In the Waiting: Psalm 2

We were living in Flagstaff, Arizona. On this particularly clear night, as the moon hung full and bright in the star-filled sky, I was driving my son home from the church building. This was a time in his early development when I would’ve been answering lots of “why” questions. I wasn’t expecting this.

“Daddy, why is the moon so far away?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someday you’ll be able to answer that question for me.”
(Quietly staring out the window before reaching out his hand) “I just want to touch it.”

As we continued to drive home, I asked God to give me that same curious and courageous spirit - to not only ask questions, but to reach out and grab hold of God. “Why are you so far away, God?” “I just want to touch you.” I wonder how God responded to my question that night. Did God delight in my curious and courageous spirit?

Likewise, I wonder how God responded when the psalmist asked, “Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?” (Psalm 2:1)

It was a great question.

Psalm 2 would’ve served as a royal song highlighting the reign of King David and his heirs. The worshippers would regularly remind themselves that their God, YHWH, was in heaven laughing at such folly. Who in their right mind would think that they could “out-God” God? Their King, after all, was the one of whom the LORD declared, “You are my son; today I have begotten you.” (v.7) What a pointless endeavor to walk, stand, and sit in the seat of scoffers (Psalm 1), or to heed the counsel of fools!

As great questions usually do, this one kept the conversation going far into the future. The early church, in the midst of persecution, appropriated this same Psalm as a testimony to the sonship of Jesus, the Messiah.

“Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and everything in them, it is you who said by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant: ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers have gathered together against the Lord and against his Messiah.’ For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed…” (Acts 4:24-27 NRSV).

The early Christians knew Jesus to be the one of whom Psalm 2 proclaimed “to be God’s only-begotten Son, the sole Mediator between God and man, the Man Jesus Christ. His is the only name under heaven given men by which we may be saved.” (Reardon, Christ in the Psalms, p.4)

With this certain revelation of Christ’s rule and reign, even in our present reality, our souls are bolstered by this same hope-filled question: “Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?”

Like reaching out and trying to grab the moon, this is a subversive act of faith, hoping-upon-hope that Jesus Christ - “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8) - will come once again. There is no one else who can save.

Yes, this same question continues as we await the coming of Christ, both in this season of Advent and in His second coming. As we sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” we recognize just how much our world needs a Messiah still today:

“O come, O King of nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind.
Bid all our sad divisions cease
and be yourself our King of Peace”

As we enter more fully and freely into the space of Advent, may the Spirit of God challenge us with this question: Are we capable of waiting? Can we, like the psalmist, ask the question, “Why do the nations rage?”, and actually allow our souls to feel the weight of such a profound declaration of what is truer than true?

Jesus, the Christ, entered into our world - a world in which things that seem so far away are actually closer than they appear. And here, in the waiting, we “have seen a vision of greatness in the world of the future and are patiently expecting its fulfillment.” (Bonhoeffer)

It is in this patient waiting we proclaim the ultimate truth: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Happy are all who take refuge in him.