Psalm 1: A prologue to the Psalms

Psalm 1: A prologue to the psalms Psalm 1, the first of the 150 psalms which make up the Jewish Psalter, is in effect what you could call a door. An entrance which the individual reader has to go through, or rather has to be allowed through, if they're to find the rest of the psalms applicable and helpful to them. In many ways this first of the psalms is very similar to the opening verses of Christ's great "Sermon on the Mount" which begins at Matthew chapter 5 verse 3 with the beatitudes, the series of declarations of blessedness which apply to those who are the Lords. Because talk of these blessings puts the rest of the sermon in context, since we're to understand that only those who are so blessed will be able to appreciate, and respond positively to, Jesus' comprehensive revelation of God's plan for his own people that follows. And this is the case also with Psalm 1, which makes it clear right, at the beginning of the Psalms, that there are two types of people: those who're going to be blessed and those who're going to perish. As one commentator, J Elder Cumming, puts it: "It (Psalm 1) sheds a light from God's own face on the whole book which follows". Our psalm then has the effect of laying down a challenge to everyone who reads it to take God and his ways seriously, and to get on the right side. It begins then by telling us about the character of those people who're counted by God as being blessed. So that we read "Blessed is the man, who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers." All negatives of course telling us, in other words, that this is what the person who's blessed doesn't do. And really, when you think about it, this is surely much more effective than taking the positive approach. You see the psalm could have begun something like: "blessed is the one who walks in the way of the righteous, who stands in the way of the good; who sits in the seat of those who praise the Lord and his ways". But then whilst such a person might well be showing all these positive attributes they could also, at other times, be meeting with the wicked, the sinners, with the mockers. Whilst stating the person's character in the negative doesn't allow for any such compromise. Now any mixing with these unsavoury characters is out of the question because we're told that they simply don't do it. And yet, how tempting it is to balance what we view as the positives against the negatives in ourselves and others and feel that the indiscretions which we're aware of are more than outweighed by the examples of faithfulness that we see. Instead of recognising that any compromise at all is sin, and demands repentance and a realignment of our lives if we're to be faithful to God and his Word. Now these three traits of character that the blessed person doesn't have, you'll notice, together reflect a downward spiral into a godless state, both in terms of the type of people they meet and also the ways in which they meet them. Firstly we're told that they meet with the wicked, those who aren't good people, but then they aren't particularly what you'd call 'bad' either; in as much as they're not intent on changing them for the worse. Next they meet with sinners, people who're a little lower down the slippery slide into immorality, for whom wickedness has become basically a way of life. And then finally they meet with the mockers ... those people who're simply anti-God, who delight in pouring ridicule on Him and in totally rejecting his law. And what's more we find that each of these groups are met in a different way ... So that, firstly, we're told that the person walks in the council of the wicked. The picture here is of someone walking along listening with one ear to the opinions and advice of the wicked person, being influenced by them, but nevertheless being able to walk away from them when they want. Next, with regards the sinner, they're found standing with them. Now they've stopped walking. Now they're waiting for the sinner to come to them. In other words they're wanting to be associated with them, and they're paying rapt attention to their damaging words and musings. But still they're not fully hooked so that even now they can walk away when they choose ... though they're not as likely to choose as they were when they were merely listening to the wicked one. And then, finally, the person sits down in the seat of the mocker. In effect they settle down into a comfy armchair, with no intention of ever rising, they align himself with the Godless one, they become the same as them, and they're lost. But then, of course, these aren't the ways of the one who's blessed, and why? Well because their interest is in something else. As verse 2 tells us: they "delight in the law of the Lord, and on his law (they) meditate day and night." You see, unlike the person whose life is one of gradually increasing God rejection, they've discovered the very fount of life, that for which humanity was created, the fount which the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, literally bathed in as they walked beside the Lord through the garden of Eden before the fall. And they delight in this knowledge, they can't get enough, it fills their very soul with wonder so that they meditate on it. In other words they're not content with simply reading this Law. Instead the picture is of someone who literally pours over Gods word, muttering and murmuring to themselves, reasoning, arguing, applying; making sense of it. One 17th century biblical scholar described this meditation this way: such "meditation, he said, chews the cud, and gets the sweetness and nutritive value of the word into the heart and life." Indeed the one who delights in the law is so eager to suck the last possible piece of goodness out of that feast that they aren't just content to meditate upon it at a set time, instead, whenever they have the opportunity, day and night, they're reading it, remembering it, mulling over it ... they're literally in love with it. And, as a result, this preoccupation with the word of God has the result in their life which God intends for it. They become, verse 3: "... like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers." "Like a tree planted by streams of water" ... Notice that the tree is planted; it isn't like one of the many sycamores which randomly appear all over the place in the spring as a result of those annoying seedlings that fly about on the wind in the autumn. No this tree has been planted and not just planted at random, as can sometimes seem to be the case where the only aim of the planter it appears was to add to the worlds tree population so that overcrowding quickly ensues. No this tree has been cultivated, carefully dug-in in a specific place, chosen especially for its favourable position both in terms of its mineral and water supply and in terms of the other trees that surround it. All part of the skilful gardener's overall plan. Such that the tree is also planted by streams. The picture we have is of the Middle Eastern method of irrigating their lands by making artificial channels to direct the water from larger streams or lakes so that it was distributed in all directions directly to the roots of the trees and plants. This then is the blessed outcome for the one who delights in the law of the Lord ... becoming like a tree that yields its fruit in season. Three of the houses that I've lived in have had fruit trees in their back garden and we always looked forward to the season when the fruit would be just right and ready for picking. However so often things didn't turn out as we'd have liked, perhaps the fruit didn't form properly, perhaps it ripened too early, falling off in the wind and being spoiled, perhaps it didn't ripen on time. Not so for the blessed one; they yield their fruit in season ... a perfect harvest. What's more their leaf doesn't wither. In this country we tend to pick fruit from our trees when the leaves are dying back in the autumn, when the tree is looking far from its best. This isn't the case though for the one who's the tree planted by streams of water. Rather their appearance is still pleasing to the eye whatever the season ... they're like evergreens that nevertheless bear fruit. And "whatever they do prospers", not in a worldly, monetary sense. We're not talking some sort of prosperity gospel here, as though the more faithful the person is the more wealthy they'll be. No, Psalm 1 is for all people, rich and poor alike. Rather, what we're speaking of here is soul prosperity, treasure in heaven, the prosperity that the widow had who Jesus saw putting her last few coins into the temple treasury, in Luke chapter 21 and Mark Chapter 12. The psalmist in verse 4 now turns to look in more detail at the other group who make up humanity ... the wicked. And notice he's using the term that applies to the least severe of the three groups of ungodly people who we found in verse 1. And also he's speaking of them in the plural, whilst the blessed are referred to in the singular as he refers to them as 'they' rather than 'he'. So making it clear not only that those who're considered as the least of transgressors, whether by themselves or others, are nevertheless still firmly on the side of the transgressors. But also that there are many of these people all of whom bear no resemblance at all to the firmly embedded, fertile, tree. No, they are like chaff, the seed coverings that are separated off from the grain during threshing, and which the wind blows away. As such, these people are worthless in themselves, they're of no value, fit only to be got rid of. There's none of the stability and permanence of the one who's like a carefully cultivated tree with them ... they're restless and uncomfortable with their situation. They've no part in the assembly of the righteous, the church, because they don't know its head, the Lord, and they'll simply be blown away by the judgement of God (verse 5). In fact verse 6 goes on to tell us that not only will the wicked themselves perish, but that even their way will perish. Any remembrance of them, and of what they've done, will be totally discarded in the light of eternity. It'll be as though they've never existed. And yet the righteous, those who're acquitted by the judge, declared innocent, are encouraged and comforted ... being told that, "the Lord watches over (their) way". He is constantly looking at the way they go and even though, for them, it might at times be through darkness, the darkness is as light to him (Psalm 139 verse 12) such that, as we read in Job chapter 23 verse 10: "He knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I shall come forth as gold." Psalm 1, then, pulls no punches about the two states of humanity. Those who know the Lord and, as Paul says to the Philippians, 'work out their salvation with fear and trembling', and those whose lives are lived in a complete denial of him who is their creator and who died for them. It talks in terms of the reality of judgement for all humanity and of the sorry end of the wicked. All themes, of course, that the champions of our post-modern world as well as the liberal elements in the church would very much frown upon. Because the one group tend to shy away from the notion of any objective truth or error, right or wrong, whilst the other group are keen to portray a God who is all merciful, all loving, non-judgemental, to all people. But this isn't the message of the psalms. And neither is it the message of the Bible, where the themes of salvation and rejection begin three chapters into Genesis and only end three chapters before the end of the book of Revelation. The first Psalm doesn't, however, just issue a general challenge to humanity. No, as we've seen, it also issues a very personal challenge to every individual in all times and in all places. Challenging us to repeated choices between clearly defined ways of behaving and acting. Choices that will have equally clear consequences. Challenges that were taken up by Jesus himself when, in his sermon on the mount, he taught that men women and children of all ages are either on the broad road that leads to destruction or on the narrow way that leads to life. And so the challenge to all people today then, surely is still: do we know the reality of the new birth that Jesus offers to all who'll come to him? Do we find that the Law of the Lord, the Bible, is our delight, a result of the Holy Spirit working within us? Because, as Romans chapter 8 verse 7 tells us, a mark of the sinful mind is that "It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." Are we rooted in Christ? And are we being fed by the waters of life that flow from the throne of God so that, though we might be beaten and battered by the dark forces of the world, we'll always know the firm hand upon us of the one who constantly watches over our way? For those who're as yet perishing Psalm 1 offers a terrible message of futility in this life and rejection in the next. But for those who know or would know God's mercy then it is a message of hope, of comfort and of the promise of eternal joy. May we all be of this second group! Being aware, however, of our responsibility to make known the good news of Christ to those who've not yet yielded to the Lord's way, those who are content to walk with the wicked and stand with the sinners, those not yet on the right side, those for whom the consequences of rejecting God, as the psalmist reminds us, will be dire. Amen