Meditation on Psalm 16
Continuing our midweek series on the Psalms…
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The foolish man says, “I am god, and all the good I have comes from me.” But the wise man is taught by the sixteenth Psalm to say, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from You.”
Men run after other gods – idols of wood and stone, but also idols of gold and flesh. Those men swell with pride when they see success; and those same men despair when the vagaries of the world turn against them. But the wise man is taught by the sixteenth Psalm to say, “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; You hold my lot.”
The foolish man looks at his property, his portfolio, his automobiles, and his wife and mistress and says, “Things have gone well for me; I will take my leisure, eat, drink, and be merry, enjoying my prosperity.” But the wise man places no trust in his goods in this world. Instead, He looks to the kingdom of heaven and the coming resurrection, and says on account of the promises of God, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.”
The foolish man takes his counsel from the Wall Street Journal, Oprah, and CNN. The wise man receives counsel from the Word of God, and learns from the sixteenth Psalm to say, “I bless the LORD who gives me counsel.”
But far more profound than all of this is to understand what these words mean on the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ. To understand tonight’s Psalm, as with all the others, we must read them through the lens of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The crucified and risen Jesus is the interpretive key to all Scripture.
So St. Peter, in his great sermon on the Day of Pentecost, uses Ps. 16 to demonstrate the resurrection; and thereby he shows us how to read the entire Hebrew Bible. Peter says that David was not speaking about himself, which means he also wasn’t speaking directly about us, either. He spoke, Peter says, “concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.” Those words, taken from tonight’s Psalm, we cannot pray on our own. Not of ourselves, by ourselves, can we say to God, “You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.” The words are spoken about and fulfilled in Jesus. But we who have been buried with Christ through Baptism into death can then say those words as pertaining to ourselves in Christ: “For as You did not abandon Your Son to the grave, dear Father, so You will not abandon me.”
Let’s learn a big word tonight: eschatological. It means “pertaining to the end times [or last things],” and for us Christians, we are to think about and view our lives eschatologically, i.e., not as we are now, but as we shall be. We shall not always have this mortal body, but shall have new and glorified bodies in the resurrection. We shall not always struggle with sin, but in the kingdom of God we shall be freed from the stain of sin, its impulses and compulsions and addictions.
So we pray tonight’s Psalm, especially that 10th verse, in eschatological hope: knowing that as Christ is risen, we too will rise with Him. For He will not abandon your soul to Sheol (i.e., to hell or to the place of the dead), but will give you an incorruptible, immortal body.
As the Gospels culminate in Jesus’ resurrection, so the rest of the New Testament emphasizes that our union with Christ will culminate in our bodily resurrection. 1 Cor. 6.14, “And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.” 2 Cor. 4.14, “He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus.” And in tonight’s second reading, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” And from Sunday’s Epistle: “Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.”
This is why the Psalmist says, “I have set the LORD always before me”; in the same manner we set the Lord, His death and resurrection, always before our eyes. “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” He will not abandon us to Sheol, and though our bodies experience corruption, yet will our change come, and the dead in Christ will rise, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
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