Our Defense in the Darkness: Psalm 91
THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY
PSALM 91
"Whoso shall abide under the defense of the Most High shall abide in the shadow of the Almighty."
Since the church's inception, Psalm 91 has been among the most beloved psalms of God's people and, possibly, the most utilized. Our Eastern brothers and sisters pray this Psalm as the opening prayer at funerals, ushering in comfort and assurance to the grieving as a loved one departs from this world to the next. Our Prayer Book liturgy for the Visitation of the Sick encourages the minister to pray Psalm 91 over the infirmed and dying to incite trust and faith in their Divine protector.
In a world of frequent disagreements and hard divisions, Psalm 91 is one of the very few psalms in which everyone (the church-catholic since antiquity) agreed should be prayed every single day. However, when or at what time of day it should be prayed was not unanimously agreed upon. And that's because two specific times - the night and the noontime- are indicated in the Psalm itself in verses five and six: Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night: nor for the arrow that flieth by day; For the pestilence that walketh in darkness: nor for the sickness that destroyeth in the noonday.
In the Western church, the references to darkness and the night chose to pray Psalm 91 at night. For instance, in his rule, St. Benedict instructed the monks to pray Psalm 91 every night before bedtime. On the other hand, Christians in the East focused on this Psalm's references to daylight and high noon, choosing to pray each day at noon. Eastern monastics, such as St. John Cassian, understood "the noonday devil" of this Psalm to be an especially difficult temptation to fall into spiritual weariness and dejection, creating a dangerous despondency and distress in the soul (this vice is called acedia/sloth).
Though the church, in both the East and the West, emphasized different times of prayer, they both realized the wisdom and absolute necessity to pray Psalm 91 every day because these two traditions found one commonality in the night and noonday, and it is this: both the night and the noonday are hours of darkness. And the magnitude of danger in the darkness they found in the Scriptures in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It was during the night when Judas left to betray our Lord; in the dead of night, the Devil tempted Christ in Gethsemane, an hour of unimaginable persecution and testing. But the greatest hour of darkness to ever occur in the history of the world happened in the middle of the day. Scripture associates noon (the sixth hour) with light and extreme darkness. Mark writes in his gospel, "When the sixth hour had come (high noon), there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour” (Mk 15:33). At noonday, deep darkness fell upon the earth as our Savior hung on a cross.
Thus, the Christian custom of praying Psalm 91 is specifically tied to the Lord's passion and hanging upon the cross for our salvation. Christ, who is the interpretive key unlocking the meaning of this Psalm, is the one who faced the temptation and dangers of darkness, who was taunted by a multitude of demonic enemies who waged an all-out war against the Son of God and ultimately arranged his execution. These are the "noonday devils" and the "things that lurk in darkness:" night-terrors, the hunter's arrows, pestilence and sickness, the lion and the adder. Such was the noonday night our Lord faced, and such were the enemies he defeated when he rose from darkness three days later. And in his example, we find how we, too, can overcome the night and the noonday darkness; for on this side of eternity, we are gravely susceptible to both.
"Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." As a child, my Father and I prayed this every night at bedtime. Nighttime created a sense of the possibility of danger that I never gave a second thought to during the day. Bedtime necessitated a child's prayer, asking the Lord for protection through the perils and dangers of the night. In scripture, the night has its positive side. Creation began in darkness, formless and void, then God created light and pierced that eternal night. He set a great lamp in the sky, and a lesser light we call the moon, and He divided the day from the night and called both good. But the creation fell when our first parent transgressed the goodness of God. Henceforth, night, though created good, was susceptible to evil.
In the Bible, people frequently encounter God at night, through dreams or visions (as he did with Joseph), by appearances (as he appeared to Jacob one night in Beersheba), or by speech, like when he called to a sleeping Samuel, not once, but three times. God often appears in the darkness and, in fact, is said to sometimes dwell there: these are the positive aspects of nighttime. And yet, there are far more passages associating night with evil rather than good. The vast swath of scripture associates nighttime with all sorts of unhelpful and dangerous things. Someone in the dark is riddled with confusion and ignorance, bewildered, and lacking any understanding especially concerning spiritual things. Psalm 82 says, "They (the godless) have neither knowledge nor understanding; they walk about in darkness."
St. Paul skillfully uses darkness and light for salvific categories. Those that sit in darkness do not know God until this same God, "who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, [shines] in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 4:6). Divine revelation must overcome the mind darkened by sin. "Darkness" and "Light" are also used by scripture as moral categories. The righteous walk in the light, says the same apostle, "For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light" (Eph 5:8); as the proverb says, "the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day" (Prov 4:18). By contrast, the unrighteous and wicked work secretly under the cover of darkness, doing shameful and lawless things at night.
Again, the apostle says, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret" (Eph 5:11-12). And, according to St. John, any who willfully enacts wickedness upon another, perpetrating evil and mischievous deeds in the night, dwells in the perpetual darkness of the soul. The apostle writes, "Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes" (1 Jn 2:11).
Scripture and experience warn us to be on guard in the darkness of night because it is fraught with the potential for all sorts of dangers. We are far more physically vulnerable to an enemy's attack and spiritually vulnerable as well, being more susceptible to thinking and doing things in the cover of night that we'd never do in the daylight or never in a million years, want anyone to know if we did. We need a protector and defender in the darkness. "Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night: nor for the arrow that flieth by day; For the pestilence that walketh in darkness: nor for the sickness that destroyeth in the noonday."
Psalm 91 is a prayer of defense, a hymn rejoicing in the God who delivers, defends, and shields all who trust in Him from the dark dangers of this world, personified in this Psalm as hunters, pestilence, night-terrors, arrows, and destroying sickness. These are the weapons of the Devil, the prince of the air, used by his wicked companions, enemies hunting to destroy the body and the soul, to make us doubt God, to give up our resolve and faith in Christ.
In a real sense, the Christian life (if it is apprehended with any seriousness) is but one long night of the soul, a life of spiritual vulnerability and susceptibility to temptation and sin. Yes, joy comes in the morning, and the Lord graciously supplies long stretches of peace, spiritual safety, and health, but eventually, the sun sets, and once again, we are susceptible, either from circumstances or neglecting the spiritual life.
Susceptible to terrors in the night, those unnamed, faceless fears that creep in the witching hour and overwhelm the soul: a sense of dread we can't quite put our finger on but its there. Temptations in the daytime are amplified into an overwhelming pestilence at night, filling the moral imagination with harmful thoughts and images. Nighttime, with all its allurements, is usually when we make unwise and unrighteous choices and indulge in bodily excess. St. Paul reminds us that people usually get drunk at night! (1 Ths 5:7).
And as we've already examined, the daytime is just as perilous. We are not always our own worst enemy in the spiritual life; danger is all around us. What of the arrows that fly by day? These are the various attacks of persecution from others. Friends who no longer come around since you began taking faith seriously. Family members, spouses, or children who you love, who are wholly indifferent to you being a follower of Jesus, or even openly hostile, or have outright denounced you. Or a culture increasingly marginalizing and discriminating against the church, misrepresenting our Lord and his people, calling us bigots, fascists, haters, and the like. But remember, if the world hates Christ, it will hate us too. And this hatred is none other than the 'noonday Devil' a sickness so pervasive that it can kill and destroy; the history of Christian martyrs makes the case. But this sickness can only kill the body and cannot kill the soul (Mt 10:28). You see, in all of these, we are protected just as Christ was protected in the face of his enemies as he hung on a cross.
"Whoso dwelleth under the defense of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." Friend, you must dwell within the Life of God if you want to be defended from your enemies, for whoso dwelleth, anyone, who trusts Him and comes under the protection of the God on High will (says the Psalmist), "abide under the shadow of the Almighty." The Hebrew sense of abide is more likened to lodging. Those who come into the Divine lodge, the Inn of the Lord, there you shall safely pass through the dangers of the night, just like that first Passover when the vengeance of the Lord took every first-born child of Egypt in the cover of night but passed safely over the homes marked with the blood of the lamb wherein God's lodged.
You see, Jesus Christ is the Divine protection of Psalm 91, the Glory cloud casting his salvific shadow over those who take refuge in Him; He is hope in the face of death and a stronghold in the day of battle; He delivers you from the Devil's snares and temptations. As St. Francis saw in a vision, he is the One who envelops us under his feathery wings as a hen does her chicks to guard our eyes, ears, and minds against the noisome pestilence. And he is our shield and buckler to fend off the volley of arrows launched towards us by our persecutors.
He is faithful and true, "There shall no evil happen unto thee, neither shall any plague come near thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee in their hands, that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt go upon the lion and the adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet. Because he hath set his love upon me. Therefore, will I deliver him; I will set him up because he hath known my Name. He shall call upon me, and I will hear him; yea, I am with him in trouble; I will deliver him and bring him to honor. With long life, will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."
But Father Michael, "I have been wounded in this life, even as a child of God under the shadow of the Almighty. I have been a victim of my own sins and those of others. Mine is an eternal night." Friend, we must look to Jesus. Yes, he trusted His Father, he abode in His love, and the Father doted upon him. He never gave into the night's temptations nor the day's taunters. He loved and lived according to righteousness. Where was God? Why did his enemies overtake and wound him so? Piercing his hands, his feet, his side. Reviling him with every slander in the book. In fact, they murdered him.
And yet, he never wavered in loving and trusting his Father, "Into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Lk 23:46). In the eyes of the world, he died a fool trusting in the promise of an unseen God. And yet, he showed the world its foolishness by rising again from the dead as victor over all of creation, the one who rose from the grave by conquering that prowling lion and crushing the head of the adder forever satisfied with long eternal life, the salvation promised by his Father.
You see, our reward, our justice, an end to suffering and pain, will be given to everyone who calls on the Name of Christ: all who love him, worship him, and stay faithful to him. Beloved, you shall call upon him in the day of distress, and he will hear you; he will come again from heaven and raise you from death unto a long, satisfying eternity in the presence of the Almighty God: Christ, our lodging place to pass through the perils and dangers of the night. Amen+
