Beeson podcast, Episode 398 J. Todd Billings June 26, 2018 Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, coming to you from the Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now, your host, Timothy George. Timothy George: Welcome to today's Beeson Podcast. This past semester at Beeson Divinity School, we had the privilege of having a special guest who gave lectures, and preached in chapel, Dr. J. Todd Billings. He is the Gordon H. Girod Research professor of Reformed Theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. That's a seminary affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. He's an ordained minister in that tradition. He received a M.Div of Degree from Fuller, a Th.D from Harvard. Timothy George: He's a fantastic scholar of Calvin and the reformation and the spiritual life. Author of a number of great books, The Word of God for the People of God, that's a wonderful introduction to what we call the theological interpretation of the scripture. He has a brand new book coming out on communion, Remembrance, Communion and Hope, rediscovering the gospel at the Lord's Table. He's a person of a church and of great spirituality, and as we saw Dr. Smith when he was with us, he can also preach the gospel with power and effectiveness. Robert Smith Jr: He can do that. Timothy George: Tell us what we're going to hear about from Dr. Todd Billings. Robert Smith Jr: Dean George, we're going to hear a sermon titled, Ashes, Tears and the Eternal King from Psalm 102. Dr. Billings does corrective surgery actually on our perception and view of the Psalms, regarding particularly the Psalms of lament. He's preparing us to bring our whole selves in this Psalm of lamentation to the covenant Lord, and to come to the covenant table where we are invited to bring our sorrow, bring our tears, etc. He says, "Jesus himself gives us the gift of himself by the Holy Spirit, for Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." He says, "Come to the table." Robert Smith Jr: This sermon Dean George, is informed by his experience having been diagnosed with an incurable cancer in 2012. However, that was informed by his experience. The experience is the servant to the text. It is not the master of the text. That's important because he's preaching the text. He's weaving explanation, illustration, and application throughout the Psalm as he walks through it. He gives personal confession in saying that there were times he'd cherry-pick the Psalms based upon his present feelings. Robert Smith Jr: However, he feels, and he is right, that Jesus, since he prayed the Psalms of lamentations, so should we. Doctrines of sovereignty and incarnation, the promise of God, hope are filtered throughout this particular message. But watch, our viewers should watch for this great word from a little girl, who wrote him a letter saying, "God is bigger than cancer." This kind of serves as the hub that holds together with the text, all the spokes of what he wants to say. Robert Smith Jr: There's hope in this message. He is not denying reality. He says, "God does not promise us or owe us longevity. However, God will use our pain in order to glorify himself." I am moved by this message, and I believe our listeners will be not only informed but also inspired. Timothy George: After listening to this sermon, you want to go out and get Dr. Todd Billings book, Rejoicing in Lament, Wrestling with Incurable Cancer, and Life in Christ. We go Hodges chapel, we listen to this sermon, Ashes, Tears and the Eternal King by our friend Dr. J. Todd Billings. Reader: A reading from Psalms 102, hear my prayer O Lord, let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me, answer me speedily in the day when I call. For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. My heart is struck down like grass and has withered. I forget to eat my bread because of my loud groaning. My bones cling to my flesh. I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places. I lie awake, I am like a lonely sparrow on the house top. All the day, my enemies taunt me. Those who deride me, use my name for a curse. Reader: For I eat ashes like bread, and mingle tears with my drink, because of your indignation and anger, for you have taken me up and thrown me down. My days are like an everlasting shadow, I wither away like grass. But you O Lord, are enthroned forever. You are remembered throughout all generations. You will arise and have pity on Zion. It is the time to favor her. The appointed time has come. For your servant hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust. Reader: Nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory. For the Lord builds up Zion. He appears in his glory. He regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer. Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord. That he looked down from his holy height. From heaven, the Lord looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who are doomed to die. That they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord, and in Jerusalem his praise when people gather together, and kingdoms to worship the Lord. Reader: He has broken my strength in mid-course. He has shortened my days. Oh my God, I say, take me not away in the midst of my days, you whose year endure throughout all generations. Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain. They will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same and your years have no end. The children of your servants shall dwell secure, their offspring shall be established before you. The word of the Lord. Congregation: Thanks be to God. Todd Billings: Please pray with me. Father, may your word be our rule, your spirit our teacher, and the glory of Christ our single concern. Amen. The Psalms have been a close companion, like a friend to me for many years. Ever since I was a teenager, I've read a Psalm each evening before going to bed. But to be honest, I have tended to cherry-pick the Psalms. Cherry-picked for those happy encouraging Psalms. Sometimes this took quite a bit of effort, since there are more Psalms of lament than any other type of Psalm. My heart is struck down like grass and has withered. I forget to eat my bread, our Psalmist writes. For I eat ashes like bread, and mingle tears with my drink. Todd Billings: I hadn't been singing words like this in my praise songs, or even in the hymns in my church. As I later discovered, unless I found myself in a Benedictine monastery or some reformed congregations which only sing Psalms, I was unlikely to hit Psalms like this. Even most lectionaries skip these difficult Psalms, or at least the difficult parts of these Psalms. Of course, growing up with Christian media around me didn't help much either. A Christian radio station near me in Michigan has the slogan that they always play positive hits. Then they give interludes of encouraging words from your Bible. Positive hits, positive thinking. Todd Billings: Is that the same as Christian? Is the Bible a positive thinking manual? I think that the band Switchfoot diagnoses the problem with some of the stations that play their songs when they say, "Happy is a yuppie word." Immersing ourselves in positive thoughts is much more yuppie than biblical. Laments seem far from us, and Psalm 102 doesn't get any airtime on the radio. Unfortunately, when our worship together expresses only victory, it suggests that the angry and the lonely and the hurting have no place in the church with us. Todd Billings: If you want to fit in, first get your emotions in order, so that you can be positive, and then go to worship, we seem to say. But these Psalms show us that bottling up or trying to fix our emotions first is not the biblical way. Psalm 62 itself says to pour out your heart before the Lord for he is a refuge for us. Thus fear, anger, confusion, protest, things that we don't necessarily ordinarily bring into the sanctuary, this is what the Psalms invite us to bring before the Lord. John Calvin says it well in his preface for his Psalms commentary, he says that the Psalms give an anatomy of all parts of the human soul. Todd Billings: Calvin says, "There is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror," or rather the Holy Spirit has drawn together the life of all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, and in short, all of the distracting human emotions, of which the minds are one to be agitated. All of these are brought before the face of the Lord in the Psalms. But Psalms like these are more than an emotion dump before a divine therapist. They complain, protest, and they even blame God in a particular way. How long, our Lord, will you forget me forever? Todd Billings: Do not hide your face from me in my day of distress. Do not forget, do not hide, these complaints are rooted in God's covenant promises themselves. For God has promised in the book of Numbers that the Lord will make his face shine on you, not to hide but to shine. The Lord promises again and again that he will remember his covenant. Biblical Psalms and biblical laments are fixed and focused on God's promises. Psalms of celebration celebrate God's promises, when they seem to be coming about, when we experience them in the joy and sweetness of life. Todd Billings: Psalms of complaint are just as centered on God's promises, but they complain and they protest when God's promises don't seem to be coming true. They all of these, are acts of praise, in fact, they're acts of trust and hope in God's promises. Indeed, when God himself took on humanity in Christ, it's instructive that he didn't just pray and sing upbeat tunes. Jesus, the perfect human, the second Adam, he prayed the Psalms and the Psalms of lament. Jesus, the one who embodied the covenant of God, yet he also wrestled with those covenant promises as he prayed these laments. Todd Billings: Praying these Psalms doesn't mean that we don't trust the Lord, but that we take the Lord's promises so seriously that when we live in celebration, and in sorrow, whether in victory or whether we feel abandoned, we are resting and hoping in God's promises. Our Lord Jesus did not skip the Psalms of lament. He brought his pain to the father in the Garden of Gethsemane. He brought his complaint to the father on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Joining the Psalmist in Psalms 22. Todd Billings: Yet sometimes you and I think that we can just skip the Psalms of lament and be just fine. Yet if Jesus prayed the Psalms of lament, don't we need to pray them too? I sense that we skip them and I have tended to skip them not because we trust God's promises too much, but because we don't trust them enough. Yes, we join Jesus in praying the Psalms of lament, and yet these Psalms are not meek and mild songs. The words of these Psalms can be searing, as we've heard. I'm like a lonely sparrow on the house top, all day long my enemies taunt me, those who deride me use my name as a curse. Todd Billings: "We are dried up," the Psalmist says. We're mocked, we're tired of fighting. Our days will vanish like a breath. And yet we are right to cry to this king, this Lord, this deliverer, this one to whom his years have no end. We complain, but we complain in hope. These Psalms suggest a view of life before God in which lament actually goes hand in hand with gratitude and joy. One of my favorite poets, George Herbert wrote a poem called Bittersweet that expresses this. Ah, my dear angry Lord, since thou dost love, yet strike, cast down yet help afford. Sure, I will do the like. I will complain, yet praise. I will bewail, approve. And all my sour-sweet days, I will lament and love. Todd Billings: Herbert's poem dares to join the Psalmist, not only in expressing grief and complaint, but also in bringing a certain type of blame before God. “Since thou dost love yet strike, cast down yet help afford.” In the same way Psalms 102 says to the Lord that you have lifted me up and thrown me aside. The Psalmist doesn't just complain that his body is failing, or that his enemies are persecuting, but he puts his cry at God's doorstep. He says, "The Lord himself has broken my strength midcourse. He has shortened my days." Todd Billings: Wow, how could this be? Shouldn't the Psalmist be saying that his enemies or that the difficulties of life have broken his strength midcourse? How could it be faithful to let our grief and anger lead this direction? Perhaps, this is why we've tended to skip over these Psalms. In the midst of his distress, the Psalmist feels abandoned by God, for my days pass away like smoke, and my bones like a furnace. He feels desperately alone. Now, at times like that, I sense that you can either wrestle with God and his promises, or you can rationalize a way to get God out of it. Todd Billings: Maybe God didn't know the future, maybe this tragedy was just this much of a surprise to God as it was to me. But the Psalmist dares to cling to the testimony that God is the king of the earth. The Lord of the future and the past, even when it doesn't feel like it. Even if it doesn't seem like it. Take me not away in the midst of my days, our Psalmist says. You whose years endure throughout all generations. Of old you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands. Todd Billings: The Psalmist refuses to accept that this calamity is just the way things should be. But he also insists that the whole world and time itself is in the hands of the sovereign God. "Give me a little more," he says, "I'm small and you're big. You have so many years, give me a little more." Five years ago, I received a card from a 15 year old girl in our congregation. She loves to make homemade cards for anyone who has a need. She uses all sorts of colors. She has down syndrome as well. What she wrote on the card in addition to the colors hit me hard. Todd Billings: "Get well soon. Jesus loves you. God is bigger than cancer." Less than a week earlier, the doctor spoke a diagnosis to me about which he had no doubt. A cancer of the bone marrow, an incurable disease, a fatal cancer. My bones had already been burning away, according to the scan with bone lesions in various parts of this final stage cancer. I was over 30 years younger than the average patient for this diagnosis, and I'd been in a fog ever since. How was I to face each day when my future which had seemed wide open had suddenly narrowed? Todd Billings: Was I to turn away from God and not bother to lament to him, thinking that he gave me a raw deal? Should I just keep my anger and my sadness to myself. Or maybe I should create a smaller, more manageable God who couldn't have done anything about it anyway. This girl in my congregation pointed another direction. God is bigger than cancer. She did not say, "God will cure you of this cancer," or, "God is reeling from this cancer just like you are." No, God is bigger than cancer. Todd Billings: The fog is thick but God is bigger. My cancer story had already developed its own sense of drama, like a story that closes in the sky enveloping my world so that nothing else creeps in. But God's story, the drama of God's action in the world is bigger. She wasn't denying the fog or the loss, but testifying to a God who is greater, the God made known in Jesus Christ, who shows us that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Todd Billings: As I've moved through various stages of cancer treatment, hospital time, ongoing chemotherapy, I've encountered the Psalms of lament in a new way. They're not just optional extras. We shouldn't just cherry-pick from the Psalms that fits with how we're feeling in a certain day, even though that's what I used to do. For if we believe that God is king, and if we join in praying with Christ, that his kingdom come in fullness, then the world's suffering around us is an open wound. Todd Billings: As the Apostle Paul tells us, God's creation and we ourselves who have the first fruit of the spirit roam inwardly, as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Prayers of lament in which we join the groaning of the spirit, in the midst of God's hope, excuse me, in the midst of hope for God's promises. Our spirit given pass for bearing witness to Jesus Christ, the king, who has shown his love by taking on human suffering and death, so that Jesus Christ, the king, will have the final word. Todd Billings: Now, when you have an argument with a stranger or some sort of dispute, you have to consider, is it worth the energy and the risk to really confront this person? Do you really trust them enough to hear, that they will hear your concern and your complaint? But with a close friend, a close relationship, there are real costs if you don't bring your concern out in the open. Lively trust becomes icy. The Psalmist approaches the Lord as Israel's spouse, as Israel's beloved. Hear my prayer O Lord, let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me. Todd Billings: If we want to have this lively trust with the Lord, we need to bring these laments before him. Now, in my own situation, the lament actually didn't become that poignant until the times in which I considered my family. My son was one year old, and my daughter was three. I mean, the world will go on just fine without me. But why, oh Lord, would you take my children's father? When I heard the numbers about the chances of me living long enough to see my kids enter high school, my mind went spinning. On behalf of my wife and my children, I joined in Psalm 102 saying, "Oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days, you whose years endure throughout all generations." Todd Billings: And yet God has not promised that if we're in Christ we will be able to live to be 85, settle down in retirement, and attend the lowly games of the grandkids. We have abundant life in Christ, but it can't be measured by lifespans. As one of my own seminary students told me after I returned home from the hospital, I realized that God doesn't owe me 40 years of ministry. We can and should petition, we can and should lament, we should pray for God's kingdom to come. But we are not the heroes who are going to redeem the world on our clock. Todd Billings: Our best work is as witnesses to Christ and his kingdom. When the Psalmist comes to the end of our Psalm today, as far as we can tell, nothing has changed in his outward circumstances. He still grieves that God seems to be taking him away midcourse through his life. But like most other songs of lament, he lifts his eyes to God the king, a God much bigger than himself. Though his years are few, he confesses that the Lord's years endure throughout all generations. Even though he may not see the day where God's covenant promises are seen and tested as true, he confesses that the Lord will not abandon his people. Todd Billings: "The children of your servants," the Psalmist says, "Shall dwell secure. Their offspring shall be established before you," says this dying Psalmist. Friends, we belong in life and in death to the servant Lord, Jesus Christ, who embodies the covenant in his person. He is the Lord of the future and the past, the alpha and the omega. But the coming kingdom does not come through tanks or drones, or with a well formulated media plan that causes a buzz on social media. In Christ, the kingdom is like a mustard seed, in which our small insignificant tiny lives, as the Psalmist realizes, can bear fruit. Todd Billings: Whether we live 25 or 95 years, our lives are short, but then the economy of the kingdom, the Lord can work with that. But no matter how long we live, we are not the heroes of the story, and even our ambitions to go out and do great things for God, or change the world can sometimes set us off track. Because it's the covenant Lord, Jesus Christ, who is the hero of the story, the hero of history, and the story of the future. With the Psalmist, we're called to trust and declare that Christ the Lord is king, even when it doesn't look like it. Todd Billings: Now, there are some special challenges for doing this in our cultural moment today. We often call ourselves either conservatives or progressives. I think both terms are actually self-deceptive. Conservatives, the ones who in a sense own the past and conserve what is past. Progressives, the one who know the future and are bringing in the future. But it's Jesus Christ alone who is the alpha and the omega. It's he alone who owns the past and owns the future. Todd Billings: I mean, honestly, I don't know what political party or governments will rule the earth in 50 years or a hundred years. But I do know where history is heading, toward Jesus Christ. For though we don't own the future, we belong to the one who does. The covenant Lord whose years endure throughout all generations. You and I as the Psalmist says, are dying. We will die and decay. But we belong to a risen Lord who is life itself. Todd Billings: Let's hope enough to hope in more than our own grand plans for the world. Let's hope enough to lament with the hurting, to seek out the forgotten, to serve in places that Twitter and Facebook will never see. Let's hope enough to bear witness to the Lord of history, Jesus Christ, in the midst of this dark age, because the risen Lord is coming again to make all things new. Todd Billings: Now, let's prepare to bring our whole selves to this Lord, for he invites us to the covenant table. To this table we bring our sorrows and joys and hungers, and Jesus Christ gives us the gift of himself by the Holy Spirit. For Christ, our Lord, our spouse, our beloved, has died, has risen, and he will come again. Come to the table to be fed. Come to the table also to have your hunger deepened, so that together we will cry out by the spirit, come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus. Amen. Announcer: You've been listening to the Beeson Podcast with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson Podcast at our website, beesondivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school, training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. 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