Imagine having double vision, seeing two different days at once, two and a half millennia apart. One eye is witnessing ancient Israel’s past, a day during the Babylonian exile. An old Jew named Asaph is singing his new prayer-psalm with memories from his youth, visions of the Lord’s sanctuary in flaming ruins.
Your other eye is witnessing the present-day Jerusalem’s Western Wall, the ruins of the Sanctuary at the hands of the Romans. Another Jew named Asaph is singing his ancient ancestor’s prayer-psalm. Both men are Levitical musicians calling to the Lord with the same requests for the same reasons.
“Why have you rejected us forever, O God? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?” The dirge-duet begins. They accept God’s anger is just. They are guilty, the reason for the ruins. But why does the Lord’s punishment never end?
Jeremiah and the prophets warned Babylon’s Asaph’s generation, and generations before him, that if they did not repent and destroy their idols, they would perish by the hands of the Babylonians. They rejected the prophet and the Lord God who sent them. The Babylonians came and burned the Lord’s sanctuary.
Around four hundred years later, Jesus, who did miraculous signs, preached the good news, and claimed to be the Messiah, warned his people, “Unless you repent, you too, will all perish.” (Luke 13:3, 5) They rejected God’s Son and the Father who sent him. The Romans came and burned the Lord’s sanctuary. Not one stone was left on another.
The modern Asaph heard this from a Messianic Jew. He, like his ancestor before him, was contemplating the warning while looking at the ruins on and around the temple platform. His heart sang Asaph’s lament.
The plea continued, “Remember the people you purchased of old, the tribe of your inheritance, whom you redeemed – Mount Zion, where you dwelt.”
When the Babylonians destroyed the temple in 586 B.C., and the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 A.D., the Lord left Israel, punishing them for rejecting him and violating the covenant he had with them. The Lord God walked away from his rebellious people, for they did not listen to his warnings.
The Asaph family pleads continue, “Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins, all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary.”
Now I ask you, “Are you at the ruins of your temple asking questions?” Are you the spark that lit the fire of destruction and now asking questions? See tomorrow what these men prayed in future BDBDs.
