Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

The psalm for the Eve of the Ascension is Psalm 68.

You can read it here.

This psalm smacks us in the face, immediately in verse 1:

‘Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered;
let those who hate him flee before him.’

What are we to do with such a passage? Is this the kind of imprecatory psalm we should excise for its violent imagery? Should we place these words into our own mouths? How can we presume to speak in such a manner?

I think it’s helpful to remember that in the Eastern tradition, this psalm is set around other verses (stichera) in the Paschal liturgy: it is essentially an Easter psalm:

Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered. Let those who hate Him flee from before His face.
Today, a sacred Pascha is revealed to us,
A new and holy Pascha,
A mystical Pascha,
A Pascha worthy of veneration,
A Pascha which is Christ the Redeemer,
A blameless Pascha,
A great Pascha,
A Pascha of the faithful,
A Pascha which has opened for us the gates of Paradise,
A Pascha which sanctifies all the faithful.
As smoke vanishes so let them vanish. As wax melts before the fire….

The context is clear. Christ’s death has destroyed his enemies, and these are clearly our enemies: death, the Devil, our sins. Frequently, when we read the word ‘enemy’ in the Psalms, we may rightly think this way — of the very things that Christ died to destroy, and we may rejoice in that victory.

Does this mean we should take the Psalms into our speech to judge other people? By no means! Only God can judge others. We should look instead at our own faults.

But we do rightly sense a dichotomy here. This psalm does remind us that there are those who will see God and who will experience him as Light. There are also those who will find God a burning fire, and who will 'melt like wax' in that brilliant presence.

Let us pray that God may ever grant us Light, Illumination, Wisdom, Repentance, the Holy Spirit, and Peace, that we too may greet him with joy!

Yours in Christ,
Justin