Ps. 80.2-3 (beginning with the shining face)

Rouse / your mighty power
and come / for our salvation. 


It is at this point in the psalm where we come closest to seeing how, prior to God’s ‘emergence’, God is operating in a very obscure manner. And perhaps ‘obscure’ is not bold enough. God is almost accused of being asleep in this verse. As if God was encased in the cloud of his wrath, asleep to Israel’s plight. His “mighty power” is not being enacted; it lies dormant. And in this dormancy, Israel deteriorates; she sinks down and is plunged into a darkness of her own; she begins to splinter, to suffer from the lack of the unifying power of God’s blessing. This reality, however, is not the central concern at this point, although it certainly lies under the surface. Rather, it is the call to God to emerge from his slumber, to ride forth from his darkness and to come to Israel’s aid. Again, the image is of God’s “coming”, his arrival and his awakening. He is called upon to throw off his previous obscurity, his encasement in darkness and to “shine”. The image here is of God emerging from the duality of slumber (not wrath; not here). Of ‘awakening’ into the full possession and unity of his purposes. It is, in some sense, for God to “be himself”. God is, most fully, in his “coming” to Israel, in his being “roused” to her aid. This is when his “mighty power” enrobes him and his full presence surrounds him. 

O God / restore us
make your face shine / that we may be saved. 

This is the “face” that the psalmists and pilgrims seek more than anything (and, that Moses was irradiated by…). To stand in front of this “face” is to stand in the prodigal and lavish blessing of God—this is “our salvation”. It is this reality that the psalmist is imploring God to turn toward Israel, to “come” to her, to be “roused” on her behalf.  Notice how in psalms that focus on the pilgrim’s desire to see this ‘face’ there is simply the surrender to the vision; here, the face is to become the active force of redemption against Israel’s enemies. What is perhaps important to note about this is that the face is the same—one, as an object of contemplation within the shalom-peace of his Temple; the other a force of salvation enacting that peace. This face contains within itself a profoundly deep sense of being a “thou”, of being “for”. It is not only an object of contemplation but a powerfully active force of salvation. Indeed, the more this is contemplated, the more the reality of God becomes a reality of a “face”, a “shining face”. Maybe it would be best to say that the more the face is understood to be the ‘face of salvation’ the more it becomes not an object of contemplation but of devotion. 

There is another aspect to this that is worthy of attention. The psalmist petitions God to "shine" in three places: from his cherubim throne (vs. 1); here, his face (vs. 3); and the concluding verse with the petition for the shining face (vs. 19). The fact that this 'shining' bookends the psalm is clearly important. And, in the context of our reflections, the act of 'shining' from the darkness of God's obscurity points toward the 'shining' being the manifestation of God's saving power. It is when his 'face' (his personal countenance) is turned toward Israel. Something we have traced through many of the psalms is the fact that when Israel is suffering, an effect of that suffering is their obscurity and shame. They dwell in a type of public darkness. When redemption occurs, however, it reverses that reality in a fully public display. God's redemption tends toward publicity while suffering tends to inhabit obscurity. This 'publicity' is, I think, a type of 'shining'. It is public; it is on display; it is communal and communicative. It is not secretive; it does not take place in hiding; it does not redeem them 'interiorly'. So when God's face turns toward Israel it turns toward them as a 'shining' face, a face that risks the publicity of encounter and communication, in the full power of its assurance.


I am not communicating this well. An angry face does not shine because it is dual; it inhabits a state-of-being this is both for and against the object of anger. On the other hand a ‘shining face’ of blessing is single; the interior and the exterior coincide in such a way that the face ‘overflows’, it ‘shines’. There is no impediment to its expression. It is graceful, glorious. Here we come close to what I’m badly groping toward: God’s shining face is, as it were, to stand within the ever-flowing font of his joy and blessing. His face effects what it is. It irradiates. Like the sun, it is that by which things live. One implication of this is as follows: often it is assumed that God’s face instigates joy and blessing such that those flow as a type of effect from God’s presence. But, God’s face itself shines such that the ‘effect’ it has on those around it is often a revelation of the face itself. In other words, the joy of his creatures in his presence is not a secondary response, but a primary revelation of God. It reveals that God is, in himself, able to be communicated, to be shared, to be expressive. When we see the joy of his creatures we are seeing God, not only the effect of God. His face “shines” in itself, not only as an effect. He is, in himself, communication, expression, joy and grace. To “see” this in his creatures is to see God. This largely inverts our typical approach to God—we do not ‘bracket’ out these realities in order to see God more fully; creation in the face of God is itself a theophany of God. Creation’s blessing-joy is a revelation of God because God’s face is a shining face.

This is why the ‘publicity’ of redemption coincides with the ‘shining face’. All of creation comes to be, without remainder or withdrawal or hiding, expressive of God’s expression. God’s redemption is his bringing his people and creation back into the ‘light of his face’.