March 2: The Lord, a Provider and Deliverer
♫ Music:
Day 17 - Friday, March 2
Title: The Lord, a Provider and Deliverer
Scripture: Psalm 34:1-22
I will bless the Lord at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul will make its boast in the Lord;
The humble will hear it and rejoice.
O magnify the Lord with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
I sought the Lord, and He answered me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
They looked to Him and were radiant,
And their faces will never be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
And saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him,
And rescues them.
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
O fear the Lord, you His saints;
For to those who fear Him there is no want.
The young lions do lack and suffer hunger;
But they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing.
Come, you children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
Who is the man who desires life
And loves length of days that he may see good?
Keep your tongue from evil
And your lips from speaking deceit.
Depart from evil and do good;
Seek peace and pursue it.
The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
And His ears are open to their cry.
The face of the Lord is against evildoers,
To cut off the memory of them from the earth.
The righteous cry, and the Lord hears
And delivers them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
And saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
But the Lord delivers him out of them all.
He keeps all his bones,
Not one of them is broken.
Evil shall slay the wicked,
And those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
The Lord redeems the soul of His servants,
And none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.
Poetry: A Mother in a Refugee Camp
By Chinua Achebe
No Madonna and Child could touch
Her tenderness for a son
She soon would have to forget. . . .
The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea,
Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs
And dried-up bottoms waddling in labored steps
Behind blown-empty bellies. Other mothers there
Had long ceased to care, but not this one:
She held a ghost-smile between her teeth,
And in her eyes the memory
Of a mother’s pride. . . . She had bathed him
And rubbed him down with bare palms.
She took from their bundle of possessions
A broken comb and combed
The rust-colored hair left on his skull
And then—humming in her eyes—began carefully to part it.
In their former life this was perhaps
A little daily act of no consequence
Before his breakfast and school; now she did it
Like putting flowers on a tiny grave.
O TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS GOOD
Seeing artist Andrea Kantrowitz’s work, Pomegranates Reclining, prompted me to recall the first time I experienced the pleasure of eating a pomegranate. I was well into adulthood when this occurred. But when I finally ate of one, I was not disappointed. The arils exploded their sweet juiciness in my mouth and I was in ecstasy. This, I thought, is the perfect fruit. A God who created this fruit is obviously a God who loves to delight His creatures. When I tasted it, I was confirmed in my belief that God is good.
It is instructive to note that pomegranates have been esteemed by God’s people for a long time. The fruit held significance among the ancient Israelites. God commanded the priestly vestments to be adorned with likenesses of pomegranates. Solomon’s temple incorporated a carved pomegranate motif into the capitals topping its huge pillars.
“O taste and see that the Lord is good.” For this devotion, I have chosen to highlight these particular words from the accompanying passage, Psalm 34. That psalm is attributed to David, and its ancient superscription states that he wrote it “when he changed his countenance before Abimelech.” A bit of sleuthing leads us to the story of David and Abimelech in I Samuel 21. David and his men were on the run from King Saul. They took refuge with the priest Abimelech, and they ate the showbread that was kept in the tabernacle. Jesus referred to this incident when He demonstrated that the law, in this case, the Sabbath law, was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
For their physical sustenance, David and his men relied on this consecrated bread. Therefore, he rejoices by connecting the sense of taste with the perception of God’s goodness. God is good, he is saying, because He provides for those faithful to Him. But according to the interpretation of many Christians, this verse has a double meaning. It is also a prophecy of the Lord’s institution of communion at His last supper with His disciples. Given the connection between tasting and seeing the Lord’s goodness with tasting the bread and wine that Jesus said was His body and blood, this passage is used in many churches as a hymn sung at the time when the faithful come forward to receive the Lord’s Supper. It seems that artist Greg Stump is making a similar connection in his song.
For Christians with a sacramental understanding of the reception of the consecrated bread and wine, David’s jubilant exhortation to “taste and see” the Lord’s goodness is pregnant with spiritual meaning and intimacy. They taste and see God’s goodness when they receive Him within themselves as they partake of the sacrament. In this faithful act of worship, they are spiritually sustained by tasting of the goodness of God. And communion between God and man is both achieved and affirmed.
Prayer:
O Lord Jesus Christ, as we continue on this journey of life, and as we progress again to that time of year when Your saving death and resurrection is most especially focused on, we ask You to help us to taste and see Your goodness.
Amen.
Father Ignatius Valentine
Pastor of St. Raphael Orthodox Church
Iowa City, Iowa
About the Artwork:
Pomegranates Reclining
Andrea Kantrowitz
2005
Oil on canvas
60.96 x 121.9 cm
Artist Andrea Kantrowitz is interested not only in the look of her subjects but their interior dynamics. In her still-life paintings, she says she “tears apart her subjects to reveal their underlying structure.” She uses the theories and methods of cognitive psychology to connect with the hidden dynamics of artists' thinking processes which helps to give meaning to what might otherwise be simply studies of observed reality. The pomegranates open and “reclining” on the table can easily be seen to symbolize the brokenness of a person.
About the Artist:
Andrea Kantrowitz is an artist, researcher, and educator who has lectured and given workshops internationally on art and cognition. She is the graduate program coordinator and an assistant professor in Art Education at the State University of New York. As Director of the Thinking through Drawing Project at Teachers College at Columbia University, she has organized a series of international drawing and cognition research symposia in collaboration with colleagues from the U.K. She holds a BA in Art and Cognition from Harvard University and an MFA in Painting from Yale University. She has taught foundational drawing at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and graduate courses in contemporary art at the College of New Rochelle. She recently completed an interdisciplinary doctorate at Teachers College, which examined the cognitive interactions underlying contemporary artists’ drawing practices.
About the Music:
“Taste and See” from the album Songs for Our Family
Lyrics:
You alone are worthy of delight
I don’t know why I look to other things
To satisfy the longing in my heart
I need your love, to receive your love
All you gave up to forgive us
We receive it, we believe in you
Taste and see the Lord is wholly good
His blood like wine, his body is true food
Break the bread, abide within his love
Take the cup, take the blood he offered up
All you’ve given we will take in
To remember, to proclaim
till you come back again
About the Composer:
Greg Stump (b. 1971), originally from Cerritos, California, has degrees from California State Long Beach, Chapman University, and Fuller Theological Seminary. He worked as a Resident Director at Biola University for seven years and has been full-time staff elder at Redeemer Church, La Mirada, since 2012. He currently oversees a number of ministries there (community groups, arts, liturgy, administration, etc.), and works to develop new ministry teams and leaders. He also serves as the director of the church staff and helps plan the worship services each week. Greg also helped to create Gospel-centered Churches for La Mirada, a collaborative network of local ministers and churches in the area, and also founded Love La Mirada, an organization which brings the community, schools, city government, businesses, nonprofits, and houses of worship together for the good of the city. Greg has been married to Michele since 1999 and they live in La Mirada with their three children: Katrina, Nathaniel, and Elisabeth.
About the Performers:
Songs for Our Family is the first worship album created by the musicians of Redeemer Church, La Mirada. The album is comprised of favorite songs of the church: original works, children’s songs, and rousing folk arrangements of traditional hymns. Pieces were selected, arranged, and recorded during the summer of 2017; the album was produced by Phil Glenn and Justin Sinclair, engineered and mixed by William Caleb Parker, and mastered by John Sinclair. All performers are regular members of Redeemer’s worship team rotation who delighted in giving this gift to their church family.
About the Poet:
Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958), often considered his best, is the most widely read book in modern African literature. Achebe excelled at school and won a scholarship to study medicine, but changed his studies to English Literature at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Achebe's novels focus on the traditions of the Igbo society, the effect of Christian influences in Africa, and the clash of Western and traditional African values during and after the Colonial Era. His style relies heavily on the Igbo oral tradition and combines straightforward narration with folk stories and proverbs. In 1990, he began an eighteen-year tenure at Bard College in New York as the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of Languages and Literature. From 2009 until his death, he served as Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in Rhode Island.
About the Devotional Writer:
Father Ignatius Valentine is a 1993 graduate of Biola University with a BA in Biblical Studies. Since 2006, he has been the pastor of St. Raphael Orthodox Church in Iowa City, Iowa, where he lives with his wife Maria and their children.