February 23, 2020 “Kiss His Feet” – Psalm 2

Psalm 2
“Kiss His Feet”
February 23, 2020 – Transfiguration

In the first half of the 19^th century, several of the United States of America began to conspire and to plot in a way which would ultimately be in vain. Slavery was the backbone of the agricultural economy in the south, making possible their large-scale production of tobacco and cotton. Yet that essential southern institution of making money by slave labor was being increasingly challenged by Americans in the north and by a small but vocal collection of abolitionists everywhere.

The Republican party was formed in 1854 to oppose slavery and stop its spread to newly forming states in the west. A move toward popular sovereignty, allowing each new state to decide for itself, meant the 1820 Missouri Compromise was falling apart and the south felt increasingly threatened. In 1860, the election of Republican president Abraham Lincoln was the last straw. Starting that December with South Carolina, southern states seceded from the Union one after the other. In April 1861 the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter.

Our Psalm for today paints a similar picture in terms of nations and their rulers rebelling against the Lord and against His anointed King in Israel, who ruled on the holy mountain of Zion in Jerusalem. Like those southern states which sought to throw off the bonds of northern, anti-slavery government, verse 3 has the kings of the earth declaring, “Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us.”

Not that I am saying Abraham Lincoln or any other American president was or is the Lord’s “anointed.” On one level this psalm was originally sung for one of the kings of Judah, maybe even David or Solomon as king over a united Israel. Those kings were literally anointed with olive oil as a symbol of God’s selection of them to rule His people. The psalm pictured pagan nations around Israel at war with both the anointed ruler who sat in Jerusalem and with the God whom he represented. But no actual king of Israel was ever able to subdue the surrounding nations.

So Christians have long read this psalm just as we are today on Transfiguration Sunday. We remember that the Lord’s true anointed is Jesus Christ. “Anointed” is just what “Christ” means. And we hear God declaring there on Mount Zion in verse 7, “You are my son,” and in our Gospel reading for today in Matthew 17:5, “This is my beloved Son,” and in II Peter 1:18 the apostle remembers that event and repeats those same words, “This is my beloved Son.” This is a psalm which begins with rebellion and ends with a call for surrender, with Jesus Christ the Son of God at the center of it.

Those first three verses about “the nations” and “the kings of the earth” in rebellion against the Lord are really about the whole human race in relation to God. As we will hear from Genesis next week on the first Sunday in Lent, we rebelled against God from the beginning and did what He commanded us not to do. And, as we will hear Paul say from Romans 5, we each continue that rebellion all the time, every day, by sinning in our own ways, doing what we want instead of what God wants.

As we read the psalm responsively, it was appropriate that the congregation together as a whole read those words from the kings of the earth saying “Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us.” That is you and I in rebellion against God, tired of His rules, His restraints, His bonds and boundaries for us. Like the good, free Americans we are, we want unlimited freedom, to do whatever we want, to be whatever we choose. If God or Christian morality get in the way, well so much the worse for them.

We may not announce our revolution like those kings of the earth in the psalm, maybe even hiding our rebellious thoughts from ourselves, but we rebel. We get tired of being good, of doing what is right, and decide instead to break our bonds and do what we like, both in large and small ways. Instead of taking time to read Scripture or pray, we play a few more rounds of whatever electronic game has our attention this month. We get angry with a family member or co-worker and know we ought to hold back some cutting words, but we just shake our heads and let fly anyway. We resolve to tell the truth but then soon find it easier to get out of some unpleasant commitment with a little lie. It’s all sin, it’s all the same as those ancient rulers taking “counsel together against the Lord and his anointed.”

The most surprising thing in this psalm might be the Lord’s reaction to our rebellion. At the beginning of the second section of the psalm, verse 4, we read, “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision.” That’s not how we like to picture God’s attitude toward human beings, toward us. We think of Him as the loving Father, the gentle Shepherd, the comforting Spirit, not as a wrathful Lord who laughs in scorn at our petty attempts at rebelling against Him. Yet here it is.

There are actually two more psalms, numbers 37 and 59, where we hear the same image of God laughing at sinful and defiant human beings. It’s a humbling thought that may be good for us especially when we are caught up in the sin of pride, imagining how strong or beautiful or smart or good we are. The Lord of the Universe is laughing behind our backs at how silly it is for tiny beings on a fragile planet on the outskirts of a galaxy on the edge of the universe to be so full of themselves.

Verse 5 of the psalm goes on to say that after He laughs, God speaks to them in wrath, to “terrify them in his fury.” That scary phrase might actually help us understand God’s scornful laughter a bit. Think about Peter there seeing Jesus transfigured and talking with Moses and Elijah. What was his great idea at that moment? He was going to make three dwellings for them there on the mountain, three little lean-tos or improvised tents for the greatest prophets of history and the king of all creation. Many of us kind of smile or even laugh at and with poor Peter there, seeing ourselves in his rash rush to say or do the first thing which comes to his mind. If we are laughing at him, and at ourselves in such moments, why wouldn’t the Lord be laughing too?

God laughs at all of us when, like Peter, we rush to carry out our own ideas, our own plans, our own ways of coping with situations. It’s one of the primary ways we fall into sin, how we rebel against the Lord and hurt ourselves and each other. God smiles and laughs at it all, then speaks to set us straight. In the psalm in verse 6, He says, “I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.” Then in verse 7 that King Himself speaks, “I will tell you of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you.’”

At the Transfiguration, we read that while Peter was still speaking, still laying out his goofy plan for a mountaintop camp site for Jesus and His ancient buddies, God spoke there too, saying essentially the same thing, “This is my beloved Son; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

God may laugh at us, may scoff at all our stupid attempts to carry out life according to our own plans and desires. He may actually be chuckling as we take another drink or pill and let ourselves fall into addiction. He may be sadly snickering as we pull up that porn site on a screen or plan the next rendezvous in an affair. He may snort with scornful amusement as we fall back into another abusive shouting match with a loved one. But His humor is like any good satire. It is God wanting us to realize how very foolish it all is, how truly laughable are the messes into which we put ourselves. And then He wants to show us something better, to point us to the One who can change us from laughable to loveable in His eyes.

So the Lord points us to His Anointed, to the One He calls His Son. That phrase “today I have begotten you,” reminds us of John 1:14. Jesus is “the only begotten of the Father.” That “today” in the psalm is not an actual moment in time, but the great “now” of eternity, in which the Son has always been and always will be begotten by the Father. The eternally begotten Son came into the world to rescue you and me from our silly and scornful sins, to get us to cease our rebellion, and to turn back to Him and to His Father.

Jesus came for everyone. He came to save anyone on earth from a stupid rebellion which can only end in laughable disaster. In verse 8 of the psalm, God tells His Son that all he has to do is ask and God will give Him the nations, make “the ends of the earth your possession.” It’s a great missionary text. Jesus did ask God and ask His people to make disciples of all nations, and they have. The good news of the Son of God goes out now to the ends of the earth and calls people to belong to Jesus, just like it calls to you and me.

Yet as we move from verse 9, the end of the third section of the psalm, to the fourth and last section starting in verse 10, there is a warning. Verse 9 tells us that when Jesus finally takes control of the nations of the world, He will, “break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Once again we need to remember who and what we are. All the nations and governments of earth, even maybe especially our own, are like clay pots before the iron rod of Jesus and His word, His way. God is laughing at all of them in their pitiful, puny revolt against Him.

Then in verse 10 God speaks again to the kings and rulers. We could add presidents and prime ministers, governors and mayors, senators and members of congress. He tells them, “be wise; be warned.” The psalm warns the powerful people of the world, but like that whole idea of rebellion against God in the first part, it also applies to everyone. It applies to you and me. As we foolishly go our own ways, do our own things, live in revolt in ways both miniscule and huge, God is warning us, “be wise; be warned.” As we try to be the rulers of our own selves, God is calling us to watch out, “be wise; be warned.”

It’s a strange thing, but the actual warning in verse 11 and the beginning of verse 12 is almost impossible to translate with any certainty from the Hebrew original. Verse 11, “Serve the Lord with fear, with trembling,” is probably O.K., but the real question is what the first phrase of verse 12 means. The version we read from our hymnal tells those in rebellion against the Son of God to “kiss his feet.”

There are other ways to read it. Your Bible very possibly says, “kiss the son.” That’s an ancient translation going back to Jerome, but it requires that we take the word translated “son” as Aramaic instead of Hebrew. Other versions may say something very different, such as “listen to instruction.” Both ideas fit and don’t really change the overall flow and message of the psalm. It’s that we just don’t know for sure. I’m going to go with “kiss his feet.” I like it because it is such a challenging picture for us in our culture and because it calls us to fall down at the feet of the Son of God.

That’s what happened to Peter, James and John there on the mountain. God spoke and told them Jesus was His beloved Son. They should listen to Him. Then in verse 6 of Matthew 17 we read, “When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.” That’s exactly what the psalm called for, fear and trembling, falling down to kiss the feet of the Son.

As we begin the season of Lent on Wednesday, coming to remember and confess our sins, our psalm and our Gospel reading together give us exactly the response we need. Let us be fearful and afraid of our own selves, our sinful thoughts and actions, our rebel attitude toward what God wants us to be. Let us turn with trembling and with thanksgiving to the Son of God. Let us be willing like the sinful woman in Luke 7 was, to get down and kiss the feet of Jesus, in sorrow for our sins and in gratitude for His grace.

This Lent, then, let us cease our rebellion against God. Let’s not just make it a partial truce like is being tried in Afghanistan with the Taliban, but wholehearted and complete surrender to God and to Jesus His Son. You and I may have put up a white flag and surrendered to Jesus long ago, but we both know there is more to go. As we look around the little kingdoms of our hearts and minds, there are pockets of resistance everywhere. We may have given up a sin in one corner, but what about that other one over there? Until we are finally with the Lord and fall gladly at the foot of His throne, we must “be wise; be warned,” and “listen to him.” Jesus will tell us the truth about ourselves.

The middle of verse 12 in Psalm 2 calls for a quick surrender, saying that God’s “wrath is quickly kindled.” That is a warning especially if you have not yet made even that first surrender to Jesus, haven’t trusted Him in faith, asked Him to forgive your sins, and invited Him into your life. You do not know when your time will come. It can happen quickly, you can “perish in the way,” as the psalm says. The time to accept Jesus Christ as Savior is right now, as soon as you can. I’d be happy to talk with you about it.

Yet don’t forget that this psalm, this message, this call to surrender is for all of us. We all need the discipline we focus on in Lent. We all need to listen to our Lord, let Him point out the revolting ways in us, then give up and turn ourselves over to Him once again.

We are all that guy in the tense, final scene of some movie or television show. A poor, misguided soul who has done wrong, maybe done horrible things, holds his weapon out in a trembling hand while law enforcement surrounds him with even greater firepower. A commander yells “Drop the gun!” but someone else, maybe his wife, maybe just a compassionate cop, tries to talk to him quietly, gently. “Lay it down” or “Give to me,” she says. “It’s the only way. You can’t win by fighting back anymore. Just stop, get down on the ground, surrender. It’s your only hope.”

As you watch it unfold on the screen it seems that it will be better for that criminal if he kneels down, sets his gun aside and puts his hands up. It may go hard in any case for him, but it will go better once he surrenders. That is you and I as we face the Lord with our sin and our rebellion. Civil war with God will get us nowhere. It is time for surrender, time for peace.

You may be thinking that it is not always better for the criminal who surrenders. He may face some harsh punishment, may, in our overtaxed and corrupt legal system, not even get a fair trial. In war there may have been some good reasons to revolt, some real injustice that will only be overcome by fighting. Is it really right to say it is better to surrender?

Yes, yes, it is always better to surrender to God. The last line of the psalm assures us of that, “Happy are all who take refuge in him.” That is God’s promise that neither rebellion nor injustice gets the last word. When you quit your own personal rebellion and give yourself to Jesus, He will be your happy and blessed refuge.

If you are worried about those still in rebellion, especially about evil rulers of this world who conspire against the Lord and His Anointed; if you fear what they can do to you, remember this. All their plots are vain. Nothing they do can touch God’s people, can touch you, in the end. They themselves will be broken to pieces. “Happy are all who take refuge in him.” Take refuge in Him. There is nowhere else on earth that is truly secure, only down there at the feet of Jesus. Please surrender and take refuge in Him now.

Amen.