Man is a religious animal.
So declared Edmund Burke, the great British conservative who stood up to the evils and excesses of the French Revolution, which first sought to make Catholicism a department of the state, and then tried to do away with it all together. Aristotle, in declaring that man was a political animal, was buttressing his claim that the state came naturally to man. True, but when push comes to shove, Burke reminds us that religion is even more fundamental.
Indeed, what Burke is saying is that all people—despite what atheists claim—have an innate religious inclination. Either you will worship God or an idol. True, people today tend not to keep statues of pagan deities around but idols are nonetheless everywhere—they are our celebrities, sports stars, money, the absolute state, and, yes, even freedom when it becomes an end of itself.
One can see the religious yearning express itself in other ways. Daytime talk shows and reality television are an endless parade of public confession. The resurrection of the body was once the hope of religion; now a company is trying to make it happen through science. There are even churches for atheists now.
In the Old Testament, the first two psalms make a similar point about meditative prayer.
Here’s what Psalm 1:2 says about how the righteous man contemplates God:
Rather, the law of the Lord is his joy;
and on his law he meditates day and night.
Later in this psalm we encounter that memorable image of the righteous man as being a tree planted by streams of flowing water—an image of utter tranquility that both looks back to the paradise lost of Eden and the paradise won back for us at a high price on the cross.
Meditating on the law of God—that is, not just codes of behavior, but Scripture—this is certainly what a man of faith does. As for nonbelievers? We tend not to think of them as people who pray or meditate on the supernatural. And they probably don’t think of themselves that way either.
But the second psalm—which commentators agree should be specially paired with the first—says otherwise. It comes in the very first verse:
Why do the nations protest
and the peoples conspire in vain?
Now, the translation cited above (the NABRE) is consistent with what you will find in most: the general idea seems to be that the nations are conspiring, devising, or concocting some evil thing against God.
But here’s what’s extraordinary. In the biblical Hebrew, the word translated above conspire is the same as the word that is translated as meditates in Psalm 1:2. It’s hagah, which can be translated as murmur, speak, meditate. These meanings build on each other: often our prayer and meditation involves spoken words. Perhaps sometimes we mutter softly, whispering to God in our prayers.
What these two psalms seem to be suggesting is that all of us meditate on something. For the Christian, meditation is obvious and conscious: the ultimate object is God and the path to God is His law—His word. So what do the wicked meditate on? Let’s look at the above verse from Psalm 2 again:
Why do the nations protest
and the peoples conspire in vain?
Substitute the word meditate for conspire and you can see what they are dwelling on: vanity. (In Hebrew the word is rēk.) Another way this could be translated is: Why do the peoples imagine a vain thing? Or, even more literally: Why do the peoples meditate on emptiness? Ultimately, is this not where every idol leads? As Ecclesiastes 1:1 says:
Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
The narrator goes on to rue the fact that after his hard work future generations would not remember him. As king of Jerusalem he applied his mind to the study of all things that are under the sun. “I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a chase after wind,” he concludes in verse 17. He then goes from intellectual pursuits to sensual pleasures to no avail:
I said in my heart, “Come, now, let me try you with
pleasure and the enjoyment of good things.” See, this too was vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2).
The different objects of meditation are apparent in the reaction they elicit. For the righteous man, meditating on the word of God brings ‘joy.’ What about the wicked man? In the translation of Psalm 2:1 he is depicted as ‘protesting’ but other translations read ‘rage’ or ‘uproar.’
Is this not what meditation on emptiness must produce? Not joy and peace, but anger and unrest.
The lesson from these two psalms then is this: one way or another you will meditate on something. The question is, what will you meditate on?
image: Surkov Dimitri / Shutterstock.com
