and me and tell us: “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” (Psalm 27:14). And that is what Advent and this table [point to Communion table] are for. As Christians, we are living in a time where we already have the LORD’s Presence with us in the form of His Holy Spirit but Advent and Communion also call us to wait … to be strong … to let our hearts take courage … as we wait for day when He wakes us from our deep and dreamless sleep so that we can be with Him in the New Jerusalem where there will be no more night … where we will not need the sun or the moon for the Lord God will be our light (Revelation 22:5), and we will live and reign with Him and behold His beauty forever and ever.
