Psalm 131 - Peace in Mystery

Today we will be looking at Psalm 131.

Before we begin, it’s helpful to know that Psalm 131 is one of the 15 Psalms of Ascent, which begin at Psalm 120. These were songs that were sung as God’s people travelled to Jerusalem for His festivals. They were short and easy to sing in Hebrew, and they express a longing to be in God’s presence in Jerusalem.

This particular song expresses how God’s people should trust in God instead of trying to mine the depths of God’s mysteries when they are struggling with their circumstances. Instead of mining, they should remember that they are God’s children whose hope is in His love for them.

Like them, we struggle with understanding mysterious things like the Trinity, God’s sovereignty and sin, predestination and humanity’s culpability, etc. We don’t like mystery!

But what if I told you that the greatest mystery of all has already been revealed to us, and it can frame our entire lives so that we can have peace when faced with mystery?

This is the opportunity before us today…to find peace when faced with mystery. Let’s read Psalm 131 with anticipation.

Psalm 131

A Song of Ascents. Of David. O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

What we see in this Psalm is that…

We should be humble before God’s mysteries

I wonder if David had Deuteronomy 29:29 in mind when He composed this? That verse says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” If I had to summarize that verse, I would say, “Stick to what God reveals in the Scripture and concentrate on living and obeying what He has told you, instead of wasting your time on questions God has left unanswered.”

In verse 1, David introduces the idea of humility when looking into things that are above us. Essentially David equates spending time looking into things that God has not revealed, above humanity’s reach with pride. He is not, however, referring to things available for us to study and learn from.

God as creator has given us his Scripture and the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what he wants us to know concerning life and godliness. He has given us minds and natural skills to investigate this world and all that is in it. He has encouraged and given us all these things that our human mind can grasp and understand to help us worship, love, and serve him better. But, we should not investigate and try to know things that will separate us from him. He is lovingly protecting us from ourselves.

Quite simply, there are things in this world that are too high, great and marvelous for us. These are things that will send us into arrogance, pride and a haughty spirit, unlike a trusting child.

Children ask a lot of questions. But when they get an answer from someone they trust, they will generally accept it and quiet themselves. This is the picture that David gives us in this psalm. We are to be like children resting in God for the mysteries that he has hidden from us. Trusting like children that he knows what is best for us.

But let’s be honest we don’t always act like children. By nature…

We reject mystery

Instead of being child-like, asking questions, and trusting the answers given, we act as adults, thinking we can understand everything. A good way to think about this would be like this…

When a child asks for dinner and is told no, and then asks why, and the parent replies, ‘There isn’t enough money,’ the child then asks for a detailed financial account. We have then, as little children concerned ourselves with great matters, things too marvelous for us.

The imagery in verse 2 is of a child who is weaned, simply sitting with its mother (resting in the mystery of God’s love) in her lap, trusting that they will be fed when it is time, not needing answers to the mysteries or all the lofty ideas and thoughts, resting and trusting in God and being content.

But we often aren’t like that, are we? Instead, we are like a child that needs to be breastfed because we are crying and making noise until we are satisfied. Like a non-weaned child, we demand answers to the mysteries that are perplexing us. We want satisfactory answers to the questions we have.

You know what I mean. We struggle with how a good and perfect God could create a world in which sin and death exist, or how God could command Israel to wipe out whole nations, or how He could send everlasting beings to hell.

Some of us have wept over these questions…how could a good God allow this? These are not just ideas; they’re wounds. But the God who calls you to trust is not distant. He entered the darkest mystery Himself.

But we forget this and so we get noisy, like an unweaned child, lift our heart up, our eyes high, and occupy ourselves with things that are too great and are too marvelous for us to comprehend. We try to step out of our lane, not trusting in God’s promises and revelation of Himself.

Like Adam and Eve, we’ve listened again to the voice of the serpent. We question God’s goodness, setting ourselves as judge over God, making ourselves wise in our own eyes, becoming judges of good and evil.

The result of such pride is a fall. And that fall has consequences. It will cause us to be occupied with things that will overwhelm us. We will always be wondering, always be concerned with things we can do nothing about, and will lose hope. This leads us to fear, anxiety, and depression, causing us to go headlong into our parents’ budget when we can’t even add and subtract.

How can we enter into calmness and quiet, the hope of the Lord?

The answer is to dive into another mystery. A mystery that has been revealed…

The mystery of the cross of Christ brings hope

Digging into mystery is not necessarily bad, if that mystery leads us to hope instead of despair. In other words, if we, as children, have been given permission by our heavenly Father to ask and explore what He has revealed, then it is not only good but glorious.

Paul writes in Colossians 2:2-3 that he prays the Colossians and Laodiceans would have “their hearts encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Christ is the mystery revealed. Digging into Him will not draw us into anxiety or despair but into full assurance and hope, the same hope found in verse 3 of this psalm.

In Christ, who is the wisdom of God, we find true wisdom; in Christ, who is the source of all knowledge, we find true knowledge.

How? Because Christ, though He alone had the right to look into the deep things of God, humbled Himself, even to the point of a criminal’s death on a cross. Though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant for us.

In a similar letter to the Ephesians, in chapter 3, Paul shows us another mystery. That through Christ’s death and resurrection, He brings together warring peoples and makes them one family through adoption. What was hidden for ages has now been revealed.

When we begin to gaze into the gospel, the great love of God for us who were far off but have been brought near, we begin to see, by faith, the height, depth, width, and breadth of Christ’s love and are filled with the fullness of God.

Think of it this way. Though Christ was exalted as God, He entered the lowest place, birth in a manger, a life of poverty, a death on a cross. He did not occupy Himself with being exalted but with His mission to save us, so that we might be occupied with the most marvelous mystery of all…Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Though eternal, He took on flesh, nursed at Mary’s breast, and was weaned, so that He could one day cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

When Jesus cried this, He was not rebelling…He was trusting. He entered our confusion to redeem it. In Him, your cries are not unbelief, they’re faith reaching for the Father.

Jesus, the hope of Israel, the Lord who brings us into God’s family through His completed work restores our hope. You see, the greatest mystery of all has already been revealed…God’s love made known in Jesus Christ.

And because He willingly died and rose on the third day, He has given us His Spirit so that…

We can quiet ourselves before mystery

The Holy Spirit, given to us by Jesus Christ, cries out in our hearts, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit’s work in us is a weaning work, calming and quieting our souls, training us to rest like a child with its mother.

But I want you to know something, when David says, ‘I have calmed and quieted my soul.’ This didn’t happen overnight. It’s something the Spirit teaches through years of learning to trust the Father who holds what we cannot.

Can we speed the process up? Well, perhaps, as we look to Christ. You see, the Spirit weans our souls as He enables us to see who we are in Christ and who Christ is for us. By the Spirit, we are reminded to seek the good mysteries…the ones God has revealed for our faith and joy.

So, instead of wasting our time chasing empty questions that God has not answered, we look into the gospel of Jesus Christ and immerse ourselves in Him. As we do, we are overwhelmed by His love, which moves us to obedience, worship, and mission, to reflect His people to a watching world.

If you love digging into mysteries, then dig into the right one, not ones that can only be answered by God Himself. So, search the Scriptures for Christ, the treasure hidden in both Old and New Testaments. Rest in what God reveals; trust Him with what He withholds.

Remember Hebrews 11:1-3, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Our hope rests in Christ. Faith itself is God’s gift. As we rest in His promises, sealed by Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, we find assurance even when we cannot see.

Our surety in God’s promises gives us the ability to rest in His mysteries, no matter how troubling they may be.

If this mystery has not yet been revealed to you, it has been set before you today. Christ Jesus, the eternal Word of God, left heaven, lived a perfect life, and died a criminal’s death for sinners so that those who once warred against God might become His friends…His children. Rest upon Jesus alone and trust Him as the answer to the greatest mystery: how can we know God?

And if this mystery has already been revealed to you, then rest in it, the greatest of all, and be like a weaned child before every other mystery. As you lean into Christ, He will strengthen you to say, “I don’t know, but I trust You.”

May God help us to confess that we are creatures and He is our Creator, who humbled Himself so that we might dive ever deeper into the revealed mystery of the gospel of Christ, by the Spirit, to the glory of the Father.