Psalm 130(131), Mark 1:9-11, Psalm 118(119)
In humble obedience to God, Jesus receives baptism. All that he does, even the miraculous, is an example for us. It starts easy: it is easy to be baptized, profound though it us. It is harder to accept crucifixion.
Concerning the psalms, it is often useful to identify with whatever we read in scripture, to associate the accounts we read either with our own lives as they are or as they should be. When reading the Gospel, this is easy to accomplish on an intellectual level, at least. Even if we never manage to practice what we learn, it is not difficult to mentally connect the dots and say, "Oh, this passage means that I should..."
For an American in the 21st century (and we're all Americans now, right?), identifying one's own experiences with those of the psalmist may not seem so easy.In fact, the psalmist may often sound like a bitter, paranoid loser.
I have recently found, though, that if I am truly honest with myself, I do indeed have much in common with the psalmist. When he speaks of those who 'lay traps' or 'dig pits' I do not, of course think of shadow-skulking assassins tracking me through back alleys (I live in a rural area. No back alleys). But, especially now, are there not forces which seek to ruin me and my family? When the credit card company raised my rates to 30%, I certainly felt that way. When banks and utilities began to charge outrageous fees for various services, I felt cornered, angry, harassed. When a mountain lion invaded my kids' school and killed their goats, I felt unsafe.
As it turns out, it is not so difficult to understand the psalmist some times.
7 comments:
When he speaks of those who 'lay traps' or 'dig pits' I do not, of course think of shadow-skulking assassins tracking me through back alleys (I live in a rural area. No back alleys).
What about dry-gulchers and bush-whackers? They still have gulches and bushes in Arizona, don't they?
Yes, but for the life of me, I have never known what "dry-gulching" someone means. Do you?
Hey, Rob, ... here's something about the controversial issue of "Hitler's Pope". >;)
noun, the act of killing someone from ambush.
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=dry-gulching
Hmmmm. Who is that anonymous anti-Catholic?
I wonder.
Dim,
But why "dry-gulch"? Was it common to wait until someone stepped into a dry gulch to ambush them? Surely, that would have been an easy one to avoid. The etymologist in me is curious.
"Dry" can refer to the absence of something, such as "a dry county" (forbidding/lacking alcohol). Gultch seems to be derived from an old English word meaning greed. To "dry gulch" someone apparently originally meant to ambush or kill them without (i.e., lacking) the intent of theft. Eventually it came to signify "ambush" in general. Except for the common etymology, the term really had nothing to do with a gulch (deep-walled desert canyon).
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