A Blessed Assurance
On this final day of our meditation on Psalm 94, we highlight the verses that bookend the psalm, vss. 1-2 and 20-23. Admittedly I had difficulty with the psalmist’s naming of God as the “God of vengeance.” The name was problematic for me because of my view, my vision of who God is. Yet, so as not to undermine or short circuit anyone else’s “God view,” I can affirm with a clear sense of peace that vengeance indeed belongs to the Lord (see note 1. below). This, I believe, is the point the psalmist sought to make; that the right to vengeance… the right to enact vengeance or retribution on another, does not rest with humankind and our authority, but it solely rests within the authority of God.
As the psalmist makes his appeal to God… registers his complaint, his outcry with God, he does not attempt to take matters into his own hands. Instead, he tarries before the Lord… he waits on God. He waits while giving a word of warning to the evildoers to get right now or be left behind later. He waits while actively praying to God, remembering who God is and has been, reciting to himself, and perhaps to others, the numerous ways in which the Lord has blessed in times past. He continues to make his appeal born out of his pain over the evils that others both great and small have perpetrated, yet he finds peace… assurance in the fact that God will, in God’s own time, call to account… call to justice every worker of evil… every agent of injustice who has acted against the Lord’s innocent and righteous.
In this confidence, Let Us garner the strength to remain faithful. In this assurance, Let Us take refuge in the God who is our rock… the Lord who is our stronghold… the Holy One who is our peace.
Let Us Pray
Lord God, we acknowledge that vengeance, retribution, and the day of reckoning are yours. We acknowledge that truth, justice, repentance, forgiveness, and acceptance into your holy family are yours. Lord God, as we too are yours, help us to wholeheartedly trust in you… to wait on you to work your perfect will in the lives of all persons created in your image and likeness, O God.
1. See Deut. 32:35. Verse also referenced in Rom. 12:19 and Heb. 19:30.