e-vo for week of June 6

Dearest e-votees-

For this week’s reflection we are going to use the appointed psalm text for Sunday, Psalm 130.

May we all be blessed as we wait and trust and cry out to the Lord in whom we find love and power and redemption.

Peace,
Karl

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1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. 2 Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! 3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered. 5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; 6 my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning. 7 O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. 8 It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

Psalm 130, NRSV

“It is always darkest before the dawn” is a phrase that finds its truth not in the physics but in the mathematics of the soul. We know those dark places. This psalm gets at those places of the soul as well.

Nothing seems quite so dark and quite so lonely as just before the dawn. Sentries striving to keep a city safe know the vulnerabilities of the early morning. Verse 6 of the psalm echoes that longing for the safety and assurance of the morning light. When you get up early for work or a long road trip or from a restless night’s sleep camping there is a comfort and a beauty particular to the break of dawn. There is an assurance that things will become brighter and warmer and the threats—real or perceived—will slink back into the darkness.

The psalmist cries out of the depths. The depths evoke the tumultuous seas. The depths evoke the sense of being overwhelmed and consumed. The depths evoke the earth consuming the dead. In that place of panic and stress and mortality the psalmist cries out to the Lord. Would that we all had such faith.

The psalmist is palpably aware that none can stand in the presence of a holy God save by God’s forgiveness. Invoking grace at a desperate and hard moment of the soul the psalmist cries out to a loving and steadfast and powerful God who has redeemed and who will redeem again.

Jesus came into this world. He entered fully into its dark and painful and consuming and deadly depths. He came to bring love and healing and truth and compassion to a world that needed all but knew little. He came to redeem all including us. He is that bright morning star that soothes the dark nights that plague our souls.

As we steep ourselves in this psalm… As we linger in the darknesses that are part of our journey… As we wait for and pray and cry out to the Lord... May we all know the steadfast, sure and redeeming love of God that was so clearly shining through Jesus.

God, help us wait for you Help us trust in you. Help us never tire or neglect your steadfast, redeeming love. Help us grow in accompanying others in their dark places. Shine your love and your light through us. Make us more like Jesus all to your glory. Amen.