March 29, 2020
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.
A man in his 60’s who is quarantined for 14 days said, “I stopped believing when I was 21.” He could see the beauty of faith and comfort in believing, but as the world drastically changes, he is isolated and without belief in God. Now whether you are strictly quarantined or simply sheltering in place and experiencing your own social withdrawal, we resonate with wanting to cry to the Lord like the psalmist. “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” The depths is an ubiquitous term: economists write of deepening recession, diplomats warn of a deepening crisis, therapists see patients who are deeply depressed. Our nation is deeply burdened by the coronavirus. We feel the depth of this chaos. In Latin the word “depth” has the same root at “profound” and we are certainly in a profound situation right now. We might want to complain or grumble. One commentator wrote, the depths is “any state we cannot get out of by our own efforts” (Feasting on the Word, A2, p. 133). We sure cannot get out of this on our own. So we cry out from the depths.
Lord when will this end?
Lord protect my family from this virus.
Lord, I am scared, and I need you!
We cry to the Lord. But this is not complaining or grumbling because we are crying to the Lord. Crying to the Lord is a kind of lament, showing our profound faith. We cry to the Lord because we have faith in the Lord. We might feel like our nation is in a pit, in the depths of something overwhelming, yet we make our cries to the Lord because our trust and faith abides with God.
We are not alone in this.
Moses cried to the Lord when he felt inadequate to lead, and God provided. (Ex 3-4)
Israelites cried to the Lord for food and water, and God provided.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego cried to the Lord in the fire: God provided. (Dan 3:16)
Martha cried from the depths of her grief for her brother, Jesus and God provided (Jn 11:21)
So its okay to cry to the Lord, to plead to the Lord. It is even healthy and faithful. You don’t have to keep a stiff upper lip and pretend all is well. Rather trust in the power and provision of God and share with your God how you are feeling. Cry to the Lord. Because your crying is really honest praying. Your truthful telling is a way to invite God into dark places of life.
Out of the depths of our new reality, you get to cry to the Lord.
You get to cry, “I am tired of these four walls.”
You get to cry, “I don’t like being this isolated.”
You get to cry, “Help me Lord, I long to rest in your loving arms.”
I think the reality of where we are is hitting home. We realize that this is not simply a two-week quarantine. We get that this is a new short-term normal. We are adjusting how we approach our daily life because we know that we each play a part in how we get out of this, as a community, a state and a nation. We pray daily for those who are addressing this virus, doctors, nurses, first responders and leaders.
We are learning new behaviors like washing our hands for 20 seconds-singing Happy birthday twice.
We are learning Zoom something most of us had never heard of, much less used, a month ago. We are creating new rhythms for our life. But more than anything else we wait.
Just like we Cry to Lord, we also Wait for the Lord.
We wait for the next update of numbers.
We wait for the next state for declare a state of emergency.
We wait for a federal response that gives us direction.
We wait, wondering when it gets to us.
The psalmist declares, “My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning.”
We might say my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for an end to shelter in place.
My soul waits for the Lord more than those who wish life would go back to normal.
Whatever you are waiting for- wait for it in the Lord.
We do not know how long we will be waiting. How long we shelter in place or fight this virus. We do not know how long we will be waiting. But we do know the one we wait for.
We wait for the Lord.
We are in the season of Lent, a time of preparing and waiting. We often do that by giving up something for Lent. A friend sent me a picture of a church sign that said, “Had not planned on giving up quite this much for Lent.” We have all given up more than we had planned, yet have we framed it as a spiritual practice as part of our waiting for the Lord? In our waiting we have the gift of time; time to pray, reflect, honor our Lord. Let us not focus on when will this all end. Rather focus on waiting for our redemption through our Lord, the one in whom we wait!
So we Cry to the Lord, we Wait for the Lord, and finally we Hope in the Lord.
Just like we cry to the Lord with our laments, and wait for the Lord in this uncertainty, we are to hope in the Lord, the one who restores and provides.
The psalmist declares, “O Israel, hope in the Lord!” This is the first time I relate to this idea of a nation joining in the Lord, the way it is often portrayed in the Old Testament. Our nation will rise or fall based on how we pull together and respond to this virus. Our very survival is dependent on each other and our willingness to stay at home and slow the spread of the virus. So we pray:
“O America, hope in the Lord!”
Yes, we have a vital role to play in how this moves forward. What you do matters, so please heed all the directives and err on the side of caution. But our hope is not based in each other, but rather in a God who loves and redeems us.
“Hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with God is great power to redeem” (v. 7).
Stephen Farris writes, “If the first human task in the depths is to cry out, the second is to wait. We are not to wait passively but to wait with hope. Hope is an intensive form of waiting…” (Feasting on the Word, A2, p. 131).
My personal hope is for the world to see this as a wake-up call. For just like when a person gets sick, people often say you need to slow down, to stop and rest. Humanity is getting sick right now and I feel like it is time for humanity to stop.
Stop polluting and oppressing,
Stop warring and denying climate change.
Stop income inequality and racism.
My hope is that when we start back up again, we can be the people God is calling us to be; more just, more loving, more kind and more like Christ.
Rev. Farris continues, “All parts of this psalm- the cry, the hope, and the counsel to Israel- should be understood as emanating from the depths. The help has not yet come, only the promise of help. That surely is where we stand. Help may not yet have come, but we have cried out and have heard and even said that with God there is steadfast love. There is a word for that place where we cry out to God and where we speak and hear the promises of redemption. It is called ‘church.’” (p. 133)
I am so grateful we are being church right now. We Cry to the Lord. We wait for the Lord. We hope in the Lord. Even though we are doing that from our own homes, we do that together, united in Christ in our hearts. Amen.
