{"id":10398,"date":"2005-03-07T19:49:28","date_gmt":"2005-03-07T18:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theologie.whp.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/?p=10398"},"modified":"2025-05-15T10:07:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T08:07:15","slug":"jeremiah-20-22-24-29-32-34-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/jeremiah-20-22-24-29-32-34-45\/","title":{"rendered":"Psalm 43:1"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Lenten Sermon Series | Lent V \u2013 Judica | 13 March 2005 | Psalm 43:1 | Carl E. Roemer |<\/h3>\n

The psalmist is sitting in exile in Babylon. \u00a0He, together with thousands of others Judeans, had been violently wrenched from the destroyed cities and towns of \u00a0Judah by the imperial monarch of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar 600 years before Christ. \u00a0They had lost not only their land, but their capital city of Jerusalem where God’s temple sat in its magnificence. \u00a0The holy temple was the place where God’s presence was most palpable; it was the place centered in the hearts and minds of the people as the joyful expression of the conviction that they were God’s people, chosen and precious to him; it was the assurance that God steadfastly stood by them through the vicissitudes of life; it was the place \u00a0they could go up to and offer their sacrifice, present their petitions, shout aloud their songs of praise and thanksgiving; it was the place they could repair to when life turned sour; there they could seek the Lord when they were assaulted by disease, afflicted by a foe, or laid low by the misfortunes of life.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It is no wonder then that the book of psalms is filled with such praise for the temple as God’s house and expresses the longing to be there to encounter his steadfast love and mercy. \u00a0Just a few verses later in our psalm we read of the sense of the tremendous loss of God’s presence and the fervent desire to stand in the courts of the Lord:
\n„Oh, send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me, let them bring me to thy holy hill and to they dwelling! \u00a0Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and I will praise thee with the lyre, O God, my God.“
\nOr again in Psalm 48 another psalmists declares his wonder and awe for the temple as the locus of God’s presence in the world,
\n„Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! \u00a0His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion . . . the city of the great king. \u00a0Within her citadels God has shown himself a sure defense.“
\nThe temple was no mere symbol, as we would say today, but it was a concrete expression of God’s certain presence with his people assuring them of the gracious favor he bore for them, assuring them of his abiding presence, vouchsafing to them his ever-present protection which held them, like the mountains surrounding Jerusalem, in his everlasting arms.<\/p>\n

Thus it is that we can understand the deeply disturbing and painful experience of the loss of this holy house. \u00a0The temple lay in ruins and with its destruction the very underpinnings of life for God’s people was laid waste. \u00a0How could they exist in this world without his undergirding presence that gave life purpose, meaning and direction? \u00a0Their very faith seemed to lie with the temple in ashes. \u00a0It seemed they were abandoned, cast out now into the world without any sure foothold. \u00a0They had become strangers and aliens in the world which seemed to have overwhelmed them with its terror. \u00a0And this terror is exacerbated by the life that is now lived in a foreign land far removed from the central seal of their faith. \u00a0The terror of their alienation was exacerbated by the taunts of their foreign oppressors who called into question their life together with the living God of Israel beside whom there is no other. \u00a0So our psalmist cries out,
\n„Vindicate me, Oh God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people; from deceitful and unjust men, deliver me!“<\/p>\n

Is this not a cry that seethes in the hearts of many today? \u00a0It is so because we live in an age of terror. \u00a0The earth’s crust moves and tens of thousands die from the destruction of a tidal wave that washes away home, land and loved ones. \u00a0Churchmen with quaking hearts rise up and are quoted in the media saying the very existence of God has been called into question. \u00a0Quite apart from the rather faithless character of this response they did give voice to many people whose own hearts were appalled and dismayed by the incredible devastation wrought by this natural force which seemed to be so malevolent.<\/p>\n

We live in an age of terror. \u00a0Men possessed by hatred blow themselves up and indiscriminately take thousands of innocent lives of men, women and children.<\/p>\n

We live in an age of terror. \u00a0Brutal and malignant dictators maliciously oppress their people by state sponsored terrorism in order to control their hearts and minds.<\/p>\n

We live in an age of terror. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have experienced as a people the most horrendous attack against a people in the history of the human race. \u00a0They still suffer under terrible prejudices in many countries of the world today. \u00a0And most of the nations of the Middle East bear a grim hostility toward this ancient people of God declaring their joy at the prospect of the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel.
\nWe live in an age of terror. \u00a0Christians throughout the world daily suffer for the faith. \u00a0More Christians have been martyred for their faith in the last hundred years than during the previous 19 centuries of the Church’s existence. \u00a0Christian churches are attacked and razed to the ground. \u00a0Christians themselves are enslaved, beaten, persecuted, and driven from their homes and the world is silent. \u00a0To become a Christian in some countries is to forfeit your life.<\/p>\n

Our age is an age of terror which has thrown the hearts of millions into dismay. \u00a0My wife said recently she grew up believing the world was a friendly and good place but now it no longer appears to be so. \u00a0The world now appears to be hostile territory where evil runs amok and satanic forces have seized control of the hearts and minds of men. \u00a0The response of many is to abandon faith in God or any power beyond us to which we are responsible and accountable. \u00a0Many today seek refuge in possessions, or by running after ever new ways to be entertained and distracted, or become abject servants to work and jobs in order to achieve a living status that they hope will satisfy the gnawing emptiness in their lives. \u00a0Many people turn to drugs, alcohol, food or a surfeit of sexual stimulation to insulate themselves from our anxious world. \u00a0We live, many are convinced, in an empty universe and are an abandoned lot who must use our own \u00a0autonomous and self-sufficient powers to create the world in our own image or at least create \u00a0private worlds that are insulated from the threatening perils of our post-modern existence. \u00a0And then, as if to insure their alienation in an empty universe, our post-modern culture drives out of consciousness and public discourse and expression any reference to the divine.<\/p>\n

How different the response of our psalmist! \u00a0Even as his faith is taunted as being vain and futile in the face of the ruin of the house of God and of God’s own apparent defeat, he, in his God-lostness, turns to his God, refusing faithlessness and cries out for God to vindicate him and his people. \u00a0He holds fast to the promise that was made to the people through the prophet Moses:
\n„For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, and there is none remaining, bond or free.“ \u00a0(Deuteronomy 32:36)
\nThis vindication he calls for is not one of his own making conjured up by his own reason and sense but is based on the promise of God. \u00a0The cry comes out of powerlessness and defeat, out of lostness and abandonment, out of acknowledging that he and his people have reached the end of the rope and there is none to save but God alone. \u00a0He rests on the promise that God would vindicate his people. \u00a0His faith holds to the word proclaimed to the people from time immemorial, which had taken root in their hearts and to which they clung \u00a0through all the vicissitudes of their journey through life in this world.<\/p>\n

God’s vindication is his compassion for his people. \u00a0He does not abandon. \u00a0His presence may seem to be obscured, his purposes an enigma, his deepest will past human scrutiny but his will for his people is clear: it is his burning compassion for his people. \u00a0He will defend their cause and right though his vindication may lie beyond the present horizon and only be realized in the future. \u00a0The future is in God’s hands even if the present seems to deny his sway. \u00a0So the psalmist then being swept up in the surety of God’s vindication finally sings at the end of his psalm:
\n„Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? \u00a0Hope in God; \u00a0for I shall again praise hm, my help and my God.“<\/p>\n

Hope in God! \u00a0This is not a hope in terms of wishful thinking, \u00a0a sort of whistling in the dark as our psalmist passes through the valley of the shadow of death. \u00a0It is the confident insight that he rests in the arms of a gracious Father God; it is the confident foresight that this compassionate Holy One of Israel will restore his people and they shall again sing his praise in a restored land and temple. \u00a0With this confidence and faith he can boldly face his anxieties and uncertainties; he can boldly take himself in hand and declare in effect, that \u00a0he has no right to these soul shaking emotions because his past, present and future are held securely in the gracious and loving hands of the Almighty One in whom all losses are swallowed up to be restored in his final victorious reign.<\/p>\n

That victory of God over the threatening disasters of this world and all the terror that man can conceive and perpetrate were given a death blow by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. \u00a0In him the hope of the psalmist is finally and ultimately truly vindicated! \u00a0His hope in God finds its true fulfillment as the Lord of history, the God who is enthroned on the praises of Israel (Ps 22:3) enters our history in the person of his Son Jesus Christ in whom he takes upon himself all the suffering and losses of this world, all of its terrors, all of its threatening perils. \u00a0In Christ he enters our losses, our defeats, our griefs and sorrow. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In Christ God bows his head and enters the dark gates of persecution, suffering and death. Becoming subject to them he is overcome by them. \u00a0He takes on all the defeats of the world and they defeat him. \u00a0The world thought it had destroyed this new temple of God. \u00a0But God raised it up again in three days. \u00a0True to his compassion, true to his holiness, true to his promises, true to his faithfulness to his creation, true to his love for mankind, his creation, he bursts the bonds of terror, death, destruction and evil and rises from the grave. \u00a0Jesus Christ is God’s victory over this world. \u00a0He is our victory over the world. \u00a0He is our confidence and salvation. \u00a0He is the new temple of God in whom God dwells and the concrete expression of God’s gracious presence in the world. He is the one in whom we can sing along with the psalmists: „Oh, send out they light and they trust; let them lead me . . . to thy temple!“<\/p>\n

Our lives are stories of losses. \u00a0Three years ago our neighbor’s son lost his life in the destruction of the twin towers in New York City. \u00a0One of his fingers was all the workers at ground zero were able to return to his grieving mother and father. \u00a0The relatives, friends and mourners packed the large church where his memorial service was held. \u00a0This young man left behind a pregnant wife and a son whom he never would see. \u00a0His wife’s father spoke the eulogy before the Mass began. \u00a0He spoke from his heart with words that touched the souls of all in attendance. \u00a0He recounted with affection and eloquence how his son-in-law had been folded into the circle of the family and the joy they experienced together and in anticipation of the birth of a new life into the world. \u00a0Here was no hate, or rancor or berating of life, the world or our nation’s enemies. \u00a0Here was a quiet faith and confidence in Jesus Christ as the one who bears with us the crosses we must bear.<\/p>\n

Our losses are not always as traumatic and severe as the experiences of this grieving family or that of our psalmist but, none the less, still losses: children grow up and leave the family nest, there are changes in our health, friends or relatives are taken from us, our world seems to change at an ever quickening pace and the familiar patterns we were used to are no more. \u00a0We are tempted \u00a0either to ignore the grieving movements of our hearts nurturing anger and resentment or place the fault for our uneasiness in the world, which, at its best, is a realm of injustice. \u00a0Our world is filled with hate and rancor as we come to grips with the terrors of the 21st century. \u00a0Our text calls us to renewal of faith and sets us into fellowship with the God of history who does not leave us desolate. \u00a0The psalmist is no autonomous individual struggling heroically by himself. \u00a0He is part of the people of God just as we are. \u00a0\u00a0We have entered into the new temple of the Body of Christ, we are enfolded into the Body of Jesus Christ and in that community of faith we bear one another’s burdens. \u00a0In the Church of Christ we are nourished by his Word of the Gospel and the Blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood. \u00a0Joined with one another to Jesus Christ we do not escape the traumas of life but they are all swallowed up in the victory of his cross and resurrection so that we sing: „Oh, send out thy light and thy truth and let them lead me . . . to thy holy hill and thy dwelling.“ \u00a0Amen! \u00a0It shall be so!<\/p>\n

\n

Carl E. Roemer
\n2232 Jacob’s Ladder Road
\nBecket,\u00a0\u00a0Massachusetts 01223
\n carleroemer@wmconnect.com<\/a> <\/span><\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lenten Sermon Series | Lent V \u2013 Judica | 13 March 2005 | Psalm 43:1 | Carl E. Roemer | The psalmist is sitting in exile in Babylon. \u00a0He, together with thousands of others Judeans, had been violently wrenched from the destroyed cities and towns of \u00a0Judah by the imperial monarch of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar 600 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8543,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,2,727,157,853,1751,108,110,695,1091,349,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-10398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psalmen","category-at","category-archiv","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-carl-e-roemer","category-current","category-engl","category-judika","category-kapitel-043-chapter-043","category-kasus","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10398"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24315,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10398\/revisions\/24315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10398"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=10398"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=10398"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=10398"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=10398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}