I was re-reading a small book call Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in preparation for a blog that I am writing on true community (watch this space…it will be with you shortly) and as I did I stumbled across Bonhoeffer talking about why we should pray the Psalms. And given our current series, walking with God in the Psalms, it felt appropriate to share it. He has 2 brilliant insights that I want to draw your attention to, but first he starts with a question.
How can God’s Word be at the same time prayer to God?
This question brings with it an observation that is made by everyone who begins to use the psalms as prayers. First he tries to repeat the psalms personally as his own prayer. But soon he comes upon passages that he feels he cannot utter as his own personal petitions. We recall, for example, the psalms of innocence, the bitter, the imprecatory psalms, and also in part the psalms of the Passion…
Bonheoffer says that we can’t just dismiss them and discard them from the bible (for they are the words of God) but nor can we be false and pray them, because they are not true for us. So what shall we do? Bonhoeffer says that in this conundrum we actually have a glimpse into the secret of the Psalter.
A psalm we cannot utter as a prayer, that makes us falter and horrifies us, is a hint to us that here Someone else is praying, not we; that the One who is here protesting his innocence, who is invoking God’s judgement, who has come to such infinite depths of suffering, is none other than Jesus Christ himself. He it is who is praying here, and not only here but in the whole Psalter.
He then moves this idea forward and says that when we, the church, pray the Psalms it is in fact Jesus praying. We are his mouthpiece.
The man Jesus Christ….is praying in the Psalter through the mouth of his Church.
He now returns to his original question,
How do we understand how the Psalter can be prayer to God and yet God’s own Word, precisely because here we encounter the praying Christ? Jesus prays through the Psalter in his congregation.
These are 2 wonderfully inspiring reasons to pray the Psalms
- I can be Christ’s mouthpiece
- I can encounter the praying Christ.
Bonhoeffer concludes
The Psalter is the great school of prayer…the more deeper we grow into the psalms and the more often we pray them as our own, the more simple and rich will our prayer become.
So why not make it your habit to pray the Psalms everyday. If you need some help, here is the book I use, by Eugene Peterson – Praying With The Psalms
