Justin Appel

Dear Friends in Christ,

Today’s readings include a portion of the longest psalm, Psalm 119:97-120.

From the time I was a child, I’ve found the language in this psalm challenging. What kind of person can ecstatically say they ‘love God’s law', that this law makes them ‘wiser than their elders’, that they ‘hate every wicked way’? These sound like the exclamations of a super-human. How can I relate to this psalm? How can I be the ‘righteous’ person so often depicted in these poetic texts?

Perhaps it helps to recall that the Church holds up this psalm as a guide to being ‘blessed’ — much the same way that Christ proclaimed that those who are ‘poor in spirit’ or who ‘hunger and thirst after righteousness’ are ‘blessed’. In fact, this psalm's appearance in various historical liturgies, like the Holy Saturday Lamentations service and the Orthodox funeral service, indicating its status as a blueprint to living a ‘blessed’ life in relation to the Cross.

In other words, Psalm 119 can be read as a description of our spiritual lives, particularly when we take care to read the text personally, by asking how these realities relate to that dynamic which is my growth in Christ. Such a reading of the text — as a path to beatitude — helps us to take inspiration from the text, rather than condemnation.

Thus we can find encouragement here towards keeping the Great Commandment: to love God and neighbor. We can sense the psalmist’s bracing desires, and strive to reiterate them in our own lives, recognizing our reliance on God’s grace for anything good:

‘Preserve my life, O Lord’

‘You are my refuge and shield’

‘Hold me up, and I shall be safe’

At the same time, the psalmist’s invectives against the wicked apply to our own natural enemies: none other than our own sinfulness and its nothingness, demonic impulses, and death.

Read this way, the psalm becomes a potent invitation to discipleship, adoration, and self-sacrifice.

Yours in Christ,
Justin