1 As the deer pants for streams of water,Click through to see what we found in these beautiful words.
so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
among the festive throng.
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
6 My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
8 By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
This psalm speaks of the search for God. It takes two forms. Internally the speaker is longing for God, searching for him as a deer searches for water in the wilderness. Externally the speaker's acquaintances are mocking him with God's absence, saying, "Where is your God?"
The world tells us that God is only present in good times. Those who seem to have it all are the ones we call "blessed". All too often we acquaint God's presence with favorable circumstances. Church has to be perfect in order to be right. Our lives have to be going well before we'll expose ourselves and go to church in the first place. When something goes wrong our first instinct is to leave, coming back to the assembly only when things are repaired, when we feel strong and happy again, when we can claim that we are "blessed".
Where does the psalmist meet God? He remembers the days when he used to go to God's house with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. He can't find that place anymore. It still exists, no doubt, but those shouts aren't reflective of what's going on in his soul.
No, our author finds God when wave upon wave of grief is battering him down. He finds God as he feasts upon his own tears. He finds God when his agony runs deep down into his bones. This isn't a God that most people want. But when you're carrying a weight that breaks you in a way that can't be fixed, it's the only God that will do.
And that is our God, our true God. Long ago, at the beginning of all things, he decided that he would love us even through imperfect--indeed, tragic--circumstances. He decided that he would walk with us though the agony seeping through our bones would also seep through his by proxy. He decided he would not abandon his children in their time of need, but hold them so closely that their tears washing over him would be as his own.
Our God is not the God of the perfect life, he's the God of the cross. We'd love to detour around it, to find a God of happiness, to find a God without pain, to find eternal life and redemption without walking the path of death and suffering. But none of us could be saved that way. Jesus could have walked that path. He could have said, "Forget all of you...I'm going to live forever apart from your pain." He still would have been God. He just wouldn't have been our God.
When we walk with God, we walk to the cross. He walks with us to ours as well. Where the agony is the greatest, the tears most soul-deep, that's when he's the closest. Ironically, that's often when we're able to see him most clearly because our need for him is so great. I grew up hearing people making fun of "Foxhole Christians", folks who only saw God in times of trouble. I have since learned to ask the question, "Who among us isn't one?" It's so hard to see God when everything goes right because we're blinded by the glare of our earthly blessings. When all of that is stripped away and nobody else can really understand, it's just him and us. Rather, it's him or nothing. I remember clearly times in my life turning to God and saying, "Lord, you had better be here to help me now, because nobody else can and I don't know if I can make it on my own." He always has. He did it not by taking away the sad circumstances at hand, but by walking with me through them...to the full pain of the cross and the full redemption beyond.
"Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?" Who among us has not asked those questions? And yet look how the psalm ends. "Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Savior isn't just a word. Sometimes we skip over it blithely, using it as a bland synonym or nickname for God. Savior means something. It implies something to be saved from. God really, truly saves us from things that are incurable otherwise. He gives hope where there is none, faith to make it through another day when we have not the strength ourselves. That's not just his job, that's who he is.
What kind of God does your church reflect? Is it the happy, everything's perfect God? How do we respond to trouble, even the kind that can't be fixed easily? Do we run, avoid, distract, shun? Or do we walk alongside each other as God walks alongside us? Is your God the God of the cross or has some other invention become more attractive to you? The answers to these questions will determine how well you see and know God more than any others could. They'll also tell the story of how much of his calling you're able to perceive and fulfill.
We're not the church of perfect people with perfect lives and all the answers. We are downtrodden, downcast, ostracized, misfit, sick, aging, mourning, changing, and hurting folks who are seeking God. To be sure we have plenty to celebrate too, but all that has been a gift from God in the midst of our trying circumstances, not in the place of them. The journey to the cross gives us wonderful things to celebrate while remaining the journey to the cross. The greatest blessing of all is that it doesn't end there, but goes beyond into a life where every stone is rolled away and every step is joyful.
During this season we reflect on and respect all of the steps, before the cross and after. We commit to walking them together, even if that means sharing each other's tears and riding out the waves until the dawn. To do anything else would not just mean abandoning each other, it would mean abandoning the God among us.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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