Ps 113 (Theophany of the lowly)

He who raises / the needy from the dust

                Exalts the poor / from the rubbish heap

Giving a seat / among nobles

                Among nobles / of his people

He who settles / the sterile woman / of the family

                As a happy mother of children.

                                Hallelujah

In this third stanza we come to see one of the most amazing insights into Yhwh’s sovereign authority—that it is most powerfully expressed not so much in his throne above the heavens but when he “raises the needy from the dust” and when he “exults the poor from the rubbish heap” and when he makes a “sterile woman” fertile and the “happy mother of children.” The psalmist could have left off in stanza two—with an epic vision of Yhwh enthroned above the heavens. Instead, for the psalmist, Yhwh’s glory will be seen as most fully encompassing the cosmos when one sees his regard for the lowest of the low. That, for the psalmist, is the greatest expression of Yhwh’s power. This is the greatest of Yhwh’s theophanies.

For any other form of power that sits along the ‘spectrum’ of glory and authority—for that power to reach to the other end of the spectrum is for that power to be diminished. It must be ‘lain aside’ in order to stoop so low. It would tarnish, obscure and hide that power. And that is because it sits within the same arena of power. It is involved in the same economy of authority, glory and power. But, as we saw above, Yhwh does not compare to them. He is not part of the spectrum. He is not threatened by it because he is not a part of it. And it is because the “lowly” does not represent a threat to him, that his care and concern for the lowly is an expression of his power. No other god could do this. No other could reach into the rubbish heap without concern. No other god could “raise the needy from the dust” without threat. No other god could involve himself with a “sterile woman” without risk. But Yhwh can because his power does not flow from the spectrum of earthly or heavenly power. His power is not in the soil of the created cosmos. It does not find its  nourishment from it, or are its roots found there. Yhwh’s authority is found nowhere else but in himself. And that is precisely why he can raise the poor without threat; he can approach the sterile woman without risk.

And that is why he can share his exultation with them. Why he can share his “throne” with them, and give the poor “a seat among nobles”. He can bring them within the sphere of his authority and glory because they do not represent a threat to him. Again, no other god can do this. They all stand within the spectrum of created authority and power. For them to raise one higher up along the spectrum, and closer to their own authority—they may do it but they would only do so at a risk to themselves (which means, they likely would never do so). It would always be a threat to their identity. Not for Yhwh. Because his glory and authority are in himself, he can share himself. Because his exultation comes from himself, he can exult the lowly. No matter how “high” they rise, they will never “threaten” Yhwh, simply because they can’t. Even if they were to be raised, infinitely, they would never overtake him. Because Yhwh is not simply an inifinite god. He is Infinity. He is not simply a glorious god. He is Glory. Every inch closer the lowly get to him, every inch they are more highly exalted, is movement closer to the One who has no boundary.

Ps. 113 (Glory above the heavens)

Exalted is Yhwh / above all nations

                His glory / above the heavens

Who is like Yhwh / our God

                Enthroned so high –

                Looking down so low –

In heaven / or on earth?

In the second stanza, the psalmist moves from the arena of time, to that of the nations. From his exaltation by his servants, Yhwh is now perceived as exalted above all nations and above all heavens. The shift from time to the nations and the heavens is important on many levels. Time is all encompassing. In the first stanza, Yhwh is brought into time. The nations and the heavens are similar in some ways. They control and form the life of the cosmos. They organize it. And yet, unlike time, Yhwh is here portrayed as the Sovereign over both. He is not “brought into” them so much as displayed as the one who rules them, who is exalted above them. While Yhwh’s presence can be “stitched into time”, it cannot really be stitched into the nations and heavens. That would be idolatry. The overriding point of the second stanza is to highlight the incredible and staggering difference between Yhwh and the powerful (be they the gods of the nations or the heavens). They are incommensurate. We are here to perceive the darkness, the incredible distance between Yhwh’s sovereign authority and that of the nations and the heavens. Yhwh’s glory and power does not stand along the spectrum of the powerful in “heaven or earth”. His enthronement puts him outside the spectrum. There is no comparison. There is nothing “like” him. The more one perceives how exalted Yhwh is, above every power, the more one is enlightened by a ray of darkness, of greater dissimilarity.

And yet—crucially—this ever greater dissimilarity does not result is silence. Just as Yhwh was to inhabit Time through praise, so too now is his authority above the nations and the heavens, seen as ‘exaltation’ and ‘glory’. It is because he is incomparably brighter than every brightness; incomparably more glorious than any glory. Although Yhwh’s glory is not along the spectrum of earthly or heavenly glory, that is because it infinitely surpasses it, not because it is alien to it. If Yhwh’s glory was alien to the glory of the nations and the heavens, then he could not “look down so low”. The psalmist is making a very important point here—Yhwh’s authority above the heavens is what enables him to look down to the lowest point as well. It is because his so infinitely superior to every form of national and heavenly power that he can be so infinitely intimate to the cosmos. It is because he is not part of the spectrum that he can be intimately associated with every part of it. It does not challenge him (because he is not a part of it).

This insight is important to grasp because it is what provides the basis for the closing stanza—where Yhwh “raises the needy from the dust and exults the poor from the rubbish heap.”

Ps. 112 (Seeing the Christ)

Although he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God highly exalted him, and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

_____________________ 

This hymn faithfully interprets Psalms 111 and 112. Heaven’s wealth (Psalm 111) is here poured out onto the earth and the righteous man, Jesus, (Psalm 112) in turn pours himself out in obedience to the Father. He loans to the needy and gives to the poor from his heavenly form. And, for that reason, the Father lifts him up and fills his house with wealth and riches, making him the Sovereign over heaven and earth. Moreover, as Sovereign, his children are now endowed with his own cruciform life and they, in turn, become the truly powerful ones in the Land. In their obedience to the Father, they await their inheritance, when they too will be the children of this psalm who look back to their ‘father’—Jesus—and see in him the fountainhead of their blessing. In the gospels this is clear but in Revelation it comes out visually in a staggering way—it is not simply the wealth of earth that flows into the Heavenly City Now Come To Earth, but heaven itself seems to have been unleashed, and the flood of heavenly riches now descends. This is not a ‘spiritual’ blessing, but a real, and tangible descent of Heaven to Earth. The ‘house of the Earth’ is filled to overflowing, as if the more that pours in, the more it can hold, in an ever-greater, ever-expanding wine-skin.

But again—this wealth that pours down does so precisely because of Jesus, the one who is poured out. As much as Heaven, in a type of reckless abandon, fills the earth, so too has, and does, Jesus pour himself out in a reckless abandon, even to the point of death. And, so too do his disciples (his children), his martyrs.

One final point--in the gospel of Mark, the reaction of ‘fear’ is almost never a good thing. It signals not simply a lack of understanding and a lack of trust but also seems to indicate an almost demonic blindness, a sense that this age operates and sees only through a veil that routinely prohibits us from seeing things from God’s point of view. A good example of this is the scene on the boat where Jesus “sleeps” while the disciples fear that the boat is about to drown. They ‘wake Jesus’ and Jesus rebukes the storm—and then the disciples. The disciples had just been told that while the ‘farmer sleeps’ the seed grows to a harvest. The should have seen that Jesus’ ‘sleeping’ is not due to his lack of concern, or his lack of control, but quite the opposite—that is resting in the assurance of he and his Father bringing to completion the Kingdom of God. But the disciples miss it all. Instead, they become like the demonic chaos that is surrounding them. In this psalm, the righteous man (and his children), has a firm mind, is steady, and is not afraid in the face of bad news. This is not, in Mark, so much of a ‘virtue’ that can be cultivated from a purely human standpoint. In fact, it is not entirely clear in Mark how this would come about except to say this—after the failure of the apostles and the women and the remaining disciples a ‘young man’ tells the women that Jesus is going before them to Galilee. Galilee is where everything began. Jesus is telling them to ‘start over’ with him, now in his resurrected power. And this time, their being “with him” will, or should, bring with it a lack of fear. They should stand within the sphere of Jesus’ resurrected Presence, the Presence that itself resulted in a contagious outflow of power (to the hemorrhaging woman).