C. S. Lewis said of Psalm 19, “I take this to be the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world.”  Psalm 19 begins as a meditation on the beauty of the world crafted by the hands of God. David images the sun as a bridegroom emerging from the bridal chamber after a night of amorous activity, glowing and parading across the heavens. The light of the sun nourishes the whole earth with warmth and testifies to the tender care of the God who made it. Nature is often so stunning in its splendor, so awesome in its sheer magnitude, so radiantly beautiful that many throughout the ages have concluded that in and of itself is divine. They have bowed down to worship the sun, the moon, and the stars. And who can blame them?

But David in this psalm, like Paul on Mars Hill, is inviting them to look behind the curtain. He proclaims to anyone who would listen that the author of all of this glory, is not anonymous, he has a name. We may be surprised to observe how exactly he does this. Look at vv. 7-11:

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the LORD are sure, making wise the simple; 8 the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is clear, enlightening the eyes; 9 the fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb.

David moves from exalting in the glories of the heavens and the earth to basking in the glory of the…Law? This is an interesting juxtaposition to say the least. The natural world is breathtaking and commanding, an untamed spirit ever invoking its divine right to freedom. The law, it would seem, is the opposite of that. Obeying the law is routine, repressive. Or is it? David certainly would disagree with that sentiment. David moves from describing the wonders of the created world to valuing the law as worth more than the most precious metals because he thinks that in the law of the Lord, we find the freedom and holiness that the sun expresses with each step across the cloud-dotted sky. Nature is almost frivolous in its spontaneity, and nearly arbitrary in its cruelty. The law brings congruence, revealing the ways of God to humanity and inviting daughters and sons to know their maker and to live like him.

Henry David Thoreau, the apostle of Walden Pond, preached the gospel of romantic rapture in the natural world. He thought by embracing the created world as an end unto itself, he was freeing himself from the shackles of order and relationships. He said, “Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” But King David, in Psalm 19, is telling us that the cosmos without the care of a creator is mere chaos. The law of the Lord compels us to the congruence that is thread through all things. We think that freedom is being able to do whatever we want. But freedom is not infinite choice, freedom is choosing the ways of the infinite. The law of the Lord, because it reveals the character of the divine, the beauty that is behind all the beauty beckons us to holiness. Holiness is the heart of beauty, the heart of freedom.

In Psalm 18, we have a collision between a seemingly other-worldly mysticism and the decidedly this-worldly arena of despair. From the outset, David is exuberant in praise, like a preacher listing off different names for God: rock, fortress, deliverer, refuge, shield, salvation, fortress. David recounts his own experience, standing on death’s door, in the grasp of the reaper. He had no recourse but to call upon the name of the Lord, and so in his despair he cried out. Yahweh, is then depicted in the heavenly sanctuary filled with the billows and smoke of God’s holiness. For the first time in the psalter, we are given a detailed theophany—that is a story of God appearing^[1]vv.7-15. Here the language is consequent with God’s ineffable qualities. Darkness, thunder, brightness, and fire highlight the scattered depiction of the throne room of God. But in the midst of all of these images that would seem to make God unapproachable and distant, there is a key point that is first foreshadowed in v. 6 and then brought to full fruition in v. 16. The Lord hears David’s cry for help: “From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”^[2]v. 6 But he not only hears David, he does something about it:

 Ps. 18v16-He reached down from on high, he took me; he drew me out of mighty waters.

It is understandable when our presuppositions about God make him seem removed from our present realities. But Psalm 18 maintains that God is immanent even in his indescribable otherness. David’s plight leads him to a prayer of last resort. But God in all his thunderous glory is not above the cry of a dying man. He is near. He reaches down to save. God’s actions are not confined to the heavenly temple but heaven and earth overlap because God is both transcendent above and immediately present to all people and all things.

Psalm 18 is creating a dialectic that is crucial to our work in the world. God acts within the world to rescue us, to provide for us, and to sustain us. Because we are finite and imperfect (i.e. not God) there will always be this otherness to God that we cannot contain in our minds or our language. But God’s otherness does not remove him from the realities of our world, God’s otherness makes him sovereign over that world. And God overcomes his otherness through revelation. He reveals his heart, his nature, his will in concrete ways that we can understand. He reveals himself as rock, redeemer, shield, fortress. Salvation then is not some abstract concept but holistic, bodily rescue.

If you are drowning in this life in oceans of sin, in addiction, in brokenness, God will not throw you a water bottle, he will drive the lifeboat to where you are and scoop you out of the waves. If you are dying of thirst, God will not send a lifeboat, he will carry you to cool springs where he will satisfy your thirst and restore your strength. Rescue is real.

In Psalm 17, David is like a wounded animal. Predators have tracked him down and are now circling to finish him off. And as the inevitable seems to draw near, as the ravenous beasts close in for the kill, we don’t find him pleading for his life. You would think that now would be the time for frantic cries for help but what we find instead is that David is at peace. The moment where the pitiless predators are about to strike the deathblow is the moment for God to bring his deliverance. At the height of tension in the psalm, David says, almost resolutely:

Rise up, O LORD, confront them, overthrow them! By your sword deliver my life from the wicked^[1]Ps. 17v13

How can David be so serene in the face of such dire circumstances? He knows the Lord. He invites the Lord to test him, to see that there is no wickedness in him, to see that he has held fast to the ways and commandments of the Lord. David is not declaring that he has earned the right to have God rule in his favor, far from it. What he is demonstrating by reading off his own resume is rather that he knows that God is a refuge for those who seek him and he is just to the weak and needy. He is saying, here, he knows God to be a God who wondrously shows his steadfast love^[2]Ps. 17v6 by rescuing those at the brink of the grave. His recalling his own life with the Lord shows that he has been walking with the Lord in such a way that he knows the Lord deeply and has a deep-seated understanding of his commandments.

David, with his wounds bared to the unforgiving beasts, can display confidence because he has walked with the Lord through many seasons. He stands in the face of his tormenters, confident that the Lord will never fail him. And in this moment, theology takes on its truest form, not Cartesian knowledge, something you know with your head.  But rather, a truth where head, heart, body, and soul collide.  This is what it really means to know God.

I love Christmas music but there are only so many great, class Christmas hymns. So how do you help your congregation lean into the season of Advent while keeping in tune with the theological implications of the season. Below are four songs that I think are simply great songs but they also have deep resonances with the message of Advent. They are great songs for congregational singing and reflection and will certainly help your church behold the wonder and longing of the Advent season.

1. All The Poor and Powerless

This song, originally written by Leslie Jordan and David Leonard (All Sons and Daughters), embodies the season of Advent. Mary, upon receiving and responding to the call of God, that she would bear the Messiah, sings out:

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty^[1]Luke 1vv52-53

The song is at both times worshipful proclamation and invitation inviting “all the poor and powerless, all the lost and lonely” to “know the Lord is holy.”  The chorus drawing from Philippians 2vv6-11 declares in hope for the present and certainty for the future that “all will cry out hallelujah.” The bridge is resounding and triumphant, “Shout it, go on and scream it from the mountains, go on and tell it to the masses that he is God.” When I first heard the song it reminded me of the old Christmas standby, “Go Tell It On The Mountain,” and it carries the message of that song in a form, less classic yet more lyrically and musically impactful.

This has been a source of contention amongst my colleagues but I prefer The Digital Age’s version to the original by All Sons and Daughters.  Bwack (Digital Age’s Drummer) is one of my all-time favorites and the bridge was meant to be belted out at the top of your lungs.

2. You’ll Come

Here’s a worship leader trick. Search through the songwriting credentials for any Hillsong song and when you find the name Brooke Ligertwood, go ahead and put that song in your church’s rotation.^[2]Brooke Ligertwood performs her solo tunes under the name Brooke Fraser. Her writing is saturated with what Eugene Peterson calls “scriptural imagination.” Rather than stringing random bible concepts together, her lyrics are steeped in scripture while still evoking the broader context from which they come.  Not to mention, if she is singing the song she has a voice that both demands attention and retains its delicacy. Ok, enough about Brooke, needless to say I am a fan. This song places certainty on the hope of Advent.  He will come. The promise is certain, it is all grace. During Advent, we live into that grace in patient expectation, the kind of hope that isn’t frantically seeking to secure our own future but entrusts ourselves wholly to God’s care. The bridge of this song announces the realities of the kingdom come that Jesus proclaims in his first public words in Luke4vv16-19 as he reads from the scroll of Isaiah. Brooke sings out “Chains be broken, lives be healed, eyes be opened Christ is revealed.”

3. The Glory Of It All

“At the start, he was there, he was there…” David Crowder sings echoing the prologue to John’s gospel, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God.” This song is not a melodically catchy as some of the others on this list but it conveys the yearning of Advent. The second verse begins, “All is lost, find him there.”  In the season of Advent we are transported back to the story of ancient Israel, a people who had received the promises of God and yet, through a long history of events, seemed doomed to never receive them. The people are waiting for a fresh word from God, a fresh hope that God has not forgotten them. And into that longing, the Messiah is born. The catch of it all is that the answer to the centuries of aching for home is missed.  The people wanted God to move and they missed the reality that God himself came to them.  Crowder captures this well, “The glory of it all is he came here.” Crowder captures the glory of God with us in the bridge, “After night comes a light, dawn is here, it’s a new day, everything will change, things will never be the same.”

4. King Of Heaven

The first time I heard this song performed I was completely in awe, immersed in the beauty of God. I had taken a group of students to see Hillsong United lead worship supporting their album, Zion,^[3]Great album by the way. I don’t understand people that still turn their noses up at Hillsong. Joel Houston and co. are writing songs for the church that are imaginative and daring. at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. We were literally on the back row of the arena and this was the last song of the evening. The night was a rousing celebration of God’s presence and yet it ended with Matt Crocker signing accompanied by only a piano (and the omnipresent Hillsong pad). Crocker’s tone is pure tenor, beautiful and clear. The chorus sings simply “Immanuel, God with us.” The song builds at the bridge and Crocker belted out, “King of Heaven on the Earth be found.” It was a stunning conclusion to a powerful evening and I have loved the song ever since. The words are Advent through and through: