A wedding song. Psalm 45 (verse11) 6/7/14
Imagine a wedding. And would you be at that wedding?
Could you be the bride? PPT. “A beautiful, beautiful bride” as our granddaughter Lilly
exclaimed at my nephew’s wedding.
That is fine for a woman, you might say, to see herself as a bride. A man to see himself as
a bride! It takes you out of your comfort zone.
However this is not actually the picture we get from the psalm. PPT It is in fact quite an
unfamiliar sight.
This Psalm has the feel of the Song of Songs. Song of Solomon 2:8-13 in fact is the
alternative reading for today PPT (verses 8, 9). There is love, a longing, poetry, something of the
heart here.
To be a bride: someone special- the centre of attention, to be wanted, to be received. Yes,
also to obey, submit and to accept.
We are bride. It is actually the Church which is bride according to Paul in Ephesians 5:2527 PPT. And Christ is the groom! We are marrying Christ.
And what is true of marriage between husband and wife PPT“… a man leaves his father
and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) -the definition of
marriage, as basic as creation, is true of Christ and his Church.
So the commitment- the promise, the love and faithfulness. All of this is describes the
relationship of the Church to Christ: commitment, love – after what he has done for us and
faithfulness. That fits into the advice given to the daughter (Verse 11b) Forget your people and
your father’s house. We are faithful to Him, as a bride, as he is faithful to us.
Over the next several weeks we are going to look at the book of Psalms
Each week looking at one psalm in particular. (Next week it is the Psalm for the day Psalm
119, the section 105-112 your word is a lamp to my feet PPT).
The theme is for the following weeks is “Living Psalms”.
In the Bulletin I called this psalm PPT a song of praise for the king on his wedding day. But
it also “a wisdom psalm”. Listen to how this section starts. PPT Verse 10a “Listen, daughter, and
pay careful attention”
However how are these meant to be Living Psalms: psalms that are alive for us, that we
can use in life, that express how we are feeling in our life these days?
PPT Psalms can be used in several different ways.
We can see them as Jesus’ prayer book. Jesus praying them, so we as “Christ’s body”
prays with Him. In Psalm 45 the Father would then be king.
We can also see them as presenting Christ. This psalm is one that makes a great deal of
sense when treat him as the king, verse 11 Let the king be enthralled by your beauty; honor him,
for he is your lord.
PPT We can use a psalm as an allegory and determine just what each of the different
symbols used mean for us.
In this Psalm (PPT Verses 13, 14) the golden gown, embroidered garments. According to
Clarke they are Christ’s righteousness, in other words, His perfect obedience and atoning death.
(But I have heard people can be quite ridiculous by reading too much into it.)
Another, is spiritualizing it- PPT taking it from the earthly to the spiritual realm. See this as
happening in heaven with angels in attendance.
Or we can take PPT the feeling of the Psalm and use it as our prayer to God. As you
probably know the Psalms expresses anger, depression, disappointment , fear, desire for courage,
trust, extreme joy (as we’ll hear over the next few weeks). Here it’s the joy.
Or we could study one small part of it – a verse, while keeping in mind what it meant for
the first hearers heard it allow God to show us what it means for our life today.
I intend to keep all this mind as we look at the Psalms as Living Psalms over the next few
weeks.
Today PPT Psalm 45, Verse 11. Let the king be enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for
he is your lord. – as part of a wedding song and ask the questions: What is our beauty? What is
His response? And how do we honour him?
I love how Peter describes beauty to the Christian wives of his day, PPT Your beauty
should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold
jewellery or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle
and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 1 Peter 3:3-4. Beauty- gentleness and
quietness. He had previous described it as purity and reverence (See verse 2)
What does this look like? PPT The prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 31:6-8) tells us in respect to the
cedars of Lebanon that beauty that beauty is to be to be the very thing that it was created to be.
Secondly what the king’s response?
His response- and the reason for us being beautiful: he is enthralled- PPT the king is wild
for you (The Message puts it) greatly desires, longs for, delights in, is pleased with, yearns for, is
attracted is to-the word used has the feeling of a craving for - sound like a young husband but let it
sink in a moment- this is God’s relationship with you.
This verse PPT I found on many your Christian women’s web pages. I am sure you can
understand why. It may be a struggle for some of us to identify with this. But when we do, it does
give another dimension to God’s relationship with us.
Thirdly how do we honour Him? Honour this love He has for us? We have touched on these
already.PPT
We treat him as the God we know he is? A God who has created us ,so we care for what
he has entrusted to us. A God who forgives, so we repent of our sins as he bring them to our
attention and that we are sinners (as Paul describes in the second reading this morning) and need
that overall forgiveness, to be “radiant, holy and blameless”, as we heard earlier. A God who
would live in the closest relationship with us - the Holy Spirit knowing that we indeed his temple
and relying on him. This entails getting to know God (through the Scriptures and life) but isn’t that
an act of love as a young couple gets know each other right through their married life?
PPT Surely we respond by enhancing our beauty for the king.
What did I say beauty was- in regard to the cedars of Lebanon? PPT It is to be the very
thing that we were created to be. Use the gifts, personality, relationships that God has given us to
respond to His love for us in giving them to us in the first place.
PPT. Thirdly, we respond to the king being enthralled by us. They are the words I used for a
bride: submission, acceptance for a couple in marriage: commitment, love faithfulness. Allow God
to show you what that means for you in your life with Him.
I hope this is all a challenge.
The Psalms are … a challenge, a challenge to have that deeper relationship with our King
our God, as his bride. Amen.
Pastor Leon Rosenberg
GGLF