So today in this evening we will meditate on one of the beautiful psalms, which is Psalm 119, and we will only focus only on one i.e Verse 71. As most of you know, this psalm is one of the Davidic psalms and is popular as one of the longest chapters in the Bible, and we also know that the main theme of this psalm is about the word of God, where David uses different attributes to describe the word of God in a beautiful style. Also, the style of poetry used in this psalm is acrostic style. Which means that Psalm 119 uses one letter and writes 8 verses from that same letter. Same letter. Eight times. This means the poet had to: ⚪Start eight lines with the same Hebrew letter ⚪Avoid sounding repetitive ⚪Keep the theology logical. But why would anyone do these hard things? Because acrostic poetry wasn’t just art in those days. It was a statement. Using aleph to taw was a way of saying, "This subject is complete, ordered, and total." When Psalm 119 runs the full alphabet again and again, it’s quietly declaring that God’s instruction covers life from beginning to end. The word can be applied in every aspect of our life and can help us to grow and to connect more closely to God.
Now let’s move to Psalm 119:71. It says, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees."
At first look, there are no angels. No shepherds. No gift receipts. Just suffering & affliction. When the season is Advent, why talk about the suffering? When this season is shouting about the birth of Jesus Christ, why should we meditate on affliction? But stay with me; there is a connection between this verse and the birth of Jesus Christ, and specifically about the purpose of his birth. This verse reminds us that sometimes suffering can lead to a deeper understanding of God's decrees and teachings. In the context of Advent, it can serve as a reminder of the ultimate purpose of Jesus' birth, i.e., to bring salvation through his suffering and sacrifice.
When we see deeply, we come to know that Christmas is not God coming into a perfect world. But in reality, it is God stepping straight into a broken and sinful world. When we see the background of where the gospels present the birth of Jesus, it really amazes us; it is not the capital city, not the big palace, not a rich family, not in the priest's house. But first we see that Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, is a small city, which was not a peaceful place to give birth to a tender baby, especially not to one who traces back its lineage to the mighty kings of Israel—the David and the Solomon. The kings who rule the people of God in powerful ways. Who had everything they wanted. But here one of the descendants of these kings, who is the messiah, was born in a manger due to lack of rooms, as mentioned in the Gospel of Luke. Yes, he didn't get a proper place to be born. He was born in a manger, surrounded by animals.
Second The province of Judea, where the village of Bethlehem is, was under the rule of Rome. Families living there were in utter poverty due to the tax that they had to pay to Romans. And also there was no room in the inn for Joseph and Mary to stay; the situations around were not ready to allow the miracle to happen.
But at this place, where nobody was even thinking, Jesus enters history not at the top strata of society but right at the pressure point. At the lowest possible place, the place where horses, cows, and other domestic animals eat. Was Jesus placed in a manger with a soft fluffy cloth to protect him, as we see in most of the pictures, Jesus lying in a manger that has a white fluffy cloth inside? No, Luke just gave a vague idea about cloth, but the background tells that the cloth was perhaps just to provide basic covering, not comfort, just covering. The artistic representations of a fluffy manger lining are an addition intended to convey comfort and reverence, rather than historical accuracy, where Jesus was really kept. Just imagine your saviour was kept in the place from where animals eat. Some of the traditions even say that he was born in a cave, not even a place where domestic animals can live. It's a humbling reminder of the afflicted beginnings of Jesus.
Psalm 119:71 gives language to that reality.
When we see it in a broader way, Israel’s long story before Christmas is basically full of affliction. Starting from slavery in Egypt, where the pharaoh treated them very badly and with cruelty. Then came long years of neighbors' kingdom oppression when, for some time due to some judges, they got relief but were never safe at all times. Then came the long years of their own kings' oppression, where their own kings charged them with tax, forced them to work hard, and counted the Israelites among other people for the administrative purposes. But their affliction didn’t stop there. Then came the Exile, where they were killed, their heads were cut and put on the entrance gates of cities, their body parts were cut, their eyes were taken out, and many of them were burned alive, as we read in the historical annals of the Babylonian and Assyrian kingdoms. That's all? NO the temple of YHWH on which they had trust was burned to the ground, and these people of God, the pure race, were forced to assimilate with other gentiles, with whom they didn’t even want to talk just a few years back; now they had to live among them. They had to go through the oppression in a foreign land, where almost 10 of the tribe got lost. Then came the Silence after the prophets. Four hundred years of God not revealing anything about his future plan. And yet, in that silence, these people learned to wait. They learned to hold on to promise instead of comfort. They learned the decrees of God not as theory, as we do in this theological seminary, but as survival. That is exactly the soil where our Christmas grows. Jesus does not arrive to remove suffering instantly, & he wasn't born in a king's palace. He arrives to enter into the suffering and to redeem us from the inside. The manger in which Jesus was lying was already preaching the cross. Wood around a baby becomes wood beneath a dying man. Poverty at birth shows humiliation at death. Affliction can also be seen. This was the place where Jesus was born. This was the place where Jesus was born as a sacrifice for all mankind.
Psalm 119:71 is fulfilled most sharply in Christ himself. If anyone could say, “It was good for me to be afflicted,” it is Jesus, our lord and savior. The author of Hebrews in his letter 5:8 also says that Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered even though he was the son of the most high God. Christmas is the beginning of that obedience and of that suffering. Christmas—the season of joy—set the mark for Jesus to start the way from this little suffering to the ultimate suffering of the cross.
As the theme of our college this year proclaims, yes, we have to imitate Christ as he suffered. The Gospel of Mark presents Jesus as a suffering servant. The one who was counted among the poor, marginalised and lowly. Not only Mark, but other gospels as well show the suffering side of Jesus. Some of the Gospel writers thought it right and okay to skip the birth narrative, but none of them removed the passion, the crucifixion, and the death of Christ. Again Mark uses euthus again and again until he reaches the point where he actually wants to put light on, which is the suffering of Jesus. The Gospel of Mark significantly reduces its use of the Greek word euthus after chapter 8. While the word appears 41 or 42 times in the Gospel as a whole, it is highly used in the first half of the book, particularly in the first chapter alone, where it appears ten times. This frequent usage of this word shows the Gospel's fast-paced narrative style until it comes to the last days of Jesus. This slowing of Mark’s pace is not accidental, because when suffering enters the story, the Gospel stops rushing and asks us to stay and look. He moves quickly through miracles, but when Jesus turns toward suffering, the Gospel itself slows down, as if telling us this is where obedience is learned.
Now let us see it in our context, in our way, and I will conclude. Christmas tells us God does not wait for our lives to improve before entering them. He doesn't wait for the correct time. He comes while things are still chaotic. The verse tells us that those disordered places are not wasted but are used by God to reveal his glory, to show his mighty works. They become the very places where God’s ways make sense. Comfort teaches very little, and it often leads us astray. But affliction makes the truth seen even in the darkest night. It teaches us that affliction is not meaningless; it serves a divine purpose in teaching us God's laws and deepening our understanding of His ways. It also shows that trials are opportunities for spiritual growth and maturity. They refine our character and strengthen our faith.
So the connection is this. Christmas says God enters affliction. Psalm 119:71 says affliction teaches us God. When we put it together, Christmas is not about escaping suffering. It is about discovering God inside it. It is inconvenient for us to accept that God can suffer. But it is true; God the Son truly suffers in the incarnation, and he suffered the most painful death. That is how a psalm about suffering belongs right in the middle of a manger scene, where a small child is crying due to unpleasant conditions. Even the Gospel that rushes through miracles slows down for suffering, reminding us that the child born in a manger was always moving toward the cross in a hurry.
