“Water from a Rock” (Exodus 17:1-7)

A man stormed into the library one day and strode aggressively up to the front desk. The librarian looked up at him and inquired, “May I help you, sir?” “Yes! I have a complaint!” the man growled angrily. “I borrowed a book last week and it was the most boring thing I’ve ever read!” With a rather puzzled look the librarian asked, “Can you be more specific?” To which the man replied, “It was far too long, it had way too many characters and it was completely lacking in any plot.” There followed a moment’s pause, after which the librarian looked at the  man with a smile and sighed, “Ah! You must be the borrower who walked off with our phone book!”

It seems there are some people who will complain about pretty well anything. Perhaps you’ve met some of them! They remind me of the two characters Statler and Waldorf years ago in The Muppet Show. Do you remember how they sat week after week in their box seats sarcastically chortling and guffawing at everything they saw on the stage? There was never an episode that went by when they couldn’t come up with a put-down or find something to make a snarky remark about.

In this morning’s reading we are journeying with Moses and the people of Israel in their forty-year trek from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. Pharaoh had done everything in his power to make life impossible for them. They had been coerced into cruel and back-breaking slave labour and were severely beaten if they were perceived not to be working hard enough.

Finally, by God’s miraculous intervention, they were able to escape from Egypt and begin the long and arduous trek toward the home of their ancestors. With the Egyptian army following close behind, God had driven back the Red Sea, enabling the Hebrews to cross over and make their escape towards the land that he had promised to Abraham and his descendants centuries before.

The people protested

But now we find them complaining—and this is not the first time we come across them being disgruntled. Nor would it be the last. [If you go back to the previous chapter before this morning’s reading, you will find that they were complaining there too. On that occasion it was because they didn’t have any food.] In fact if you follow the account of the people of Israel’s forty-year trek from Egypt to the Promised Land in the book of Exodus, you will find them moaning and grumbling at more than a dozen different points along the way. It reached the stage where at one juncture they were even plotting to rise up against Moses and put him to death.

Somehow the long and arduous journey across the wilderness had made their recollections of life as slaves in Egypt far rosier than it could possibly have been even in anyone’s imagination. “Back then we had meat by the potful every evening,” they growled, “and the following morning we would gorge on bread until we were stuffed with it!” (Exodus 16:3). Clearly their memories were playing tricks on them!

Now I’m not saying that the journey across the Sinai peninsula to what is now modern-day Israel was a cakewalk. Far from it! (Just as an aside, when I tried to look up what their journey might have been like, the AI on my computer mapped out the route from Cairo, Georgia, to Beersheba Springs, Tennessee!) In fact, the most direct route that they might have taken would have involved a distance of 700 kilometers or so. Nowadays you can drive it in a little over eight hours. But of course the children of Israel didn’t have cars and they didn’t have roads.

Nor did they take the shortest route. Their journey involved hoofing it over a challenging combination of rugged mountain landscapes and desert wilderness and rocky terrain, all spread over an area a little larger than the size of Nova Scotia. To make things even worse, the temperatures in those parts can vary from scorching 36°C daytime highs to overnight lows as chilly as -16°C. Then add to that the fact that, included among the estimated 600,000 travellers, there were children, elderly and disabled people, in addition to flocks and herds and whatever else they were able to take along with them. When you think about it, it was an impossible challenge, a disaster waiting to happen.

And sure enough it did. By the time we get to our passage this morning, the people had already run out of food. Naturally this had led to complaints against Moses and his leadership. In response to their need God had graciously provided them with an enormous flock of quail along with that mysterious fine, flaky bread-like substance to which they gave the name “manna” (which literally means “What is it?”).

Now, after a further journey southeast, another problem arose. This time it wasn’t a lack of food but a lack of water. And so, not surprisingly, we find the people once again complaining and laying all the blame for their predicament on Moses.

Moses prayed

And what was Moses’ response? I suppose he could have gone into a fit of rage and blasted the people for their lack of faith. He could have questioned how the crazy notion of trekking across hundreds of miles of wilderness to  place he had never set eyes on had ever entered his mind. Or he could simply have shrugged his shoulders and sunk into despair. But no, that was not the man that Moses was. Instead, he did what in the eyes of most people would seem utterly impractical: he prayed.

When we turn to the gospels in the New Testament, we find that Jesus had a lot to say about prayer. He told the story of a man who comes to his friend’s house at midnight needing a loaf of bread. Will the friend just shout from his bed, “Go away! Don’t bother me when my family and I are all trying to get a proper night’s sleep!” Of course not! So, Jesus tells us when it comes to prayer, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Luke 11:5-9) The real meaning of Jesus’ words comes across if we translate them more like this: “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.”[1]

That is the way we find Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion. Luke’s gospel tells us that “in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” (Luke 22:43)

When I am honest about my own prayer life, I realize how shallow it is, how I have barely scratched the surface, how much deeper I need to learn to go!

The Lord provided

Now I suspect that Moses’ attitude when he came before God in prayer was akin to that of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. When Moses prayed, it is clear that it was not just a matter of rattling off a few pious words. The Bible at this point doesn’t go into detail. It simply tells us that that Moses “cried out to the Lord”. And I believe that, were we to unwrap those few words, we would find Moses baring his soul, laying his own profound feelings of desperation and hopelessness before God. “Your people are accusing me of bringing them here to die!” he cried out. “I have nowhere else to turn but to you. What am I to do?” Moses had reached the end of his rope!

And I can only imagine that the next morning it was in fear and trembling that he followed the Lord’s instructions: “Go on ahead of the people…, take your staff in your hand and go… Strike the rock, and water will come out…” And we know what happened.

But God doesn’t always answer our prayers in the way we might hope or expect or desire. The apostle Paul told of a problem that vexed him, about which he pleaded to the Lord on three separate occasions. God’s answer: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:10). Yet in spite of this Paul was also able to testify, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

God miraculously provided for the people of Israel when they found themselves without water. However, he does not always answer our prayers in ways we might hope for or expect. He does not promise to magically erase all our problems. But he does promise to be with us through them, as he was with Moses. And we can count on Jesus’ last words to his disciples: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20b)

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[1] New Living Translation

“Let Your Face Shine” (Psalm 80)

 

 

One of the great strengths of our Anglican worship is the continuous repetition of the psalms. If you turn to the Daily Office Lectionary in the Book of Alternative Services, you will see that there is a provision there to recite at least one psalm every morning and every evening of the year.

That is a practice that has always lain at the heart of Anglican worship, right back to the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549. Of course that book was only carrying on a tradition dating back to the earliest Christian liturgies. And they in turn were borrowing from Jewish practice that had gone on for a thousand years before that. So when we recite the psalms, we are not only joining with our fellow believers around the world. We are engaging in the continuous worship of three thousand years!

For quite some time now, one of the habits I have engaged in my own personal devotions is to read from the psalms every day—and I almost invariably find myself enriched by the practice.

The marvellous quality about the psalms is that they give voice to the whole range of human experience. There is joyful praise. Think, for example, of Psalm 95—what we call the Venite, with which we open Morning Prayer: “Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation…” Or the Jubilate Deo, Psalm 100: “Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands; serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song.”

At the other end of the spectrum there are psalms like Psalm 55, so magnificently set to music by the composer Mendelssohn: “Hear my prayer, O God; do not hide yourself from my petition… Fear and trembling have come over me and horror overwhelms me. And I said, ‘Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest…’” Or the chilling opening lines of the psalm that Jesus quoted from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Like those two psalms that I have just quoted, the psalm that we have read together this morning, Psalm 80, is one of what are known as “psalms of lament”. Each of these psalms in one way or another expresses sorrow, pain and discouragement—we might even say disappointment with God. In all, there are over fifty of them, more than any other category of psalms in the Bible.

So for the next few minutes I want us to take a look at the psalm we have just read this morning—and I hope that you may find it speaking to you in a new way.

He looks around

The psalm was likely composed some time after the year 722 BC. That was the year when the powerful armies of the Assyrian Empire finally crushed the northern Israelite kingdom centred in Samaria. The Assyrians had gradually been gaining control of Israelite territory for a dozen years. And it was after a three-year siege that the northern capital of Samaria itself eventually fell. As was the practice in those days, the city was leveled to the ground and its citizens deported to serve as slaves.

As I read this psalm, I imagine the psalmist having made the journey back to Samaria. He wanders through familiar streets and alleyways where houses and shops and the king’s palace once had proudly stood, now reduced to piles of rubble. Perhaps it is a herd of sheep grazing on the tufts of vegetation growing up through the tumbled stones that prompts him to cry out, “Hear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock…” Or maybe it is the familiar words penned centuries before by Israel’s greatest king: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”

In the silence of the deserted city he cries out, “Stir up your strength and come to help us!” And then for the first time we hear the sorrowful refrain that is repeated three times in the course of the psalm: “Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.” Behind those words we can detect the faint echo of the blessing that Moses’ brother Aaron had given to his sons and the priests that would follow them:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you,
     and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you,
     and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26)

Whatever the case, the psalmist is not afraid to vocalize his disappointment with God:

How long will you be angered,
despite the prayers of your people?
You have fed them with the bread of tears…
and our enemies laugh us to scorn.

A hundred and thirty-five years later, following the destruction of Jerusalem, it would be another psalmist who wailed,

By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion…
How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?

Kate Bowler is a Canadian author and blogger. As a young mother in her mid-thirties and having just completed her PhD thesis, she was met with the devastating news that she had been diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. Almost immediately well-meaning friends and acquaintances began to attempt to comfort her with thoughts like, “This is a test and it will make you stronger,” and, “At least you have your son. At least you’ve had an amazing marriage.” But what she really needed was time to grieve, time to be angry, time to be depressed, as she faced the terrible reality of her situation.[1]

I believe that this is exactly what we find happening in the early verses of this psalm. The poet makes no attempt to gloss things over or to look to a brighter future. He is bluntly realistic with God. And I believe this can act as a model for us today when we stand in the face of disappointment or tragedy. We need make no attempt to hide it or disguise it. Instead we can be open about it. We can be honest. Because we have a God who invites us to cast all our anxieties on him, because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).

He looks back

So the psalmist looks around. He is bluntly realistic about the situation he is facing. But then in the second part of the psalm (in verses 8 to 11) he looks back. He remembers God’s faithfulness to his people Israel—all the way back to their escape from centuries of slavery in Egypt, to the settling of the Promised Land:

You have brought a vine out of Egypt;
you cast out the nations and planted it…
You stretched out its tendrils to the Sea
and its branches to the River.

He thinks back to Israel’s establishment as a prosperous kingdom under David and Solomon—the envy even of the Queen of the faraway kingdom of Sheba!

At the same time there was a problem, and the problem was this: the people had invested their hope in the wrong place. They had been blinded by the false pleasures of wealth and prosperity and of military might. And it was not as though they had not been warned by prophets like Amos:

Alas for those who are at ease in Zion,
    and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
the notables of the first of the nations,
    to whom the house of Israel resorts! …

Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory,
    and lounge on their couches,
and eat lambs from the flock,
    and calves from the stall;
who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp,
    and like David improvise on instruments of music;
who drink wine from bowls,
    and anoint themselves with the finest oils,
    but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!
Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile,
    and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away. (Amos 6:1,4-7)

When things seem to have turned against us, we can sometimes be inclined to look back to the “good old days”, when everything was so much better! Of course we know that that is a mirage, that the prosperity that so many of us became accustomed to came at a tremendous cost—a cost to people who were often ignored or trodden under foot and the destruction of much of our natural environment, which it is unlikely that we will ever be able to rectify.

At the same time, the Bible calls us to look back—not to the good old days, not to some imagined golden era, but to one specific day: to the day when darkness covered the whole land, to the day when the sun’s light failed, the earth shook, and the thick curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

In a few moments’ time we will take the bread in our hands, we will bring the cup to our lips, in obedience to the one who said to his disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me.” As we go through those familiar actions once again, we remember. We remember the ultimate example of self-giving love. We remember the one who took all the ugliness and cruelty of our sin upon himself. We remember the one who suffered defeat, so that we might share in his victory over evil and death. “Do this,” he commands us, “in remembrance of me.”

He looks ahead

It is only once he has looked back and recalled God’s faithfulness in the past, that the psalmist is able to look forward—and to look forward in hope. And so, as the psalm draws to a close, he prays,

But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,
 the one whom you made so strong for yourself.
And so we will never turn away from you;
give us life, that we may call on your name.

As he sets his sights on the future, he recognizes that, while Samaria and his life of the past may lie in ruins, he is not alone. There is a strong hand that is grasping his.

Centuries before, as the people of Israel stood on the edge of the Promised Land and were preparing to enter it, their leader Moses encouraged them with these words: “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed” (Deuteronomy 31:8). And our Lord Jesus says the same to us as he promised his followers as the time of his ascension, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who vehemently opposed Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany. Just before his works were banned from publication, he wrote a little book about the Psalms. Here is what he had to say about the psalms of lament:

[These] psalms have to do with that complete fellowship with God which is justification and love. But not only is Jesus Christ the goal of our prayer; he himself also accompanies us in our prayer. He who suffered every want and has brought it before God, has prayed for our sake in God’s name… For our sake he cried on the cross: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ Now we know that there is no longer any suffering on earth in which Christ will not be with us, suffering with us and praying with us—Christ the only helper.[2]

The psalms are intended not just to be read, but to be prayed. And as you learn to pray those psalms, may you know the presence of Jesus, our Great Shepherd, praying alongside you, and the light of his countenance shining upon you.

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[1]     Bowler, Kate. Everything Happens for a Reason (2018)

[2]     Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, 49

“What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:32-52)

By his own profession H.G. Wells, the great science fiction writer of a century ago, was not a Christian believer. However, in 1930 he wrote a short anecdote about an archbishop who found himself bothered by some niggling problem that had been eating away at him and that that he was unable to identify or explain. “Maybe the shadow of age was falling upon him, he thought, maybe he had been overworking… Or had he done something wrong or acted in a mistaken spirit?”

It troubled him to the point where he was unable to perform even the simplest, most routine functions. What was he to do about it, he pondered? At last the solution came to him. He would do what he was always telling everybody else to do who came to him with a dilemma: Pray!

Yes, he would pray.
Slowly he sank to his knees and put his hands together. He was touched by a sort of childish trustfulness in his own attitude. “Oh God,” he began, and paused.
He paused, and a sense of awful imminence, a monstrous awe, gripped him. And then he heard a voice.
It was not a harsh voice, but it was a clear strong voice. There was nothing about it still or small
“Yes,” said the voice. “What is it?”
They found His Grace in the morning… Plainly his death had been instantaneous…[1]

I don’t know about you. But speaking for myself I can say I’m grateful for the times when God hasn’t answered my prayers. That is not to say that there haven’t been occasions when God has graciously intervened in my life—when he has answered my prayers sometimes in ways far more wonderfully than I had even expected. But rather, I’m thinking of those times when my prayer has been selfish or short-sighted or half-hearted. Perhaps you don’t have those times, but I know I do—and more often than I care to admit.

Along the Way…

It seems to me that we have a classic example of that in our reading from the Gospel of Mark this morning. Mark tells us that it occurred as Jesus and his disciples were “on their way up to Jerusalem”. Now that word “way” in Greek is hodos, and it is a significant one—both for Mark, who uses it sixteen times, and for the entire New Testament, where you’ll find it more than a hundred times. In fact, long before they were ever called Christians, the earliest believers referred to themselves as those who belonged to “the Way” (Acts 9:2; 19:9,23).

For Mark that way begins with John the Baptist who has come to “prepare the way of the Lord” (1:2-3). Some chapters later, after teaching a crowd of four thousand people for a full three days, Jesus was concerned that as they journeyed on the long walk towards home they might collapse along the way (8:3). Two weeks ago, we read of how Jesus and his followers were heading towards Cæsarea Philippi. Mark tells us that it was as they were on the way that Jesus asked them, “Who do you say I am?” To which Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.” Again, in last Sunday’s reading, Mark tells us that it was as Jesus was “on his way” that a man ran up to him to ask, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (10:17).

Now in this morning’s passage we encounter it three times. Indeed, it is here in these verses that we begin to discover why the word “way” is so important for Mark. In the opening verses of our reading this morning Jesus himself makes it crystal clear: “We are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”

In fact, this is the third time Jesus has given this warning to his disciples. The way is the way to Jerusalem, the way to Jesus offering up himself in death for the sins of the world. Already the shadow of the cross looms ever darker over all that happens. And that is the context in which James and John approach Jesus with their brash request: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

A Bold Request

Now we all know that there are other places in the gospels where Jesus assures us that our prayers will be answered. In John’s gospel, for example, we hear Jesus make the promise, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it” (John 14:14). Or again, in Matthew, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer” (Matthew 21:22). But notice that in each case there is a condition. We are to ask in Jesus’ name. We are to ask believing—not just believing that God can do anything or formulaically tacking the words “in Jesus’ name” onto the end of our prayers, but conforming our minds to the mind of Christ, our hearts to the heart of Christ, our wills to the will of Christ.

But the disciples’ request comes without any qualifications: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” And then comes the request itself: “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.” If only the two brothers had known what they were asking! If they had, I imagine they would never have spoken as they did. They could be grateful that Jesus did not comply with their demand. For in the space of a few short days they would learn that Jesus’ glory would be revealed on a wooden cross and that the places they so desired on Jesus’ right and left would be occupied by two criminals.

The problem with James’ and John’s request (or prayer, if we may call it that) was that it revolved around them. Presbyterian theologian R.C. Sproul was one of many who have written about the false understanding of God as a celestial bellhop, a God whose very reason for existence is to do our bidding, one “who is on call every time we press the button, just waiting to serve us our every request”.[2] Of course that is a caricature.

This winter Karen and I have been attending a course on amateur astronomy. During the first couple of sessions our instructor dwelt on the way people largely understood the universe before the time of Copernicus in the early sixteenth century. Observers looked up at the movement of the stars and the planets and they assumed that everything revolved around the earth. In the face of considerable opposition Copernicus insisted that the sun was the centre of the solar system and it took more than a century for his observations to gain acceptance. Today we call that change in our understanding the Copernican revolution.

In the same way James and John needed a spiritual revolution—to move from a me-centred life to a God-centred life. We find it encapsulated in Jesus’ response to their request: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all”—and they would find a model for that as they travelled a little farther along the way.

True Prayer

They had just passed through Jericho, about fifty kilometers from Jerusalem, when their journey was interrupted by what I can only imagine were the piercing shouts of a desperate man. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Some of the people in the crowd tried to get him to shut up. But that only prompted him to cry out all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

I can’t imagine that Bartimaeus was schooled in theology. And maybe his crying out from the roadside was a rather crude way of getting attention. But those shouts of desperation showed a far more profound grasp of what prayer is all about than James and John had displayed earlier that day. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

His words echoed a prayer uttered centuries before by the prophet Daniel. With his people living in exile, their capital city of Jerusalem and its temple in ruins, Daniel dressed himself in sackcloth and covered himself in ashes as he made his plea on their behalf before God. At the heart of his petition we find these words: “We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy” (Daniel 9:18).

At the heart of both Bartimaeus’ and Daniel’s prayers was the conviction that the God to whom we bring our petitions is one who delights to show mercy and that this is the only basis on which we come before him. This was how God revealed himself to Moses atop Mount Sinai: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness …” (Exodus 34:6). And those words to Moses become a chorus that we find repeated again and again through the Old Testament.

In the original Greek of Mark’s gospel Bartimaeus’ words are these: Huie Dauid Iésou, eleéson me. It did not take long for the early church to recognize the profound meaning in Bartimaeus’ prayer and to adopt it into its worship. We know it as the Kyrie eleison, the threefold cry, “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” We can trace it back at least to the middle of the fourth century, to some of the most ancient Christian liturgies.

“Lord, have mercy.” I believe that these words—and Bartimaeus’ cry—are an expression of what true, God-centred, prayer is all about. For we come to God and we bring our needs before him not because of any deserving in ourselves—not because we’ve served him with our lives or because we’ve prayed faithfully over the years or because we’ve managed to get our doctrine right, no, none of these things—but because he is merciful.

And the depth of that mercy would become clear as it compelled the Son of God to continue along the road—the way that would lead to his own sacrificial death and to offer up his life as a ransom for many.

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[1] H.G. Wells, “An Answer to Prayer”

[2]     https://www.ligonier.org/blog/rc-sproul-warning-prayer/

“Out of the Depths” (Psalm 130)

This past week, the news media had about all they could handle with the G-7 summit in Quebec, the Ontario election, the Washington Capitals’ win of the Stanley Cup and the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii. But all those stories were quickly overshadowed by two others—the deaths of two of the world’s most highly successful people: Kate Spade, whose handbag designs became a multi-million dollar business, and Anthony Bourdain, the travelling gourmet, whose books and TV shows have enjoyed almost universal popularity for the past two decades.

Tragically both deaths were by suicide and they served to underline a growing concern among health professionals. It is the rising rate of suicide in our society today. According to a recent article in USA Today that rate has risen by nearly thirty percent in the past two decades. Among middle-aged men the increase is even more alarming at forty-three percent. As I look at these statistics, I am forced to ask myself, what is it that makes life for some people so bleak that there is nothing left to live for? What has entrapped them to such an extreme that they are not able to see any other way out than to end it all?

The psalm that we read a few moments ago begins with the lament, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord…” The words express the desperation of a person who is drowning. They are not unlike those we hear from the lips of the prophet Jonah as he languished in the belly of the great fish: “In my distress I called to the Lord… From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help…” (Jonah 2:2). Life has carried him far beyond the point where he can any longer contemplate helping himself. All he can do is shout for dear life and hope that someone will hear him and come to his rescue. Tragically there are some people for whom that is not an option. They feel they are caught in a swirling vortex that will drag them down only deeper and deeper.

There are seven accounts of suicide in the Bible, six of them in the Old Testament. Probably the best known, though, is that of Judas Iscariot. In remorse over the horror of what he had done in betraying Jesus to the authorities, he went out and hanged himself. And while the apostle Paul likely did not have Judas in mind, I believe his words to the Corinthians have something to say here. He writes about a godly sorrow that leads to repentance and contrasts it with a worldly sorrow that leads to death (2 Corinthians 7:10).

Well, where does all that bring us this morning? If my own experience is anything to go by, then there are times when most of us find ourselves “in the depths”. Sometimes the depths in which we find ourselves are the result of circumstances beyond our control—a severe illness, a long period of severe strain, an impossible situation at work or at school, a tragedy of one kind or another, a bereavement… And sometimes those depths are of our own making. I believe this morning’s psalm has something to say to each of us when we find ourselves in the depths, no matter what it was that landed us there.

I cry

The psalmist’s opening words (as you have probably already observed) are an expression of desperation. Listen to how Eugene Peterson renders them in The Message:

Help, God—the bottom has fallen out of my life!
     Master, hear my cry for help!
Listen hard! Open your ears!
     Listen to my cries for mercy.

It may not seem apparent at first, but hidden beneath the psalmist’s anguish there lies a conviction, that while his situation may be desperate, he still has one upon whom he can call for help. He is not alone.

I recently listened to a radio interview with Kate Bowler. She is a professor at Duke University Divinity School in North Carolina. Married to her high school sweetheart and with a two year-old child, she was given the news that she had stage-four incurable cancer of the bowel. I cannot begin to imagine what a devastating blow that must have been for her. Yet here is what she said:

I gave up most of the spiritual clichés, I think—that every good thing was going to come back to me or that I could be, you know, the architect of my own life. But one of the only certainties I actually truly latched onto was the sense that in the worst moments that there can be an unbidden God and that I don’t have to earn it. And I don’t even have to like worry that I won’t have it—but that maybe the hope is that when we come to the end of ourselves, that we’re not alone.[1]

“The hope is that when we come to the end of ourselves, we’re not alone.” The hope that Kate Bowler cherishes in her soul is the same hope that enabled the psalmist to cry out from the depths. It is the hope in a God who is with us, no matter how dire the circumstances, no matter how high the flood.

Do not fear, [that same God says elsewhere through Isaiah]
     for I have redeemed you;
     I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
     I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
     they will not sweep over you…
Do not be afraid, for I am with you. (Isaiah 43:2,5)

More than that, the psalmist can rely on the God who is with him because that same God is a God of mercy. Underlying all the history of Israel and underlying the psalmist’s faith is the conviction that the God to whom he prays is the same one who revealed himself to Moses amid the cloud and thunder of Sinai as “the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” (Exodus 34:6-7).

In the Anglican Book of Common Prayer there is a beautiful prayer that runs like this: “We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.” Like the psalmist we can come to God in the confidence that no matter what the circumstances he is with us and that he is a God of mercy.

I wait

And so the psalmist prays. And he waits. According to my Hebrew dictionary, the verb he uses here means “to wait or to look for with eager expectation”. And if that were not enough, the psalmist tells us that that is exactly what he means: “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits…” Then he goes on to give us the most beautiful picture:

My soul waits for the Lord
     more than watchmen for the morning,
     more than watchmen for the morning.

Can’t you just picture it? The sentinel has been on the ramparts all night long. Rumours have been rising that an enemy is on the approach. What was that noise in the bushes? He strains his eyes to look out through the darkness of the surrounding countryside. His fingers grow numb in the frostiness of the chill night air. Then over the horizon there appears the first glimmer of dawn’s light signaling a new day. And the fears brought on by the shadows and the strange sounds of the night begin to melt away.

In the same way there will be times, seasons of our life when we find ourselves waiting—and sometimes with deep anxiety. But that does not mean that we are doing nothing. The Bible does not equate waiting with idleness. Those of you who know your Bibles well will recall that the apostle Paul had some rather harsh words for those who used waiting for the Lord as an excuse for laziness. His advice instead: “Never tire of doing good.” (2 Thessalonians 3:13)

Besides this, I do believe that in those times of waiting (and indeed in times of suffering) the Lord can come to us in ways that we may never have anticipated and give us strengths that we never knew were there. I have seen it again and again in the lives of my parishioners. At times when I have sought to bring them comfort, I find that they already have a strength that is far beyond anything I can offer. I never cease to find encouragement in the words of Isaiah:

Do you not know?
     Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
     the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
     and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
     and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
     and young men stumble and fall;
but those who wait for the Lord
     will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
     they will run and not grow weary,
     they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:28-31)

I hope

So it is that the psalmist says, “Put your hope in the Lord.” Notice that he does not say what to hope for. Rather, it is whom to hope in. And between the two there is a world of difference.

Somehow it seems to me that what this psalm is saying is that when we find ourselves caught in the depths, we do not control the outcome. Ultimately we are confronted with our own powerlessness. No doubt we have a preferred way in which we would like things to end up. But we cannot dictate that to God. We can only place ourselves in his hands in the faith that he is a God of mercy who loves us more than we could ever imagine. Allow me to give the final word to Kate Bowler:

Cancer has kicked down the walls of my life… But cancer has also ushered in new ways of being alive… Everything feels as if it is painted in bright colors. In my vulnerability, I am seeing my world without the Instagrammed filter of breezy certainties and perfectible moments. I can’t help noticing the brittleness of the walls that keep most people fed, sheltered and whole. I find myself returning to the same thoughts again and again: Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.[2]

I would love to trade the life I have for one in which I imagined I could always spend it with my husband and my son. But it did feel like cancer was like this secret key that opened up this whole new reality. And part of the reality was the realization that your own pain connects you to the pain of other people. I don’t know. Maybe I was just a narcissist before. But like all of a sudden, I realized how incredibly fragile life is for almost everyone. And then I noticed things like—and that felt like a spiritual—I don’t know—like gift.

It’s like you notice the tired mom in the grocery store who’s just like struggling to get the thing off the top shelf while her kid screams, and you notice how very tired that person looks at the bus stop. And then, of course, all the people in the cancer clinic around me. That felt like I was cracked open, and I could see everything really clearly for the first time. And the other bit was not feeling nearly as angry as I thought I would. And, I mean, granted—like I have been pretty angry at times. But it was mostly that I felt God’s presence. And it was less like, here are some important spiritual truths I know intellectually about God. There are four of them. I have a PowerPoint presentation. It was instead more like the way you’d feel a friend or like someone holding you. I just didn’t feel quite as scared. I just felt loved.[3]

Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
     for with the Lord is unfailing love
     and with him is full redemption.

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[1]     NPR interview, 12 Feb 2018 https://www.npr.org/2018/02/12/585066841/a-stage-4-cancer-patient-shares-the-pain-and-clarity-of-living-scan-to-scan

[2]     “Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me”, The New York Times, 13 Feb 2016 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html?smid=tw-share

[3]     NPR interview, 12 Feb 2018