Often I don't feel very beautiful in God's sight. I'm not speaking of our physical appearance. Sometimes we can begin to wonder if God looks on us in love when one bad thing after another happens in our lives. We can start thinking that God must hate us. Psalms 42-45 can help us in that darkness. 

Psalms 42 and 43 are really part of the same song. They have the same refrain. The psalmist feels rejected and forgotten by God. But notice the middle verse of these two psalms. The middle verse is often the theme. Here is the answer when I feel forgotten and forsaken:

By day the LORD directs his love,
    at night his song is with me—
    a prayer to the God of my life.

In spite of all that i can see, the LORD's love remains! 

Psalm 44 voices more questions that come to our minds. God, we have tried to do all the right things! How come bad things are happening? You rescued our spiritual ancestors! How come you aren't helping us?

The comfort I find in this psalm is that I'm not the first one... I'm not the only one.... who doesn't understand. But like the psalmist, I have nowhere else to turn for help. So we cry out: Rise up and help us; rescue us because of your unfailing love. The Apostle Paul gives us the New Testament answer in Romans 8:28-39 when he quotes from this psalm and then reminds us that in Christ, we are more than conquerors no matter what happens to us in this world.

How wonderful that our final psalm is a wedding song. Faith's answer is found in the Messianic Psalm 45. (Psalm 45 is quoted in Hebrews 1:8-9 as referring to Jesus).

The Messianic King is enthralled with the beauty of his bride, the Church. It reminds me of Ephesians 5:25-27: Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 

When you feel forgotten and rejected by God, go back to your baptism and see there the promise that He sees you as his radiant and perfect bride because all your sins are washed away. You will see your victory in Christ some day. 

The Old Testament God - A God of Reckless Love

That love of God for his Church, even for those who reject him, is evident in our New Testament lesson (Luke 20:1-19)  

As you read the Parable of the Tenants, recognize it summarizes the entire Old Testament. God's people reject him over and over. Yet he shows his patient love in sending prophet after prophet. The ultimate evidence of God's love for the Church is the sending of his Son. 

So often we think of the Old Testament God as the God who comes in judgment over and over again. This parable help us see He is the God of "reckless love." What owner would send his son after his servants are killed? Yet that is what our God did for his Old Testament people. That is his love for us rebels and failures. 

Like the Old Testament Church, we often ignore God's call to repentance. God has good reason to be disgusted by the ugliness of our spirit. In spite of our grumbling and complaining, the Lord has heard our prayer. He has reminded us again of our beauty in Christ -  perfect and complete forgiveness of all our sins.

The challenge of Hebrew tenses…

Psalm 45:11 provides a study in Hebrew tenses, and illustrates why your church invests so much time training your pastors in the Biblical languages. I just rewatched a podcast Mike Westendorf and I did last year about the Biblical languages. (Watch it here or listen to it on Spotify here.)

• The NIV translates: “Let the king be enthralled by your beauty.”
• In previous versions of the NIV, the verse says: “The king is enthralled by your beauty.”

I often use Bible Gateway’s feature of comparing all English translations of a single verse. If you look at all the translations here (click here), you will notice that most of them translate “The king will be enthralled by your beauty.”  

Why the differences?

The challenge of Hebrew tenses is they are not strictly Past, Present, and Future like ours in English.

• The Hebrew perfect, often translated as past tense (for example, “He threw the ball.”) really conveys certainty. Because he threw the ball in the past, there is certainty that it happened.
• The Hebrew imperfect conveys some sense of uncertainty, often translated as future tense (for example, “He will throw the ball.”) can also be translated, “He may throw the ball.” Or “Let him throw the ball.” Because the action is still in the future, it is uncertain. Or it may be uncertain because we just don’t know what he will do. Or it may be uncertain because we are allowing him to throw the ball – but will it happen?

The translator, recognizing there is not an exact correspondence between English tenses and Hebrew tenses, then looks at the context to determine how best to convey the thought into English. Translators can come to different conclusions.

I don’t expect you to remember all of this! My point is simply to encourage you to compare translations often.

This jumped out at me today because I memorized the old NIV translation. “The king is enthralled by your beauty.” I thought it was a Hebrew perfect tense. Absolutely certain.

The NIV translates, “Let the king be enthralled by your beauty.” That led me to check the Hebrew which turns out to be the imperfect tense.

So then I compared translations and saw that the NIV is the only translation that opts for the “Let him” approach. Nearly all have “will be enthralled.”

This gave me a new insight into this psalm.

The bride is getting ready for her wedding. She is about to be led into the king’s presence. She is beginning to have doubts. "Who am I that the King would want to marry me?"

Can’t you hear her bridesmaids reassure her? “The king will be enthralled with your beauty.” They are putting the bride's mind at ease. The king hasn’t seen her yet, but when he does, he will say, “Wow!”

Now recognize the Messianic nature of this psalm.

• The king is the King, the Son of God. Remember this psalm is quoted in Hebrews 1 referring to Jesus.
• The bride is each of us, the Church. We have not yet been led into the presence of the King. Questions and doubts often rise in our minds. When I appear before the King on Judgment Day, what will he think of me?
• The bridesmaids are our fellow believers who assure us now: “The King will be enthralled by your beauty.” The King on Judgment Day will see you clothed in the perfect garments of Christ’s own righteousness. All your sins are washed away.

So as I meditate on this psalm, the imperfect tense, the tense of uncertainty, acknowledges the doubts and fears that often fill our hearts in this life. 

We need fellow Christians to remind us of God’s promises of forgiveness. We need them to remind us that we are clothed in garments of salvation, that we are “glorious in our chamber” as we await that wonderful day when we will be presented to our Husband, the King Messiah.