Jeremy L. Berg

Lectionary Reflection: Psalm 31:9-16

Some days we study and learn from Scripture. Other days we curl up in the fetal position and groan along with Scripture. This week we turn our face toward Jerusalem with Jesus, and march with him toward his fate. “The lamb slain from the foundation of the world” is about to take the cumulative weight of all the world’s pain and suffering onto himself on the cross.

The Scriptures for this coming Sunday provide two options: the Liturgy of the Palms (“Hosanna!”) and the Liturgy of the Passion. Choosing the latter, let us sit in the abject defeat and despair of the psalmist in Psalm 31. Remembering that our Savior is “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53), we know he sympathizes with our plight.

As I meditate on this psalm, I imagine a person at the end of their rope, finally scheduling an appointment with a therapist. The flood gates of pent up anger, fear, despair and hopelessness suddenly open, and a torrent of complaints flood the therapist’s office. Only let us now let the LORD Himself be our therapist today. Let God Almighty mop up our tears. He’s glad we’re letting them out finally.

Again, some days we study and learn from Scripture. Other days we curl up in the fetal position and groan with Scripture. Read and groan along with Psalm 31:

“Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away. I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many– terror all around!– as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life” (v. 9-13).

And you thought you were having a bad day, or week, or year! But can you relate to some of these descriptions?

Distress.

Grief.

Sorrow.

Sighing.

Strength fails.

Misery.

Achey bones.

Scorned.

People avoiding you.

Broken.

People whispering behind your back.

Death knocking at your door.

But the psalmist doesn’t wallow in self-pity. He doesn’t give into despair. He doesn’t let the whispers and opinions of others have the last word or be the loudest voice. He doesn’t just shut the shades and disappear into an oblivion of escapism – binging TV, medicating with substances, indulging in pornography.

Instead, he chooses to lift his eyes up and looks to the Good Counselor and Divine Doctor in the room, and says:

“But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors. Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love“ (v. 14-16).

He chooses to entrust himself and his situation to the LORD, not self-help books or the search for “good vibes” or cultivating a certain public image people will adore. He’s not longing to return to some idealized past, and he’s not going to fret and worry about an uncertain future. He’s going to try to meet God in the present moment, confessing that “my times are in your hand.”

He is choosing not to seek a momentary happy-buzz in a shopping spree or the next relational fling. He knows a vacation by the sea and days in the sun will not cure his heart. It’s the bright shine of God’s loving face he needs to bask in more regularly. “Let all the world go dark on me,” he says, “so long as your face shines upon your servant.”

He’s not looking to politics to save him. He’s not looking for money or prestige to save him. He’s not looking for salvation in the next romantic relationship. The psalmist seems to know that the only cure for deep and hidden aches of the human heart is regular doses of the divinely prescribed “steadfast love” of God our Heavenly Father in whom we were created to “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17). “Save me in your steadfast love!”

Thank you for these 50 minutes on your Heavenly couch, O God. Can we book another session soon? Say, tomorrow at this time?