The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
December 3, 2006 

Show Me Your Ways
Psalm 25

This morning, we recited from the 25^th Psalm the words, “Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths.” These are very good words for any season, but particularly for today—the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is from the Latin adventus meaning “to come.” Advent is the four Sundays leading up to Christmas and the weeks in between. During those weeks we not only recall the first advent, when Jesus came to a stable in Bethlehem. We also look forward to Jesus’ return in glory, which is why I just read the Gospel reading from Luke about the end of time. 

But rather than careening away into thoughts about last days, I want to stay on the path with the 25^th Psalm. The verse following, “Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths” goes on to say “guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” 

Guide me and teach me for my hope is in you. Advent is a time of hope, waiting, longing. And this Psalm has a way of reimagining the world that is worth considering as we begin these weeks of preparation. 

The center point of the 22-verse long Psalm comes with two important verses. Verse 10 states, “All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.” Good enough so far in verse 10, God is loving and faith for those who keep the demands of his covenant.  

In case you wonder about those who fail to keep God’s covenant fully, the next verse is for you, “For the sake of your name, O Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great.” It is here at this turn that we find what one commentator has called, “The theological center for Psalm 25,”[1] noting the connection between these verses and Exodus 32-34. There is a lot of language in the Psalm in common with that portion of the Exodus account where Moses stands on the mountain and God passes by and then they make a covenant. Here the Psalmist recalls that God promised to be merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness and forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. 

Now sometimes people act as if the God of the Hebrew Bible is all vengeful, while Jesus is all loving and forgiving. But notice that we are in a Psalm that is itself referring through its word choice to Moses and the Exodus. For the simple Old Testament God harsh, New Testament God loving is not only an over simplification, but an incorrect one. We find throughout the whole Bible a God who is both loving and just. 

And here in Psalm 25 we find a different pattern of prayer and living that at its center recognizes that we have fallen short of God’s will for our lives and asks for forgiveness. Throughout the rest of the Psalm we find trust in God. The Psalmist makes this clear saying, in verse 1, “I put my trust in you,” in verse 4 “in you have I trusted all the day long,” and again in verse 19, “I have trusted in you.” 

But the Psalmist doesn’t trust God because everything has gone well, instead the Psalmist is crying out from the midst of troubles. The Psalm says, “I am left alone and in misery, the sorrows of my heart have increased.” So the pattern we find is that when the going gets tough, the Psalmist turns to God in prayer, asks forgiveness for his sins and trusts God to continue to be present in the problems. And rather than asking for some specific resolution, the Psalm asks instead to be shown the Lord’s ways and taught God’s paths. 

But to fully appreciate this Psalm, you need to know the most significant feature of the poem which is lost in all English translations. The 25^th Psalm is one of a few major pieces of poetry in the Bible to be written as an acrostic. An acrostic forms a pattern with the initial letters. In this case, the first letter of each verse begins with the next letter of the alphabet. So in English that would mean the first letter of the first verse would be “A” the second verse begins with the letter “B” and so on through “Z.”

In Hebrew, the vowels were not written out until more than 1,000 years after the Bible reached its final form and so the 22 consonants form the pattern for the 22-verse Psalm. With each verse working it’s way through the alphabet, “Aleph, Beth, Gimmel, Daleth, Heh, Vav, Zyon, Chet, Tet, Yod, Kaph, and so on. 

This tells us that the form of the poem mattered greatly to the poet. The form itself will convey meaning. How might an acrostic hold meaning. Well to give another example of letters in scripture, Jesus is called “the Alpha and Omega.” These were the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet. Being the Alpha and the Omega means to be the A and the Z. It’s a metaphor for the first and the last, the beginning and the end. This is a very Advent idea, that we look to Jesus as the Alpha and the Omega, present from before Bethlehem and all the way to the end of time and beyond.  

And so, if to refer to Jesus as the Alpha and the Omega connects him to all history, how much more so an acrostic where through every letter of the Alphabet we find God present. Our Lord is not just the Alpha and Omega, the A and the Z, but Lord of the whole alphabet. 

God does want to be your A, G, N, U. That A,G, N, U pattern is every seventh letter. One in seven as in checking in with God once a week. That’s a foreign concept to the Bible. For the Bible knows nothing of an area of your life devoted to religion and then the rest of your life. Your life and all that is in it is one thing. To follow the pattern of Psalm 25, your belief in God and trust in God are not one thing you do among many. Your trust in God is to flow through your whole life. 

Because it’s not a matter of making God your whole alphabet. God is already present through your whole life. And so the challenge is realizing that God is not just with you at the A and the Z or the A,G,N, U. God is with you through your whole life. That’s why the Psalmist can begin lifting up his soul, trusting God with his very being and end with his hope still in God. 

God in the beginning, the middle and the end. What does this have to do with a season that is all about waiting for something to happen? Looked at it another way, Advent is still about waiting and preparation, but waiting and preparing for our Lord who has already come. Jesus came 2,000 years ago to a stable in Bethlehem. Though we wait to celebrate it once again, we wait for the one who is already present to us and in us.  

Does this make our waiting in vain? No, it means we know our waiting is fruitful. Waiting for the Lord always bears fruit. That’s what the Psalmist knows and teaches us once again in Psalm 25. When things go wrong in your life, turn to God in prayer, ask God to forgive you of your sins and to show you his paths once more.  

You don’t make God your A and your Z and your every letter in between. Just come to realize that he already is there all through your life, in the times when you feel God’s presence and the times when you can’t.  Know that when problems hit you are to wait on the Lord and your waiting for God will not be in vain for the one you await is already present. You are not waiting for his presence, but for him to show you his ways and teach you his paths.  And that is what this season of Advent is all about. 

Amen.