In his
reflection on Psalm 102 in his book "Songs of Experience", Roy Clements refers to the 16th century
playwright Thomas Nashe’s poem written
during an outbreak of the plague. He only cites a few verses, but for full
effect let me quote the whole thing:
Adieu, farewell,
earth’s bliss;
This world uncertain
is;
Fond are life’s
lustful joys;
Death proves them all
but toys;
None from his darts
can fly;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord,
have mercy on us!
Rich men, trust not in
wealth,
Gold cannot buy you
health;
Physic himself must
fade.
All things to end are
made,
The plague full swift
goes by;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord,
have mercy on us!
Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will
devour;
Brightness falls from
the air;
Queens have died young
and fair;
Dust hath closed
Helen’s eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord,
have mercy on us!
Strength stoops unto
the grave,
Swords may not fight
with fate,
Earth still holds ope
her gate.
“Come, come!” the
bells do cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord,
have mercy on us.
Wit with his
wantonness
Tasteth death’s
bitterness;
Hell’s executioner
Hath no ears for to
hear
What vain art can
reply.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord,
have mercy on us.
Haste, therefore, each
degree,
To welcome destiny;
Heaven is our
heritage,
Earth but a player’s
stage;
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord,
have mercy on us.
Cheery wee number…
and completely out of tune with the modern age which is running headlong to
avoid the inevitability of death. Indeed the middle-aged man on a treadmill may
be the perfect metaphor for the modern world’s attitude to death… Running ever
faster but getting no-where… At best delaying the inevitable by a few years…
Health and
well-being is a major industry… and a fertile field for charlatans and quacks.
The sad thing is that the Church has it’s fair share of the same… The
superstition around some Roman Catholic pilgrimage sites, the inappropriate
emphasis placed on “signs and wonders” in certain Pentecostal and Charismatic
strands of the the church, and the unashamed money-grabbing of
some supposedly Christian "faith-healers” are all manifestations of this…
In the light of this the
approach of Nashe or the "afflicted man" cited in this Psalm, would be seen as being defeatist and betraying a lack of faith… But as Roy
Clements points out:
“A believer is not a person who believes in healing; a believer is a person who believes in God.”
God does heal… but
not “on demand” and anyway, any earthly healing is only temporary. Unless Christ
returns, we will all eventually die and return to dust… even those who have
been healed.
The original of this psalm is the prayer of someone who is clearly physically ill, but this is
complicated by the fate of Jerusalem ,
which seems to have been destroyed at the time of writing. We
don’t know whether the psalmist has been exiled, or is literally living in the
ruins of the city (as verse 6 might suggest), but either would have a profound affect on his
emotional wellbeing, and our physical health is, as we have already said in
this study, is deeply affected by our psychological and emotional health.
His description of
his condition is evocative… he’s clearly fading away… he’s lost his appetite…
everything tastes like ashes… and he is weeping uncontrollably… He blames God,
because if God is truly sovereign then everything is his fault. But he is also
looks to God as the source of all healing and restoration. But God’s timing is not necessarily our own, and Hebrews
1 would suggest that while this Psalm may not have been fulfilled in the Psalmist’s lifetime,
it was ultimately fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and
in his body, the church. Jesus, through us, is the source of all healing, for
all nations…
One final thought before I offer you my paraphrase of this Psalm (heavily influenced as usual by Eugene Peterson's work); The concluding contrast
between the Psalmist’s mortality as a creature and the finite nature of
creation over and against the infinite, immortality of the creator, who was there in the
beginning and always will be, was an explicit challenge to the contemporary
cosmologies of Babylon
which were supposed to be recorded in the stars in the heavens. But it is also a
challenge to the Godless science of the so-called “New Atheists” which claims that
an absence of evidence of God in cosmology and evolution is evidence of his
absence… Not so says the Psalmist… his fingerprints are to be found all over
the place if you have eyes to see… And not only was he around in the beginning,
he will be around long after we (and the New Atheists) are gone… indeed will be
there long after all evidence of our earthly existence is gone as well.
Listen to my
prayer, O Lord; hear my cry for help.
Don’t turn your back on me when I am in desperation.
Pay attention to
my pleas and hurry to help me.
I’m fading away to nothing; I’m burning up with fever.
My heart is shrivelling up within me; I’ve lost my appetite for food and life.
I moan and groan all the time; I’m reduced to skin and bones.
I feel like a vulture, picking over the ruins of my life.
Or a lonely tawny
owl twit-twooing in the twilight.
All day long my enemies mock me; while others call me accursed.
I live on a diet of ashes; I drink deeply from my own tears;
In your great anger,
you seem to have swept me aside discarded me;
You have plucked
me from your path like a withered weed.
But you, O Lord,
are still on the throne; always and
forever sovereign.
Yet it is time for you to arise from your throne and show compassion to
your people;
The time to act
has come.
Rescue your people from the rubble and the ruin and the
world will sit up and take notice;
When you, O Lord restore your people, your glory
will be clear.
They will see that you respond to the prayers of the wretched;
That you do not
dismiss their pleas.
Write this down for generations to come, so that those yet unborn may praise the Lord:
"The Lord
looked down from his high and holy place, from
heaven he surveyed the earth,
He heard the piteous groans of the prisoners; he released those on death row."
So the name of the Lord
will be praised among his people;
It will be
honoured in all nations when people gather to worship the Lord.
While I was striding tall through life he brought me to
my knees;
he cut me down in
the prime of life.
"Don’t let me die so soon, O my God” I prayed; “while you endure eternally.
You were there at the beginning shaping the sphere on
which we stand,
and leaving your
fingerprints all over the sky.
All of creation will crumble to dust, but you remain forever;
They will all wear out like an old suit of clothes;
In time you will change
them and throw them away.
Everything changes but you remain the same, your years will never come to an end.
The children of your servants will live under your shadow;
their children’s
children’s children will find their home in you."
Psalms 102
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