I’ve seen so many dead bodies this past year that I’ve lost count — at least forty and among them my Mom.
Death is a bad joke. It’s a riddle that confounds us all. There’s no work-around. It stumps every one of us.
It’s like a faulty computer that keep glitching and erasing all the work we’ve done. Death turns us into zeros.
If we want to live the wise life, the best life, we need to face death. It’s unavoidable; its clock keeps ticking down. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away, so we need to face it head on.
Psalm 49 does that for us, shoving death in our faces and requiring us to take a long, considering look at it.
Hear this, all you peoples;
listen, all who live in this world,
both low and high,
rich and poor alike: (Ps. 49:1-2)
This is for “all.” None are left out.
Whenever the Scriptures give us extremes — low and high, rich and poor — they’re like bookends. Everything and everyone in between is included as well.
And then our poet takes a bow, holding out an arm in a dramatic pose, ready to pour out wisdom:
My mouth will speak words of wisdom;
the meditation of my heart will give you understanding.
I will turn my ear to a proverb;
with the harp I will expound my riddle: (Ps. 49:3-4)
“Listen up, folks! Get ready for something good!”
And what is this profundity? We don’t need to bother ourselves all that much about the proud posturing of the powerful.
Why should I fear when evil days come,
when wicked deceivers surround me —
those who trust in their wealth
and boast of their great riches? (Ps. 49:5-6)
Why not worry about the wealthy? Because they’re dying. No amount of money can ransom or save them from death. Not them. Not anyone.
No one can redeem the life of another
or give to God a ransom for them —
the ransom for a life is costly,
no payment is ever enough —
so that they should live on forever
and not see decay (Ps. 49:7-9).
And then looking at himself the sooth-sayer, he acknowledges that wisdom won’t save anyone either. And the wealthy, who almost always think they’re smart because they’ve got money, aren’t saved by their business savvy either.
For all can see that the wise die,
that the foolish and the senseless also perish,
leaving their wealth to others (Ps. 49:10).
And celebrity status? It’s the least substantial of all. Those who lived in massive houses for a few years end up in boxes six feet under for centuries.
Their tombs will remain their houses forever,
their dwellings for endless generations,
though they had named lands after themselves (Ps. 49:11).
They’re no better off than the pet goldfish found floating on the surface of the aquarium and flushed down the toilet.
People, despite their wealth, do not endure;
they are like the beasts that perish (Ps. 49:12).
It’s all ephemeral. Their bodies. Their wealth. Their wisdom. Their status. Their fans and followers. Every bit of it slips through the fingers and is gone.
This is easier to take for the poor and vulnerable, since everything seems to slip from their grasp. But for those who exercise control over not just their own lives, but the lives of others, death is a taunting finger in the face.
This is the fate of those who trust in themselves,
and of their followers, who approve their sayings.
They are like sheep and are destined to die;
death will be their shepherd (Ps. 49:13-14a).
That last image is starkly brutal. Scholar Peter C. Craigie makes it even more so in his translation:
Like sheep shipped to Sheol
Death shall graze on them (Word Biblical Commentary: Psalms 1-50, 356).
Craigie plays on the assonance of the words in Hebrew in the first line. But the image is more like a great hand grabbing them and yanking them down into a chasm in the earth where the dead dwell.
And whether the image is of death herding us like a shepherd or of death as the sheep grazing on us, both give me shivers.
The psalm ends with a final jab:
Do not be overawed when others grow rich,
when the splendor of their houses increases;
for they will take nothing with them when they die,
their splendor will not descend with them.
Though while they live they count themselves blessed —
and people praise you when you prosper —
they will join those who have gone before them,
who will never again see the light of life.
People who have wealth but lack understanding
are like the beasts that perish (Ps. 49:16-20).
Wow. So, what do we do with this?
It certainly cleanses the palate, and I need that.
Every now and then, I find myself sucked in to admiring wealth and power and prestige. I know they’re nothing. But they sure look like something.
I like their nice houses. I like their expensive meals. I like their exotic vacations. I like their ability to say something and have many stop and think. I like so much about the things in their lives that money and power and position enables them to have and do. I’d be lying if I said otherwise.
Most of the time, I’m quite content to not have or do those things. But on occasion, and especially if I’m around it enough, I find myself wanting to say, “Yes,” to the things they get to say, “Yes,” to.
But death disabuses me of those desires. It flattens out the differences between our lives. It dulls the shine on their stuff.
But there’s more to Psalm 49 than just making wealth and power less attractive. The psalm hints to more than just death as an equalizer. It approaches the riddle of death and declares that there must be an answer to it other than mere coffins and tombstones. And that more is alluded to in a few lines I skipped over above.
(but the upright will prevail over them in the morning) (Ps. 49:14b).
But God will redeem me from the realm of the dead;
he will surely take me to himself (Ps. 49:15)
The word “but” is a gospel word. Having acknowledged the bad news, it says, “Hold on! There’s more. There’s good news, too.”
And that good news is: after death, there’s still more life to be had. Even here in the Psalms, centuries before Jesus, there are hints at resurrection.
This is unexpected. For in an Old Testament imagination, death was a one-way ticket to Sheol, the greedy place of the dead which never gives up those it has received. But here we see cracks in that way of thinking.
Somehow, the light of a new day after a night of darkness provides an image of hope. And the possibility that God, the source of all life, might redeem us from Sheol and take us to himself emerges.
But it’s the negative passage below which points most clearly to Jesus:
No one can redeem the life of another
or give to God a ransom for them —
the ransom for a life is costly,
no payment is ever enough —
so that they should live on forever
and not see decay (Ps. 49:7-9).
Where the psalm asserts that “no on can redeem the life of another,” the New Testament asserts that this is exactly what Jesus did for us. And where “no payment is ever enough,” again, the New Testament asserts that the death of Jesus alone is payment and that it is fully adequate to purchase our lives from the grave.
The redemption offered by Jesus and the hope of joining in his resurrection are the only things that make death acceptable. Without them, death is the great equalizer only by turning each and every human into a zero — we are all equally hopeless.
In Jesus, all of humanity is equalized, but not by becoming zeros. By being baptized into his death and into his resurrection life, we are equalized in Jesus.
Galatians puts it this way —
So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:26-28).
Paul could easily have added, “neither rich nor poor.” But the point is made even so. The ways we divide up humanity are erased in Jesus. Death does this erasing thing too. But Jesus does it best.
As Psalm 49 emphatically points out, death humbles us. Death helps us get over ourselves. Every attempt to inflate ourselves is burst with a resounding pop. Wealth and celebrity are emptied of their power.
The only real power lies with God, the one who gave us our lives in the first place and who can give life to us again, even after death.