Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the day breathes cool and the shadows lengthen. The sun has come to the end of its course. The day and its toil is over. Now let us greet the darkness of the night with the friendly light of the candle, this welcome sign of the risen Savior. It invites us to see one another and all the things around us in the soft, warm, delicate life of that love that rises out of a death that Christ died for us, covering a multitude of sins, the light of reconciliation. On the evening of His resurrection, Christ opened to the two disciples at Amos the last meaning of all of Holy Scripture in this light, which said that Christ had to die in order to enter into His glory.

[01:09]

Now, in this same light, we intend to read and to pray the Psalms together. Remember what we saw when we meditated about Psalm 1. Blessed is the man whose delight is in the teaching of Yahweh, that means the God of mercy, and how he is like a tree planted carefully at the running waters of God's loving wisdom, bringing fruit in due season while on the other side the arrogant, the careless, and the scoffer play their empty game until their way beat us out. Tonight let us turn to Psalm 3. Let us read it in the same light, in an attitude of loving, careful listening, and weighing again each word. In the Hebrew text, the psalm starts out this way, Jarve.

[02:17]

The first word is an urgent, solemn invocation of God under His holy name, the name of steadfast love, of absolute fidelity. the name that seals the marriage covenant between God and His bride, His people, whose meaning was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. At the precise moment when the people, in their impatience and fickleness, nipped the covenant in the bud, were dancing around the golden calf, the self-made image of earthly life and fruitfulness. I will put you, Yahweh said at that moment, on a different, on a cliff next to me, on the rock. And Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood next to Moses and proclaimed the name of Yahweh.

[03:27]

Yahweh is God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. You may read the whole paragraph from Exodus, chapter 33, verse 17, to chapter 34, 8. There are two words in the Old Testament which express the intimate union of this name, Yahweh, with the people. The first is the name Joshua, familiar to all of you, especially as the name of Moses' successor, Joshua, who led the chosen people into the Holy Land and more and more familiar to you in its Greek form Jesus which means Jave brings salvation so the two words Jave and salvation are bound together into one expression

[04:41]

The other word is Alleluia, which means let us praise, or if you go back to the root meaning of the word, reflect Jah, an abbreviated form of Jah. The sages of Israel have always pointed out that this word, Alleluia, is so singularly precious to us because it fuses our praise into the reality of the name of God. In one word, while the other, Joshua, expresses the oneness of the inner essence of Yahweh with His activity of saving us. It might be good to point out to you that in this very Psalm 3 the words for saving, or salvation, or curse, at least three times,

[05:51]

in verse 3, in verse 8, and in verse 9. You understand its meaning better if you remember that the Hebrew word is derived from the root which means space, freedom. In contrast to the other root, the Hebrew, zarar, to press, to throw, to crowd, This word corresponds to the Latin angustia, narrowness, oppression, affliction, from which also our word anxiety is taken, and also the German angst. I mention this right here because the invocation of the psalmist, his cry, Jarve, rises from the anxiety which the Zarai, the word used in the psalm, inflict upon him.

[07:03]

O Jarve, so the text reads, how many are my oppressors, Zarai? Many rise up against Many are saying of me, there is no salvation, freedom, for him in God. Many, many, many. In Hebrew, rabbi. The well-known scholar Joachim Jeremiah points out in his article on Hol Poloi, in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, that while we understand the word many nearly always in the exclusive sense, meaning many are not all, the Hebrew language does not have a special word for all and takes through a beam very often in the inclusive sense as meaning all.

[08:07]

This has a very practical application in the way of translating the words of Our Lord at the Last Supper, according to Mark 14, 24. This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many. In the Old Roman Canon, it was said, which is the blood which is shed for you, that means the apostles, and for the many. It is certain that our Lord died for all, and that the Word, Matthew 20, 28, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, to give His life a ransom for many, has to be understood in the inclusive sense. And the same can be shown from other writings of the New Testament. If you take, for example, the first letter to Timothy, second chapter, the sixth verse, where Matthew 20, 28 is interpreted as meaning, who gave himself a ransom for all.

[09:26]

And yet, the word many, poloi, in Greek, either with or without article, has very often, in the Old Testament, the meaning of many, or the throne, or the masses, the crowd, in a pejorative sense. The majority, in Spanish for example, la gente, and the ignorant majority at that is in contrast to the chosen few remember Matthew 20 16 many are called but few are chosen they are the common people in opposition to the elite for the Jews it also meant very often the one chosen people, or the rest, the few, in comparison to the mass of the Gentiles, the multitude.

[10:40]

Or within the people, the few that adhere to God, and the many who don't care. In our psalm, it certainly has this latter connotation. The many oppressors and rebels and skeptics raise as a majority against the one and the few friends that are around him. You may compare the first book of Kings, chapter 18, 25, where Elias says to the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first, for you are many. The most important parallel, however, is in Isaiah's servant prophecies.

[11:42]

They are contained in Isaiah 52, verses 13 and 14. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. As many were astonished at you, his visage was so marred more than any man. So shall he sprinkle many nations. the kings shall shut their mouth at him, and so on. And then in chapter 53, by his knowledge, the servant's knowledge, shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.

[12:44]

And in verse 12, Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with the throng, because he has poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bear the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. the many evidently are here, the mass of the unjust and the sinners. as we can easily say in a later apocryphal human book called the Pinnock in chapter 62 who explains Isaiah 52 14 as all the kings, the mighty ones, those who possess the earth shall be terrified. This is the kind of many that is meant to us in the Holy Scripture, this word rabbi.

[13:53]

Of course in the New Testament the many are de facto all. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But evidently, even these all are basically the many. First, because they are all those for whom Christ dies. They are individuals. Each of them remains in his own. And second, they do not include the one Jesus Christ. neither among their number nor in their spirit. The important thing is, then, that we interpret the many prevalently as the world, or mankind insofar as they incur the judgment of God.

[15:03]

As soon as we understand this, we also understand the translation of the words of consecration of the wine in the New Canons, which will be shed for you and for all, it says there, instead of for the many. but the all not simply as a mark of completeness, but also as a mark of the divine agape which dies for the many. Now, there are three classes or groups of many in Psalm 3. First, those who press upon the psalmist. That means the political ringleaders who call all the narrowness and the anxiety. Then those who follow their lead. They rise up against the many that rise up.

[16:11]

And finally, those who think that God has deserted the psalmist or has pronounced against him. the skeptics. They say that God will not save him. Later, rabbinic interpretation identifies the situation of the psalmist, who according to the title is David, with the events that have been described in 2 Samuel 15-18. You may read these chapters. When Absalom rose against his father, and David had to flee from Jerusalem over the brook of Kidron and further across the Jordan, it was the most critical night of David's whole career.

[17:12]

But, unexpectedly, it ended in victory, with the help of David's friend Juse. In fact, many circumstances of this situation fit in very well with our psalm. Absalom had certainly succeeded in winning the many over to his side. As it says in 2 Samuel 15, verse 12, the people increased continually around Absalom. The judgment of God that Nathan had to announce to David because of the king's sin with Uriah's wife. Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. was still alive in the mind of the people who then mumbled, as they do in the psalm, how can there be salvation for him, for David, with God?

[18:20]

This is the third psalm, the third verse of our psalm. It is important that we pay attention to the use of the name God in this whole context. David's adversaries do not say He has no salvation with Yahweh, but they say he has no salvation for him in Elohim, in God, which is a general name for God as the Almighty. You may say the strict advocate of right. It is this idea of God which to the people seems to be incompatible with the idea of the salvation of David, a sinner like David. incompatible with the ever-beginning of life, flowing, ever-new beginning of life, flowing from the inexhaustible goodness of Yahweh, whose love is always ready to grant a new beginning out of the fullness of His life.

[19:30]

And therefore we understand the reaction of David when he continues what he has begun when he addressed himself at the beginning of the psalm in his distress to Yahweh. And now he repeats it. And yet, he says, you, Yahweh, Atah Yahweh. Both words are emphatic. You, that means the divine thou, you the living God, You, the one who faces me loving. You, the one who manifests himself as love. You are, as the text says, a shield all around me. A shield usually only protects one side of the person that carries it. While love, the love of Yahweh, is the perfect shield,

[20:37]

surrounding its object on all sides. And much more, the text continues, you are my glory, lifting up my head. That means a protector, not only against all the attacks from the outside, but filling me with your glory from within. giving me faith and courage, because you love me. And so David continues, I raise my voice and cry to Jarveh, and he has already heard me from the mountain of his sanctuary. The name of Yahweh is the pledge of His presence, because love always is present.

[21:41]

There is no distance in the realm of love. At the moment I turn to God's love for me, lifting up my voice to Him, He is with me. He has already heard me. from his sanctuary, because the essence of the sanctuary of Jehovah is not to be a symbol of his transcendent might or of the remoteness and distance of God's glory, but it is the place where Jehovah's ear is, where his eye His ear inclined, lovingly inclined, to hear the cries of those in distress and anxiety. His eye, His face, not only to look at us, but to inspire love into us.

[22:50]

That is the meaning of the face. That is why Israel is invited three times a year to appear before the face of Yahweh in the sanctuary, to encounter Yahweh, to be in His presence, the presence of their Father as His children. Now the whole situation of that fatal night of David's flight from Jerusalem with the crossing of the Kidron and his escape over the Jordan, one passing over after the other, comes back now to David's mind. This night was, in his experience, his zero hour. It was really and truly a death. But in Jarvis' loving providence, this night was the turn in David's fortunes.

[24:01]

It allowed him to realize, realign his people. And without fear of the many who ranged on every side against him, he returned to Jerusalem while Absalom perished. Here we are at the heart of the psalm. It's verse six. I lie down to rest, and I sleep. I wake, for the Lord upholds me. Everything has turned against David. Then came the night in which he withdrew from fight, capitulated interiorly before God. He laid himself down. He slept. And what happened? He wakes up. The Lord has upheld

[25:04]

A new day has been given. If one reads the narrative told in 2 Samuel 17, one realizes this is the description of the fatal night. Compare, for example, 17.1 and 17.16, ending with the morning of a new day, chapter 17, verse 22, with all his people safely with David on the other side of the Jordan. And now he prays, realizing that this past night has brought him close to victory. He says, Arise, Jarvis, save me, my God. because you have slapped my enemies in the face that means you have humiliated them turned their boasting into ridicule and you have broken the teeth of the rebels that means you have broken their power and then he ends

[26:30]

But with Yahweh is salvation, freedom, living space. Over your people, your blessings. You could continue reading 2 Samuel, chapter 17, verse 27 to 29, how David's friends came, bringing beds, and earthen vessels, and wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched corn, and beans, and lentils, and parched pulse, and honey, and butter, and sheep, and cheese of kind. for David and for the people that were with him to eat. For they said, the people is hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness." Indeed, the whole scene reminds us of the feeding of the 5,000 at Jesus' time in the desert.

[27:37]

I realize, of course, that I would If I would base the entire explanation of Psalm 3 on the story of Absalom's Rebellion and David's victory, I would be ridiculed by the exegetes, and to a certain extent rightly. And I would also lose the sympathy of my contemporaries, and maybe you, my listeners, who would not be able to identify themselves with the psalm and say, all right, David, but that's not me. But thank God the text of the psalm is composed in such a way that it goes beyond any concrete historical situation and presents a typical situation.

[28:43]

and that means a situation that is as actual today for us as it was 3,000 years ago for David. Let us go back to verse 6, the heart of the psalm. I lied down to rest, I slept, I woke up, for Javeh upholds me." This could not have been said in a more simple form. I must confess in the past I have often associated this verse with other passages in Scripture where sleep plays a decisive role. at a decisive turning point of the history of salvation.

[29:50]

I mention, for example, the sleep that came over Adam when God formed Eve from his side. This you find in Genesis, the second chapter, verse 21. Or with the sleep that was sent over Abraham when he received the vision and the experience of Israel's sufferings in exile in Egypt. This you find in Genesis 15 verse 12. And from here one's associations may pass to the sleep of Elias under the tree, when he was on his way to Mount Horeb. This again you find in the first book of Kings, chapter 19, verse 4 to 8.

[30:58]

And further to the New Testament, the Lord's sleep in the boat during the storm and his sleep on the cross followed by the resurrection. However, in the Hebrew text there are two kinds of sleep clearly distinguished one from the other. There is the specific deep sleep that came over Adam and over Abraham, and which is also mentioned in 1 Samuel 26, 12, as having come, be sent from the Lord over Saul and his friends. The Hebrew expression, Thardima, for this kind of sleep implies a complete torpor that immobilizes man.

[32:05]

The other kind of sleep is the refreshing one of the good conscience, the ordinary daily gift that restores man's energies and enables him to rise with new hope to face a new day. One might also mention in this connection still Genesis 28 verse 11 where Jacob on his flight from his father's home into exile arrives at the place that the Slater called, that he calls Beth-El, House of God, and where the sun set. And he took the stones and that way protected his head, and then slept at this place.

[33:21]

And then during the sleep, The new dimension opened. And God's ladder was put down and he saw God leaning at the top of the ladder and then being connected or in contact with him, with Jacob through the angels ascending and descending. So a picture of God's loving care for the poor emigrant who is overcome by fatigue. and surrenders and at this moment again a new dimension of God's love is open to him but in relation to Jacob the word which is used to is not tardima not the deep sleep but the usual sleep that refreshing

[34:24]

Sleep of the good conscience, the ordinary daily gift. that restores man's energy and enables him to rise with new hope, face a new day. It is the sleep in peace which is mentioned in Psalm 4, 8. I lie down in peace and sleep comes at once, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety. Just for this dwelling in safety one could also look up if you want Leviticus 26 verse 6. Now this sleep is a gift of God's love for man. As soon as man forgets the constant presence of God's loving care, he is apt to get worried about the future.

[35:27]

A certain unrest seizes upon him. He rises early in the morning, and he stays up deep into the night And when he sleeps, he is also then, he is not really at rest, turns from one side to the other. He eats his bread under the pressure of toil and worry. While in reality, God gives to those whom he loves the gift of sleep. This is beautifully expressed in Psalm 126 which in this connection should be read. He gives the gift of sleep to restore their strength while they have stopped worrying and fretting and laboring and have simply surrendered

[36:35]

in absolute trust in God to that kind of rest which is truly creative and in no way exhausting. According to the rule of Saint Benedict, this Psalm 3 should be recited by the monks at the beginning of vigils. Vigils are the prayer of the monks that the monks offer during the night. Saint Benedict that could be noticed here had moved vigils from midnight which had been its usual place in monastic circles, especially in Egypt, to a later hour, around, let us say, three in the morning, so that the monks would not have to interrupt their sleep.

[37:49]

and would not have to retire again to their beds after midnight, as was necessary when this service was held at midnight. Now in this new context of their sleep, and beginning the day when they wake up, although it was still night, In this context, Psalm 3 was to St. Benedict a natural to be recited of the monks. Psalm 3 starts on a very low note. How many are my foes, O Lord? How many are rising up against me? How many are saying about me, there is no help for him in God? It is good to remember that Jewish tradition distinguishes two kinds of Psalms.

[39:01]

One that supposes that man is interiorly full of the Spirit and ready to break out into God's praises. and the other which supposes the opposite that man is down in the dumps so to speak. Now this I think is a very wise distinction because it prevents us from thinking that we have to be in the mood to pray before we pray. This could easily lead to a kind of perfectionism. The perfectionism which has kept many people from receiving, for example, communion as long as they didn't feel in top shape. The basic error underlying this attitude is the mistaken idea

[40:07]

that prayer is our product that it has to be just so and we are completely concentrated all our attention and our eyes and our mind directed and recollected to God in order to make our prayer worthy of God And the other idea that comes in here that a prayer is worthy of God as long as it is the authentic expression of my personal feelings. Now our Psalm 3 does not suppose that the one who prays it is riding on the high waves of enthusiasm.

[41:13]

Instead, it rather rises out of the depths. God is far away. What is near, all around us, are the many. The difficulties that press upon us And this is certainly realistic if one thinks of the monks who have been awakened, politely but firmly, at an, what we call, ungodly hour in the earliest morning. It is only natural to suppose that their general outlook on the world is not especially French-friendly one. And what about us today and those who are not monks?

[42:16]

You don't have to be a monk either to feel the blues at the beginning of another day with all its prospects of toil and sweat and unpleasantness. The psalms pick you up at the morning, right where you are. The last category of the many around you are the righteous ones, whose God, Elohim, called Elohim, is just the image of their own severity, or maybe better, meanness. And they assure you that Elohim the name that the psalm uses here for God and which reflects the general human idea for God as the almighty and the severe judge that this Elohim has no use for you as long as you are in this very doubtful mood in the early morning as sinner as you are

[43:42]

But in the psalmist the remembrance of this kind of hostility all around him at a morning that doesn't grin at him or smile at him but rather shows a very drab face and especially in the drab faces of his enemies, those who tell him, you have no chance with God, man as you are, a sinner. in the psalmist this situation sparks a reaction in his heart and of course with the psalmist also in us so he emphatically states you

[44:59]

Jehovah you have salvation that means room for repentance space for development space to breathe freedom for everyone who turns to him and so he reiterates this invocation the invocation with which he started his prayer at the beginning of the psalm As you remember, he started with the invocation, Yahweh. And here he says, You, Yahweh, Atah Yahweh, You are my shield. You are my glory. You do not reject me. You lift up my head. This is the way you created me, as your image and likeness, with my head lifted up, and not bent low, but lifted up, to you, to praise you, to thank you, to cry to you for help.

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And you answer, you answer from your sanctuary on your mountain, where you dwell in our midst as the shepherd of your flock, where your eye watches over us, where your ear listens, where your heart is. And it is in this connection of remembering all the various aspects of Yahweh's love for him that the faith of the psalmist, and again our faith, crystallizes around the one simple fact of sleeping and waking up and rising. as an immediate, present, simple, evident manifestation of Jarvis' saving intervention in our lives.

[47:20]

To lie down is an act of surrender. To fall asleep is a matter of inner trust. To wake up with one strength renewed in the morning is a resurrection if somebody wants to write a theology of the everyday life to my mind he could start it right at this very point because here we are at the heart of our human life the most basic of all the everyday events. What is our life? What else is it but a constant dying and rising? And what is more important for man than to be conscious of these basic factors?

[48:30]

to plumb their depths of meaning and to live according. To be conscious of this simple fact of lying down, falling asleep and rising. To be conscious of it means not to take this simple thing for granted not to drift, therefore, into the day without realizing what has happened. That by lying down in the evening one has given up, one has stopped trying to keep everything under control, one has let go of oneself. And to be overcome by sleep, if you think about it, what else is it but an image of death?

[49:39]

Even one can say a kind of anticipation of death. But trusting, if not explicitly, then at least implicitly. that when we reach the outer edge of our possibilities, there is something bigger to take care of us. That's our basic trust when we fall asleep. And our rising the next morning tells us that what is bigger than us is that love which is stronger than death. I woke up, the psalmist says, for Jahweh upholds me.

[50:44]

Now as soon as I have penetrated into this depth of meaning of my daily dying and rising, then I am also able to face the new day not simply as a continuation of all the misery that has preceded it, but as a new day, as a gift of this bigger, embracing, all-comprehensive love. And only love is able to make things new every day. Only love truly creates. Only love lets us see things in a new light and gives us the courage to start all over again.

[51:44]

As soon as I realize that I am being love beyond my own possibilities and limitations, I am able to begin. Because this kind of love and realization of being love that chases out fear. And fear is what paralyzes us. and hinders us from moving ahead. Therefore, in the morning of an ever-new love, I will not fear, as the psalmist says, thousands of people. The Hebrew original here has the word multitudes, which fits much better into the context of the many. Huber, in his translation, takes the German word Menge, which means multitude.

[52:54]

The multitudes have ranged on every side against The fearful distress of verse two of the psalm has changed into complete confidence, which then bursts out into a prayer which is filled with absolute certainty of being answered. Rise, Yahweh, give salvation, my God. You have humiliated my foes, and you have broken the power of the wicked. And then at the end, at the very end of the psalm, the waves that began low in the valley of fear before the many and then rose slowly in the power of faith in Yahweh to the heights of victory over the multitude of the enemies.

[53:59]

These waves at their high point break. For what purpose? They return into a new and lasting and universal calm. And that is expressed then in the last verse of the psalm. Yet, salvation belongs to Yahweh over your people, your blessings. The psalmist, it may be David, but only as a type, make for king of all his sons, reaches a completely new dimension in this verse, beyond all personal resentment or hate, because he remembers he himself carries the enemy in his own heart. He confesses, whatever my own exciting feelings may be, salvation, liberation, is in the hands of Jarve alone.

[55:06]

Then in this confession he is truly king. The king has his people, he has all at heart, including the many. And so he pronounces his royal blessing. You may compare 2 Samuel 6.18. And this royal blessing is, over your people, your blessing. Now this is the height that in the New Testament Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David, and the King of the Jews, reached when he was lifted up upon the cross and extended his arms over the multitudes of Mochus and Scornus. If you are the Son of God, descend upon the cross, they said. Heal yourself, doctor, they said. And Jesus, surrounded by the many of these coffers, prayed, Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.

[56:19]

With this he surrendered and inclined his head to sleep in the love of his Father. So, my dear brothers and sisters of Christ, with the friendly light of Christ in our hands, we have followed the rise that took the psalmist from the depths of fear and distress, before the many, on the wings of trust in Jehovah's love for him, through the heart of his daily life, through surrender and sleep, into a new morning of triumph over his foes, and beyond that into that new world where Yahweh the Father is all in all. Now, my dear friends, go and you yourself lie down and rest, and tomorrow morning begin all over again, for the love of the Father of Jesus Christ is stronger than death, and be a blessing then the next morning and through the day be a blessing for your people and then the morning after tomorrow and you get up and the new day looks gray and you are tempted to linger while on the edge of your bed and to sigh over the prospect to face another day

[57:44]

Don't hesitate for a moment to express your feelings as they are and say, How many are my foes? How many are against me? How many tell me it's all of no use? Don't think it undignified to tell these things to God. But not to the God of the righteous ones, but to Yahweh, the Lord, the Father of Jesus Christ, who kept watch over you during the night and brought you to a new day and upholds you. In the morning after, do more, do the same thing. And so on, day after day, all through your everyday life, and whenever you had to die and rose again, until all that is within you sings without ceasing, the Lord is my salvation. which in Hebrew is Hosanna.

[58:47]

Hosanna who comes in the name of the Lord.

[58:52]

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