Daily Devotional • August 22
Psalm 132
1 O Lord, remember in David’s favor
all the hardships he endured;
2 how he swore to the Lord
and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob,
3 “I will not enter my house
or get into my bed;
4 I will not give sleep to my eyes
or slumber to my eyelids,
5 until I find a place for the Lord,
a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”
6 We heard of it in Ephrathah;
we found it in the fields of Jaar.
7 “Let us go to his dwelling place;
let us worship at his footstool.”
8 Rise up, O Lord, and go to your resting place,
you and the ark of your might.
9 Let your priests be clothed with righteousness,
and let your faithful shout for joy.
10 For your servant David’s sake
do not turn away the face of your anointed one.
11 The Lord swore to David a sure oath
from which he will not turn back:
“One of the sons of your body
I will set on your throne.
12 If your sons keep my covenant
and my decrees that I shall teach them,
their sons also, forevermore,
shall sit on your throne.”
13 For the Lord has chosen Zion;
he has desired it for his habitation:
14 “This is my resting place forever;
here I will reside, for I have desired it.
15 I will abundantly bless its provisions;
I will satisfy its poor with bread.
16 Its priests I will clothe with salvation,
and its faithful will shout for joy.
17 There I will cause a horn to sprout up for David;
I have prepared a lamp for my anointed one.
18 His enemies I will clothe with disgrace,
but on him, his crown will gleam.”
Meditation
I have a wrestling match nearly every morning. I do not go to a wrestling gym (if those even exist). I just go upstairs to my four-year-old’s room and try to get him dressed for the day. Getting Ben dressed is never an easy task. He gets so excited and wants to go play with his toys — he often tries running away before you can get the shirt over his head. The last thing he is thinking about is getting clothed.
I was reminded of this daily interaction when I read Psalm 132:9 “Let your priests be clothed in righteousness, let your people sing with joy.” Or as we pray in the daily office, “Clothe your ministers with righteousness.”
The good news of this psalm is that God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, does clothe us in righteousness – priest, minister, and baptized alike. There is not a hierarchy where bishops and priests are allotted more of Christ’s righteousness. We are all clothed in the beauty of Christ’s sacrifice and we all share in its benefits.
God is the active and primary agent in clothing us. Like a loving parent with a child, the Lord clothes us for our own good. At their most basic level, clothes shield us from the world around us. Clothes can help us feel more confident. They can even be an expression of who we are and who God made us to be. The same is true of the righteousness of Christ in which we are clothed. When clothed in righteousness, we can rest in the confidence of Christ’s work on the cross and we can live into our identity as God’s beloved children.
There is no need to wrestle with God on this or hurry to the next thing. Let us find rest in the good news that we are clothed in righteousness by Christ.
Steven McCain serves at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church and St. Timothy’s School in Raleigh, North Carolina. He lives in the Raleigh area with his wife, Elizabeth, and two sons, Benjamin and James.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Ihiala – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Morristown, New Jersey