Psalm 72:1-7, 18, 19
“Song of Justice”
December 5, 2010 - Second Sunday in Advent

         When I was in first grade you might occasionally find me marching around my bedroom singing along with an old scratchy recording of children’s songs playing on a tinny record player in a wood box. The songs I remember are “Johnny Came Marching Home Again,” something about Davy Crocket, and I think it might have been Burl Ives crooning “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” which sounded like a great place:

         Oh the buzzing of the bees in the peppermint trees
         ’Round the soda water fountains
         Where the lemonade springs and the bluebird sings
         In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

         My child’s mind imagined a whole mountain of candy just sitting there for bites to be broken off and devoured. But the song was originally a hobo tune with unsuitable-for-children lyrics about cigarette trees and springs of gin. The cops there all run slow and the weather is just fine for sleeping out of doors. The lasting quality of the tune is that it translates well as a fantasy of a place perfect for people just like us, whether we’re sweet-toothed children or homeless hobos.

         Our texts from Psalm 72 and even more from Isaiah 11 are a little bit in the genre of “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” Psalm 72 is a song about a world perfectly ordered for the good of the least well-off people in the present world: the poor, the needy, the oppressed. The image centers around a king endowed with justice and righteousness who will be “like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth.”

         The prophet gives us an even more like child-like fantasy in Isaiah 11:

         The wolf will live with the lamb,
                  the leopard will lie down with the goat,
         the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
                  and a little child shall lead them.

         The cow will feed with the bear,
                  their young will lie down together,
         and the lion will eat straw like an ox.

         The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
                  and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.

It could almost be a Rafi song, along with “Baby Beluga” and “Joshua Giraffe.” A happy, peaceful child’s world where every animal is as tame and huggable as the family dog or the plush teddy bear that gets dragged around by its foot.

         Yet, like “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” Psalm 72 and Isaiah 11 are really songs for grown-ups, and they are not meant to be fantasies. “Give the king your justice, O God,” is the prayer in verse 1 of our psalm. Israel saw their king as the source of justice. Our own efforts at justice are more complex. We hope for legislators to make good laws and for presidents and governors and local police to carry them out. We expect judges to make wise decisions. But in Israel the king was executive, judicial and legislative branches of government all rolled into one. Hope for justice meant a king who enforced the law and made wise judgments between those with differences.

         In your Bible this psalm is subtitled, “Of Solomon.” It’s either by Solomon or about Solomon. Yet even with Solomon’s famous wisdom, neither this psalm nor Isaiah’s prophecy of a peaceable kingdom came true. These songs came into Scripture because God’s people waited and prayed for a king still to come. He will judge in perfect righteousness, say verses 1 and 2. He will bring true prosperity says verse 3. And in verse 4, the hope is a king who would defend the poor, deliver the needy, and crush all oppressors.

         In other words, this song of justice flowing down like rain from a good king is not unlike are own American vision of a land of “liberty and justice for all.” Like the Jewish people who sang this psalm, we sing songs about a beautiful, well-ordered, just land that stretches from “sea to shining sea,” exactly like verse 8 says. In every election we hope to choose a president that will do almost everything the psalm writer prayed for here, except that unlike verse 5 we don’t want him to last “while the sun endures, and as long as the moon.” We expect it all to happen within a couple years of a four-year term.

         Yet this song, this psalm, has lasted longer than Solomon, longer than any king of Israel did, longer than any government on earth. It lasts because it is ultimately not a prayer for just another king or president or prime minister. It’s inspired prophecy of a King whose justice will be perfect and whose government will go on as long the moon circles the earth.

         This song is God’s promise for the hope we celebrate this Sunday in Advent. It’s the hope for which Israel waited for hundreds of years. It’s the hope for which all the world has waited. It’s hope for justice, for a world where everyone is treated with dignity and equity.

         The writer of Psalm 72 knew this was not a song about just another king sitting in David’s palace in Jerusalem. He was as aware of those king’s faults as we are of the faults of our presidents. Like other patriotic songs it’s more an expression of hope than current reality. It’s hope for the “Anointed One,” for the “Messiah.” It’s an Advent song, looking for One to come, just as we sang in the hymn today, “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed.”

         We sing hope for Jesus Christ to come into our world. No earthly king is going to bring justice to everyone in all the earth. No president will get wolves and lambs to lie down together, much less Republicans and Democrats. Our hope is in the Advent of a heavenly ruler who will be a king of justice. We hope for Jesus to bring us justice.

         John the Baptist had the same message in our text from Matthew 3. He’s coming, the one “greater than I.” He will bring justice, divide the world between the wheat and the chaff, make the tough decisions which will bring a fruitful, peaceful time to this world. What John adds is that we should be getting ready for Him, that we are called to bring the justice of Jesus to our world right now.

         Psalm 72 contains more truth than “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” but it’s easy to let it have no more affect on our lives than all our entertaining fantasies. Yes, Jesus is coming back again to set up the kingdom of justice and righteousness described in Psalm 72 and Isaiah 11 and in Revelation and all over the Scriptures. But John the Baptist tells us what he told Pharisees and Sadducees. It’s time to produce fruit in keeping with that faith. It’s not just the second Advent of Jesus that will bring justice. His first Advent brings it now.

         Jesus came first to the poor. He was born to a poor family and greeted by rough shepherds. He came as a child, a sign that He meant to do what it literally says in verse 4 of our psalm, “to save the children of the needy.” He came into a land ruled by an evil tyrant who wanted to kill Him, the sign that He meant to overthrow oppression and tyranny wherever it happens. The justice of Jesus is not just hope for the future. It’s something He meant to start happening from the moment He was born.

         Justice is the gift of the King. Justice happens wherever Jesus is truly King. This is a song about a King who brought justice into the world by living among us and dying and rising to save the poor and the children and the oppressed. Advent is not just hope for future justice but the conviction that Messiah has come and there can be justice now.

         “Justice” is not a code word for some un-American ideology. You can’t truly read the Bible and not realize that justice is part of the message, part of the hope, part of the Good News of Jesus Christ coming into our world. When Jesus was lifted up to die an unjust death on the Cross, God was lifting up the cause of every man, woman and child who suffers injustice on this earth.

         Which all means that we who believe and trust in both the first and second comings of Jesus are to be people of justice, to do justice, to love justice. If Jesus is our King, then you and I live in His kingdom right now, and this song tells us it’s a kingdom of justice. The hope for which we lit a candle this morning is not just hope for a distant future, it’s hope for the good Jesus will do in and through you and me today and tomorrow and next week.

         Billy Graham said, “If the gospel we preach does not have a social application, if it will not work effectively in the work-a-day world, then it is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” And Graham did not just say it, he lived it. Even before the civil rights movement, Graham refused to preach when a stadium where his crusade was scheduled refused to admit black people. He believed in Jesus, so he practiced justice.

         How will you and I practice the justice of Jesus, the justice we’re singing about today? This Advent, how will we make our world, our own community a little more just? We might begin by being a little angry, a little outraged at injustice.

         There’s a story about Fiorello LaGuardia who was mayor of New York during the Great Depression. He showed up at night court in a poor ward of the city and gave the overworked judge the evening off. LaGuardia sat on the bench himself. One of the first cases was a tired old woman charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She did it so her grandchildren, whose father deserted them, could eat.

         LaGuardia looked at her, then said, “I have to punish you. The law makes no exception. The fine is ten dollars or ten days in jail.” Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out ten dollars and dropped it in his hat. Then he said, “Furthermore, I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat.” The bailiff passed the hat to collect the fines. He then took out the ten dollars for the woman’s fine and gave the rest to her. She left with nearly fifty dollars to buy food for her family in the days ahead.

         Justice is being a little outraged at the way things are. That children in our own town go hungry. That there’s nowhere for some of our homeless to get out of the cold and rain. That so many jobs don’t pay a living wage. That our foster child system is so broken that children are abused in homes that were supposed to rescue them. That banks still make huge profits while thousands of people lose their homes. That still in America children and youth are brought from other countries to work in slavery, including the sex trade. Let’s be outraged, then let’s do something, do what Jesus did, give ourselves up for the sake of justice.

         Advent is sometimes called “Little Lent.” Part of preparing for Jesus is giving something up, not just our sins, but some of our comforts. A couple weeks ago Laura beautifully asked you to give up a bit of Christmas shopping to make an extra gift to our church. My hope is that your sacrifice will include a gift or service to those in need, a fine if you will on us all for living in a world that is not yet what Jesus means it to be, a kingdom of justice.

         My hope is also that you will feel the promise of justice for yourself. If you are in need, if you have suffered injustice, if you are oppressed in some way, we want to be here for you. Jesus came to bring justice to everyone. He came for you. Please tell us if this church might be able to help you in some way. Give your brothers and sisters here an opportunity to bring justice to you.

         Our psalm ends,

         Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
                  who alone does wondrous things.
         Blessed be his glorious name forever;
                  may his glory fill the whole earth. Amen and Amen.

We cannot possibly make this world just through our own strength and initiative. God alone does wondrous things, makes the wolf and lamb lie down together, saves all the children, and brings prosperity to everyone. But in and through Him, with the grace and help of Jesus, we can move our world in that direction. We can help His glory fill the earth. There is hope, real hope for justice.

         That’s what Paul meant to say in our text from Romans. The hope that is in Jesus is a justice that includes everyone. It included the Gentiles, all the nations of the earth. It includes you. “The Gentiles will hope in him.” The poor will hope in Him. The children will hope in Him. You and I will hope in Him. I can’t conclude any better than Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2010 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj