Psalm 80: 1-7, 17-19 (links validated 12/2/25a)

For quite a few summers some years back I had the privilege of co-leading a week-long “From Text to Sermon” seminar with the outstanding Bible commentator and teacher Frederick Dale Bruner. During those years Dale was working on his commentary on John’s Gospel and so we spent those weeks camped out in that fourth Gospel. We always began the seminar where John begins: in the prologue of John 1:1-18. Dale had memorized his own slightly embellished version of these verses and did a recitation of it for the group each summer. When he got to verse 5, he would say with great drama, “The light shinesssssssssss in the darkness.” He stretched out the “s” at the end of “shines” to emphasize its ongoing present tense. It’s not that the light once shined. It’s not that the light will shine in the future. It is instead a light whose shining is right now and forever. It will never stop shining. And since the darkness is still very much with us, as news goes, that present-tense shining is very good news indeed.

In the very fine film The Queen, there is a scene in which the newly elected British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife are brought to Buckingham Palace for the new P.M. to meet with Queen Elizabeth, who will formally authorize his forming a government in the Queen’s name. Mrs. Blair is no fan of the royals and so chafes a bit under the tutelage they are given by the Queen’s chief valet as he prepares Prime Minister Blair to meet with the Queen for the first time. “When you are in The Presence . . .” he says. Causing Mr. Blair to exclaim, “The Presence?” “Yes, that is what we call it when you are in her Majesty’s company.” They are then told to bow from the neck, to remember that it is “Ma’am as in the rhyme for ‘ham.’” And one is never to turn one’s back to the Queen, which in the scene makes for a bit of comedy as they eventually back out of the room literally walking backwards. You can watch the scene here—it’s worth watching! To many of us it all seems rather elaborate. We’re too democratic in our thinking, too egalitarian to think such a fuss should be made over just another person. But throughout most of history—and certainly back in ancient Israel’s time—such things were common when meeting a king or queen or other powerful figure. If the monarch turned his face toward you, it was a big deal. And for Israel such things were to be magnified a thousand-fold when it came to appearing before God’s face and having the face of God shine upon you as Psalm 80 well displays.

Somehow when I think of the idea of God’s face shining upon Israel to signal its restoration and salvation, I recall a lyric moment in one of the Lord of the Rings films. Frodo the Hobbit is on his quest to destroy the evil Ring of Power. But in this scene, he finds himself cut off from his companion Sam and is nearing the end of his strength. Suddenly he falls down but lands not in the dark and terrible place where he actually is but seemingly he is back in the bright Elvish land of Lothlorien where he encounters the Elf Queen Galadriel whose face, almost literally, shines on Frodo in ways that restore his strength and literally gets him back up on his feet again. It may be a nice vignette of what it means to have someone’s face shine on us in restorative and even saving ways.

In one of his sermons Neal Plantinga told the (likely apocryphal) story of a farm couple who lived in a very rural area in the days before electricity. The woman was pregnant and sometime soon after midnight one morning went into labor. The husband sent for the doctor who arrived soon and began to help the woman deliver her child while the husband held a lantern aloft so the doctor could see what he was doing. Soon the child was born. But then the doctor said, “Wait a moment! There is another one coming. You have twins!” And sure enough another child was born. But then . . . “Wait a minute! It’s triplets! Another one is coming.” Soon the farmer began to edge out of the room. “Hey, come back here with that lantern” the doctor shouted. “Oh no,” the husband relied, “It’s the light that attracts ‘em!”...

In the very fine film The Queen, there is a scene in which the newly elected British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife are brought to Buckingham Palace for the new P.M. to meet with Queen Elizabeth who will formally authorize his forming a government in the Queen’s name. Mrs. Blair is no fan of the royals and so chafes a bit under the tutelage her husband and she is given by the Queen’s chief valet as he prepares Prime Minister Blair to meet with the Queen for the first time. ‘When you are in The Presence . . .” he says. Causing Mr. Blair to exclaim, “The Presence?” “Yes, that is what we call it when you are in her Majesty’s company.” They are then told to bow from the neck, to remember that it is “Ma’am as in the rhyme for ‘ham.’” And one is never to turn one’s back to the Queen, which in the scene makes for a bit of comedy as they eventually back out of the room literally walking backwards. You can watch the scene here—it’s worth watching!...

It’s been making the rounds on Facebook and no doubt some—even some reading this sermon starter—will deem it to be crass partisan politics and no more. But it is more. Someone decided to take the usual nativity scene that can be seen on the front lawns of so many churches in December and depict it in ways that remind us of at least two things at once: first, Christ came into this world because it is a broken, divided place. But second, the Holy Family really was a refugee family that had to flee to Egypt in order to save the life of Baby Jesus. And in Egypt, Mary and Joseph were exiles for a time until it was safe to return to Palestine and to Nazareth. Were they put into cages? No, probably not. It appears that despite their refugee status, Mary, Joseph, and God’s incarnate Son were saved and kept safe for a time (no one is totally sure for how long). But they were as vulnerable as refugees and exiles perennially are in this world...

The cultivation of vines was certainly known in Egypt by the time of an ancient Egyptian official named Nakht. The walls of his tomb in Thebes is covered with paintings, including the one below that shows people tending grapes on the vine, stomping the grapes, performing the ancient equivalent of "bottling" the wine...

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