This Lenten Road

“Road Song”

Psalm 130

1A song of ascents.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;

2O Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive

to my cry for mercy.

3If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,

O Lord, who could stand?

4But with you there is forgiveness;

therefore you are feared.

5I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

and in his word I put my hope.

6My soul waits for the Lord

more than watchmen wait for the morning,

more than watchmen wait for the morning.

7O Israel, put your hope in the Lord,

for with the Lord is unfailing love

and with him is full redemption.

8He himself will redeem Israel

from all their sins.

*                           *                           *

If you were a Jew living in First Testament days, it would be part of the rhythm of life for you to make the trek from your hometown to Jerusalem for high holy days like the Passover festival. The backdrop of Jesus’ death and resurrection is the Passover festival, and the gospel stories describe their journey among thousands of Jewish pilgrims to Jerusalem.

Geographically the ancient city of Jerusalem was situated on a hill (Jesus’ reference to “a city on a hill (that) cannot be hidden”, Matthew 5:14 is a reference to Jerusalem).  Surrounding the city were deep valleys, and beyond a slow, rocky, and treacherous ascent from the flat lands beyond.

For Jewish travellers, the journey up to Jerusalem was wrought with danger.  Bandits and barbarians lay in wait, the sun’s heat burned, and the terrain made for a perilous walk.

One of the prevailing metaphors for God’s relationship with humanity is “journey”.  Throughout scripture, as we’ve been learning through Lent, God meets people on the road, as they journey.  We begin as dust, and end in ashes.  In between is a journey.  And as we travel, God woos us back to Him, forms us, and enables us to bear fruit. 

But we shouldn’t be fooled by how romantic that all sounds.  Great long stretches of the journey are exceptionally hard.  The road song that is Psalm 130 clearly reflects this:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;

2O Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive

to my cry for mercy.

This is the plea of the footsore, the road-weary, the exhausted, embattled and parched.  Mercy, LORD!  I’m down here in the pit, so deep in the valley, I wonder if you can even hear me.

The worst thing that can happen to us, says Eugene Peterson, is to have no God to cry to out of the depth.[1]  Psalm 130 offers no glib smart answers.  No lectures on our misfortunes.  No hasty, Band Aid treatments covering up our trouble so the rest of society does not have to look at it.  Neither prophets, nor priests nor psalmists offer quick cures for suffering.  There’s no plastic smile or the power of positive thinking.  None of that because the people have a right perspective of suffering, and no matter how low they go, God is the one who provides the footing. 

The mercy of God lies in His readiness to share in sympathy the distress of another, a readiness which springs from his inmost nature.  For the fact that God participates in our suffering by sympathy implies that he really is present in the midst, and this means again that he wills that it should not be, that He wills therefore to remove it.

All of this is why we’re able to face, acknowledge, accept and live through suffering, for we know it can never be ultimate, it can never constitute the bottom line.  God is at the foundation and God is at the boundaries.  God seeks the hurt, maimed, wandering and lost.  God woos the rebellious and confused.  So suffering is held up and proclaimed—and prayed. 

If this were not so, if God were different, not one of us would have a leg to stand on:

3If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,

O Lord, who could stand?

4But with you there is forgiveness;

therefore you are feared.

Because of the forgiveness of God, we have a place to stand.  Because God meets us along the road, at the lowest points, we stand in confident awe before Him, not in terrorized despair.[2]

Poetry was language for our Jewish ancestors.  As they travelled they’d craft together these road songs, these prayers that became sacred.  Psalm 130 is a masterpiece of Hebrew poetry.  More than the intricacies of rhythm, rhyme and meter, it is the movement of theme that makes this road song so rich.

It moves from individual pleading to corporate affirmation: “Out of the depths I cry” to “O Israel, put your hope in the LORD”.  Though it is poetry, it is supremely theological; this is no airy-fairy love song.  “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.”  In the midst of despair, the people draw on what they know to be solid: the word of God.

This poem incorporates their present shared experience.  Notice it says: my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.  Where are the people going?  They’re likely on their way to Jerusalem—a walled city. 

In those days it was normal to have watchmen on the walls during the night.  But despite how it sounds, the job of a watchman was overwhelmingly dull.    Apart from occasionally having to question a suspicious traveller or calm a frightened animal, there was little to do.  Watchmen were employed to wait.

When dawn came they could leave their post, so you can imagine how welcome the morning would be to a watchman.

This road song, Psalm 130, reflects the destination of the people by alluding to the watchmen on the walls.  But it’s more than that.  My soul waits for the LORD more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. 

What the Psalm’s implying is that waiting in the dark is part of life.  Waiting for mercy to dawn is a crucial part of suffering.  Don’t we, when we’re in the midst of suffering, ache for relief?  Yearn to be brought into the warm light of day?  For the people of Israel, the dawn was the LORD:  “My soul yearns for the LORD more than watchmen wait for the morning.”        

An incredible thing happens to these weary travellers, and you can see it take place over the few verses of this short prayer song.  What begins in despair, ends in hope:

7O Israel, put your hope in the Lord,

for with the Lord is unfailing love

and with him is full redemption.

8He himself will redeem Israel

from all their sins.

Out of the depths they cry out for God and through their song and longing, He meets them and restores their hope.  It’s as if they’d been starving and found a cache of rich, nutritious food.  That’s what God does. 

After his resurrection, Jesus once walked up the lakeshore to where his friends were fishing.  They’d lost hope for a time and had gone back to doing what they did before they followed Jesus.  Jesus would have been well within his rights to berate and reject them for their lack of faith.  But he didn’t.  What he did was make them breakfast.

We’re at the halfway point on our journey along this Lenten road; we’re weary, footsore, and wondering what the point of this whole thing is.  That’s when Jesus meets us with bread for the journey (the communion meal), and his encouraging presence.

In a few minutes we’re going to sit down off the side of the road and have food, rich food.  Before we eat the communion meal together, however, I’d like to take a few minutes for you to try a preparation exercise. 

Prayer Exercise:   Psalm 130 is part of a collection of prayers sung by Jewish pilgrims on their sojourns to Jerusalem.  These prayers often reflect the shared experience of the people and always point to the source of their hope: the LORD God.  Psalm 130 tells of a struggling, road weary, people calling out to their God.  The Psalm ends with a declaration of hopefulness…   If you were to write a prayer for the people here at Zion, as we travel this Lenten road together, what would you write?   My Road Song, a song of ascents: