Psalm 85 (84)
Justice and peace have embraced. The salvation that God brings us is a marriage between heaven and earth, a shared project between God and humans. Christ is simultaneously the plenitude of God and the fruit of the earth.
2 You have favored your land, O Lord;
you have brought back the exiles of Jacob.
3 You have forgiven the sin of your people;
you have pardoned their offenses.
4 You have withdrawn your wrath
and turned from your burning rage.
5 But restore us, God our savior;
put away altogether your indignation.
6 Will your anger be ever with us,
carried over to all generations?
7 Will you not give us life anew,
that your people may rejoice in you?
8 Show us, O Lord, your unfailing love
and grant us your saving help.
9 Would that I hear God’s proclamation,
that he promise peace to his people,
his saints – lest they come back to their folly.
10 Yet his salvation is near to those who fear him,
and his Glory will dwell in our land.
11 Love and faithfulness have met;
righteousness and peace have embraced.
12 Faithfulness will reach up from the earth
while justice bends down from heaven.
13 The Lord will give what is good,
and our land will yield its fruit.
14 Justice will go before him,
and peace will follow along his path.