Stand by Night¹

Psalm 134
Rev. Matthew M. Fry

As we continue to experience The Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Guide us, O God, by your Word and Spirit, that in your light we may see light. Send out your light and your truth, O God, and let them lead us. Amen.

Hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in Psalm 134. Listen. Psalm 134.

1 Come, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, who stand by night in the house of the LORD!
2 Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the LORD.
3 May the LORD, maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.

The Grass Withers, The Flower Falls, but The Word of The Lord endures forever…Thanks be to God.

Russell, Taylor, Keaton and I sat with our backs on the hard and worn ground, the light of the evening’s fire had burned down, and we stared up at the stars. It was Spring Break, and I was the Director of Senior High Youth Ministries in a church so large that I was one of 4 full time people in the Youth Department, which was a sub-department of the Christian Education department, which was also multi-staffed. Russell and Keaton were 2 of the 12 Senior Highs that were on the Spring Break Backpacking trip. If you’ve lived in Florida, which is where this church was, the beach is not necessarily a vacation destination, so we had organized this trip as an alternate to the skiing some folks were doing, or the daily trips to the beach that others were doing, or the sitting around and watching television that others would do.

The group had meandered into their tents, boys on one side, girls on the other, with their chaperones. I had made the promise to my superiors, both in the Youth Ministry department and in the Christian Education Department, that if anyone was awake, I would be with them. So, I sat with Russell, Taylor and Keaton, making sure they weren’t purpling, or being eaten by bears. Talking about the things you talk about at 2.30 in the morning after a good day’s hike, deep issues of life like theology, God, and who has the worst smell about them, you know, the deep issues, laying on your back in the middle of the woods with no fire to speak of, no electricity for miles in any direction. There is talk, and dark, and silence. The night is quiet. Deep. Dark. And still.

There in the middle of the woods on the hard and worn ground, the darkness is complete.

“Come, sing the Lord, all you Servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord.”

The psalmist calls upon the people who stand in the darkness to sing praise to God.

But I’ve been to places much much darker than the woods in the middle of night. I’ve been to waiting rooms flooded with fluorescents lights, with old magazines that have been thumbed through time and again, and some television going on in the corner. Those places covered in fluorescent can be far darker.

One of my friends is a psychologist and is fond of saying, especially to nervous parents of clients, that God has not made the person who cannot benefit from a little therapy. I would add that God has not also made the Christian who has not spent the night in the dark.

Psalm 134 is the psalm for those times of dark. Historically, those who study these things report that it was likely written as instruction to the Levitical priests who would remain in the temple after the worshippers had gone home. For the dark of night follows the day.

Night has many forms, does it not? Night may come stealing slow or crashing down. Night has many face and many voices and it can overwhelm us if left unchecked.

I recently had a conversation with a friend from high school who is now a teacher of information technology. His specialty is the internet and how to make it more efficient and effective. During the discussion, he kept trying to convince me that the internet and electronic media technologies represent the future of civilization and the model of communities to come. “The Internet is going to save the world,” were the words that made me spit out my beverage in laughter. But he was serious. To him, the internet and electronic media technologies are the most important places for us to invest our time and energy and intellect.

Now, I was playing the posture of indignant theologian, supremely put off that he would have the temerity to assume that his work was of greater significance to humanity that that of those who serve the intellectual life of the church. I am, after all, among those who spend time contemplating the metaphysical realities of human existence in relationship to the creator God, while my friend spends his time perfecting a more efficient delivery system for Paris Hilton news and Viagra ads.

But, what he was telling me was that there is a new language and a new community surrounding us. It is a seductive and tempting new voice for an old familiar place. Paul termed it “the world” and its powers are still clamoring for our attention.

The language and voice have changed with the times, but the message is as old as time itself. Eat of the fruit of the tree and you will be like God.

It is the commercial that reminds you that happiness is shopping with your Visa.

It is the voice of the announcer who proclaims that if you take this drug, you will live, if not forever, at least long enough to run along this beautiful beach with this beautiful woman.

It is the image on the page that tells you that, while your car is good, this one is better.

It is the payday lender who says he is willing to do you a favor, and for a small fee, will give you an advance on that paycheck.

It is the voice of a leader who keeps telling you that your safety will be assured if only a few thousand more families will sacrifice their sons and daughters on the altar of military domination.

It is the voices of would-be leaders who will keep telling you until the 4^th of November about all the faults of other leaders and other would be leaders and tell you less and less about what they would do or how they would do it.

The voices grow and grow, they clamor louder and louder promising to keep the dark at bay if only you will

Buy to be happy,

Medicate to stay young,

Consume to be fulfilled

Refinance to look successful,

Conquer to be safe,

Put down others to feel better about yourself.

Until finally / in the midst of it al / with the darkness closing in / when you feel surrounded / and there seems no means of escape / your soul cries out, “what am I to do?”

“Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord.”

From amidst the din of noise from the world, when life is not a dewy garden path and the darkness of the world threatens to consume, comes the whisper of the Psalms bringing the world of authentic Christian practice. When you find yourself in the darkness, “Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord.”

Taylor’s cousin, Chris, was 12 when he was walking his bike across the street and was hit by a drunk driver who was driving away from her husband in the midst of a fight, so they decided to chase each other in their cars. This was about 10 weeks after our evening in the woods. One darkness very different from the other. I spent the better part of 2 weeks doing nothing but being by their side, saying next to nothing. In the midst of that time, we prepared for the funeral. As a pallbearer, and a friend, I went over to their house beforehand, and planned to caravan over to the church with Taylor and the family. As it was the funeral for someone so young, it was a little bit different. We sang some of Chris’ favorite church songs, including Hark the Herald Angels Sing even though it was June. We closed, not with Amazing Grace, but with another of Chris’ favorite songs, Jesus Loves Me.

After the funeral, after the graveside, after the reception, after everyone was cried out, I sat with the family in their home and got ready to go home. I looked at the family after confirming what time I would be there tomorrow and said something like, “Now what?” And Chris’ mother said this, “We’re going to sing Jesus loves me, tonight, tomorrow, and whenever we need to. That’s what.” And she began to sing.

In a moment of complete and total darkness, she sang that Jesus loves her, and she meant it.

In that moment, I was witnessed to and indicted for my lack of faith.

How often we have bought the myth sung by the world. The myth that salvation and redemption are just a trip to the mall away; that eternal life is found in a pill or a face cream; that we are the authors of our own salvation, our own redemption, our own sure fortress in the face of danger.

How many of us fall back on I’d like to Buy the World a Coke, when the words we need to hear, and the words we need to sing are Jesus Loves Me?

We sing, but too seldom is our song to the God of heaven and earth.

And when we fail to sing praise to God, it is so easy to forget to listen for the singing voices of God’s people all around us. Those singers of the songs of God who, speaking through women and men and children remind us…

…that in the face of war, there is yet a Prince of Peace,

…that a smile and a warm embrace is part of the kingdom of heaven,

…that one woman, 100+ years old, can provide manna from heaven for an entire Christian community,

…that in the darkest moments, Jesus loves me.

We sang Jesus loves me, sat in holy silence for sacred moments, and I nodded and left. I remember the feeling that song brought to me, knowing that while the light was yet far off, it would indeed come.

So it is with us. When the darkness of the world is closing in and there seems no escape from the night, the voices come to carry us into the dawn. For if there is one irrefutable Gospel truth in the middle of the darkest night, it is that, in Jesus Christ…

…morning happens.

May the Lord, maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion. Amen.