Put on the Armor

But rejoice, all who take refuge in You, sing for joy forever!  And may You shelter them, that those who love Your name may rejoice in You.  For You bless the righteous person, Lord, You surround him with favor as with a shield.  Psalm 5:11-12  NASB

Shield – Don’t we wish the poet’s words were true!  How life would be different if every believer had a personal shield. Like Dune.  Force-field magic that prevents an enemy’s attack.  Paul might have written about spiritual armor of God, but it doesn’t seem to stop an assassin’s bullet.  Ah, then we see that the poet’s words are not literal.  It’s a metaphor and metaphors are just figures of speech, not really real.  So, maybe Paul is right.  The armor is like a shield, but not like physical barriers.  Too bad.

Now that we know it’s only a comparison, perhaps we should ask, “What kind of shield does God really provide?”  “How can God’s ‘shield’ make any difference if I am still subject to the slings and arrows of this world?”  And finally, of course, “What about the righteousness of Job?  Where was God’s shield in his life?”  Disturbing questions, I’m afraid, because most of the time it seems that whatever the “shield” is, it doesn’t work in this world.  God might smile upon His chosen ones, but that doesn’t seem to prevent heartache, suffering, and even death.  If Jewish history is any evidence, it would seem that having God’s “shield” is actually an invitation for abuse.

“History is a nightmare,” wrote Abraham Heschel.  Yet, he rejoiced.  How can we take refuge in God and sing for joy forever when we are being beaten, shamed, demoralized, abused, rejected, even murdered?  Where is the rejoicing and shelter in genocide?  Is the poet simply offering platitudes or is there some tangible reality to his claim?  I suppose the most pressing question for each of us is simply, “How can I be faithful to You, O Lord, when my world is so despicably cruel?”

Years ago I wrote about professional photojournalist Kevin Carter who committed suicide at age 33.  He is remembered for his Pulitzer Prize winning picture of a starving Sudanese child, huddled in the fetal position of death, while a patient vulture perched a few feet away waited for its next meal.  Time magazine reported the suicide as a result of severe depression brought on in part by witnessing the hideous violence he photographed in his work.[1] Maybe the psalmist’s words don’t apply to those outside the Kingdom, but it’s hard to witness how much the innocent suffer.  If I suppose these words only apply to insiders, I still struggle to find the “joy forever” without pretending that it must be discovered after exiting this place.  What does the poet mean when he sings, “You bless the righteous person.”  Bless him with trials?  Bless him with threats?  Bless him with pogroms?  “To bless in the ot means ‘to endue with power for success, prosperity, fecundity, longevity, etc.’”^[2]  Heschel is right.  It’s a nightmare.  How do we find joy forever when there is no prosperity, no fruitfulness, no longevity?  Plato called hope nothing more than projected wish-fulfillment for the weak.  I don’t  believe God’s faithful are weak, but the poet’s words surely seem like lies.  Why should we believe them?

“Rejoice, all you who take refuge in God.”  Read these words again and be brutally honest.  Why (how) can we rejoice?  Is it that we have the promise that God will (some time) intervene?  Is it that God’s sovereignty will (ultimately) prevail?  Is the focus of rejoicing really the confidence that in the end God wins?  That kind of joy can’t be taken from us just because the world is a mess now.  That kind of joy is anchored in the future, without, by the way, a set date.  We’re still waiting—and we have been since the Garden.  But does temporal delay remove joy?  Not really.  It’s just joy postponed.  Maybe that’s what the poet really means.  “Rejoice—because some day all of this will be just.”  The shield isn’t protection now.  It’s the guarantee that some day it will all be corrected.

And maybe this verse demands something after our deaths.  Maybe this poet realizes there has to be another life if any of this is true.  Heaven can wait only if waiting is justified.

Topical Index: rejoice, shield, joy, Psalm 5:11-12

[1] See my book, The Lucky Life, p. 8.

^[2] Oswalt, J. N. (1999). 285 בָּרַך. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 132). Moody Press.