Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel also was among those who called on his name. They cried to the LORD, and he answered them. He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud: they kept his decrees, and the statutes that he gave them. O LORD our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings. Extol the LORD our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the LORD our God is holy. Psalm 99: 6-9, NRSV.
Our LORD and our God, we worship You today in the beauty of holiness. We ask that Your mercies will not depart from us, but that You will enable us during this week to walk as You walked and to dwell under Your shadow, in peace and safety! In Your holy name we pray. Amen.
The theme of God’s righteousness and justice rings clear throughout this psalm. What caught my attention was the fact that this psalm speaks of a time when Israel was a Theocracy. God alone was King. There was no earthly king in Israel. The reason this stood out in my mind, is because when God sits on the throne, whether it is upon the throne of our individual hearts, or when He rules over a people, justice is promoted, and “executed;” because He is a “lover of justice” (4). Equity will bear sway, and become a way of life, because He “established equity” (4)!
Israel thought that it was a good thing to have an earthly king in order to be “like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8: 5). It is true that the ungodly behavior of Samuel’s sons may have made the request urgent (3), but the words of the LORD to Samuel, makes it clear that, sooner or later, they would have asked for a king, anyway. Listen to the following : “And the LORD said to Samuel, ‘ “Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day—with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also” (7, 8). They would now become a monarchy.
The children of Israel and we have more in common than we care to admit. They wanted to be “like all the nations,” and so do we. But, also like the children of Israel, we want to “eat our cake” and still have have it, too. We want to be God’s special people, while living like everyone else (Exodus 19: 5, 6; 1 Peter 2: 9). We also want to ignore the injustice in the world, while claiming God’s justice. Our argument is that the two concerns are alien one to another. We claim that the Christian has no say in the things that take place in the world. That was not what Jesus said. His words were, “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one” (John 17: 15). The caution is against loving “the world or the things of the world” (1 John 2: 15).
Many Christians are silent in the face of injustice when it is being done to others, but we speak out against it when we become the target. Like Israel of old, we just want to, “fit in.” That caused Peter some grave problems (Matthew 26: 69-75). We need to take a stand for what we believe. Jesus was never silent in the face of injustice, neither were His prophets of old!
Our Scripture for today makes it very clear that when Jesus is King of our lives, justice and equity will be as important to us, as it is to Him. Even though Moses stood in God’s place before the people, and Aaron was God’s high priest, Sacred Scripture informs us, that their wrongdoing did not go unpunished. The reason, my friends, that justice and equity is so important to God is because God is holy! The psalmist goes on to say that these men of God kept His decrees and statues. God answered them when they called upon Him. He forgave their sins. But one thing did not nullify the other. When they did wrong, the wrong deed was punished, because God’s holiness and His justice go hand in hand!
In the previous psalm the psalmist makes it clear that God is King over the whole earth (98: 2), and that He will judge the world and the people (9). He is also King over His people, and all the “peoples” (99: 1, 2), and judges them (8). Wherever God sits enthroned, justice and equity will reign. When we speak out against injustice we make people aware that unrighteousness will not go unpunished, and we give them an opportunity to consider their ways and make wrongs right. Injustice is wrong wherever it is found, because it is contrary to the holy character of God!