Psalm 3:4
taking it up
But thou, O Lord art my protector, my glory, and the lifter up of my head. (Psalm 3:4 DR)
The Psalmist now makes a dramatic and poetic shift from the depths of despair to an unshakable confidence. For while within the human frame of reference there is cause for hopelessness, his vision transcends the temporal and material to understand the providence of God perpetually at work.
The shift underscores this well as God’s role as protector is immediately juxtaposed with the mocker’s role as accuser in the previous passage. The crucial intimation here is decidedly that God is not the one who brings the sorrow and despair but it rather the very ground of hope in the face of it. This confidence is well-placed in the Psalmist’s mind not because of the circumstances surrounding him but rather in spite of them.
As applied to Christ this is the preeminent prayer of the just man, for even in the midst of unjust persecution He has complete confidence and trust in the goodness of His Father and the uprightness of His own heart. The protection that God affords may at times manifest physically, but is rather ultimately defense against the assaults of the Evil One and temptation, the great enemies noted earlier. The Psalmist poetically expands upon this thought in the parallelism of the second half of the passage in which the downcast countenance from the earlier passages is now contrasted with the head upraised in hope and confidence.
The just man has his head lifted not of his own accord or effort, but through the strength of the Lord. In his humility he finds himself exalted (cf. James 4:10) and this is true even of our Lord (cf. Philippians 2:6-11).
In fact, the humility of our Lord St. Augustine finds presaged in this passage, for in the translation he used the term “protector” was rendered as “taker,” as in, “has taken me under his protection, has taken on my cause,” etc. He sees in this a prefigurement of the Incarnation:
“But You, O Lord, art my taker.” It is said to God in the nature of man, for the taking of man is, the Word made Flesh. “My glory.” Even He calls God his glory, whom the Word of God so took, that God became one with Him. Let the proud learn, who unwillingly hear, when it is said to them, “For what have you that you did not receive? Now if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?” [1 Corinthians 4:7] (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 3, 3.)
St. Augustine’s point here is that our Lord in taking on our nature provides for us the hope that this prayer intimates, for as He assumed our nature, so as incorporated and grafted into His mystical Body we are made to participate in the divine nature (cf. 2 Peter 1:4). Our reception of this great gift of eventual glory that we share with Christ (cf. John 17:22) is all made possible because of our Lord’s magnificent condescension to us, by which we are lifted up. There is thus no room for boasting or pride, for it is all of God’s bountiful kindness and grace.
This “taking” thus dovetails perfectly with the Lord being our “protector” against sin, for the very purpose of our Lord’s Incarnation was to destroy the work of the devil (cf. 1 John 3:8), which entails the defeat of sin in those who belong to Him. And the lifting up of the head is not only confidence in our Lord’s protection but also the future hope of glory in the participation in the divine nature.
I wanted to capture some idea of transcendence in this animation, so I found some nice imagery and brought it into After Effects. I drew some simple masks on the background image and used Stretch to create the background swoop up into the sky.
I then took a similar image and matted it to an ellipse to create the ground orb and used Stretch on it as well (with some masks, of course) to create the edge suction into the sky. I wanted it to kind of feel like the movement of the background was tugging at the edges of the orb and pulling parts of it away. I don’t know if I completely succeeded, but I thought it looked cool.
Enjoy.
But thou, O Lord art my protector, my glory, and the lifter up of my head.
(Psalm 3:4 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: