Waiting for the Light

Psalm 130

Is an angry, bitter, vengeful prayer a good prayer to pray? Mike preached last week from Psalm 129. There is creativity in this psalm as the psalmist thinks of a way to inflict pain and misery on those who have hurt him. (Psalm 129:5–8 )
5 May all who hate Zion
be turned back in shame.
6 May they be like grass on the roof,
which withers before it can grow;
7 with it the reaper cannot fill his hands,
nor the one who gathers fill his arms.
8 May those who pass by not say,
“The blessing of the Lord be upon you;
we bless you in the name of the Lord.”

Psalm 109, a psalm of David, is an even better example of a creatively, bitter prayer. (Psalm 109:6–15)
6 Appoint an evil man to oppose him;
let an accuser stand at his right hand.
7 When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
and may his prayers condemn him.
8 May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.
9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes.
11 May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
12 May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.
13 May his descendants be cut off,
their names blotted out from the next generation.
14 May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord;
may the sin of his mother never be blotted out.
15 May their sins always remain before the Lord,
that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

Are you uncomfortable that this psalm is in the Bible? Is this the way Christians are supposed to pray? I tell you that this is a good prayer of David and this is why. If David had not expressed his anger and bitterness I these verses, he would not have been led to the verses at the end of his psalm: (Psalm 109:30–31 )
30 With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord;
in the great throng I will praise him.
31 For he stands at the right hand of the needy one,
to save his life from those who condemn him.

In order to have an honest relationship with God, we have to be willing to be honest with ourselves, be honest with God, and be willing to express all the emotions we are feeling. If you ignore what you are feeling and pray only what you think God would want you to say, then you create distance between yourself and God, not intimacy.

When people ask me if I pray for rulers and authorities I say, “Yes I do,” but they don’t ask me what kind of prayers I pray. After the deportations in 2010 when the only parents the children at the Village of Hope had ever known were abruptly taken away, many of my prayers were along the lines of Psalm 109 and they were necessary prayers to allow me to move from Psalm 129 to Psalm 130.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;
2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

In preaching from Psalm 130 this week, I have to start with Psalm 129 because unless we are honest with what we are feeling, we can never draw close to God. If we ignore what we are feeling and pray prayers we think God would like to hear, our superficial, dishonest prayers will keep us distant from God.

The writer of Psalm 130 writes from the depths, from the bottom of the pit. Alcoholics talk about getting to the bottom of the pit when they finally realize there is no more pretending. They are alcoholics, their life is miserable, and they are desperate to change. Whatever has happened that put the writer of this psalm in his situation, he can go no deeper. He is desperate and out of his desperation he calls out for help, for mercy.

This is not a superficial, “Help me Lord.” This is the cry of Peter as he was sinking in the Sea of Galilee in a storm, “Help me Lord!”

On the way down to the depths, we tell ourselves we can make things work out. We can manage. We may pray to God for help but we are not desperate. Our prayer for help does not come from the depth of our heart. It is a superficial prayer we pray because we still think we can fix things ourselves.

It is when we are out of options and know only God can make our situation better, that is when we are in the depths and we cry our with passion, pleading for help.

We don’t know the circumstances of the writer of Psalm 130. All we know is that he came to the point of desperation and cried out for help. What is remarkable about this psalm is that the circumstances of the psalmist do not change over the course of the psalm. Whatever has caused him to feel so desperate is still the condition of his life at the end of the psalm. If this was Job who was writing this psalm, he would still be childless, stripped of his wealth, sitting in rags and covered with painful boils at the end of the psalm. The psalmist is still suffering but at the end of the psalm his attitude has changed.

When we are suffering in one way or another and are deeply unhappy, this psalm tells us how we can change our outlook without having to wait for our circumstances to change. We do this in five, not so easy, steps.

I have already mentioned step one and step two. Step one is to be honest with ourselves and with God. We need to open up the ugliness of our soul and all that we are feeling. If we cannot do this, then there is no step two. This is an absolutely essential precondition for any change in our attitude.

Step two is to cry out for help. From the heart, in desperation, knowing only God can help us, we cry out for help.

Step three is to allow God to speak to us about our own condition.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;
2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
3 If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

This is a curious verse that follows the psalmist’s cry for help because when people are sinking to the depths, they generally accuse others, blame others for their situation. “Why are people so mean to me?” “Why is this world so unfair?” “It’s not my fault.” Genesis doesn’t record this part of Joseph’s life, but I would imagine that Joseph had quite a ride to the depths after his brothers sold him into slavery. Somewhere between that bitter and totally unexpected betrayal by his brothers and his arrival in Egypt where we pick up the story of his service for Potiphar, he made his descent to the depths and cried out to God for help. And on the way down I am sure he was convinced he was the completely innocent victim and his brothers were completely at fault for what they did. But then at some point he became aware of his own sin and that allowed him to be transformed into the faithful servant of God who was able to endure through hardship and exercise wisdom as Pharaoh’s right hand man.

When we descend to the depths and finally hit bottom, we stop blaming others and begin to look at ourselves to see what we did to contribute to our current condition. We see our own sin. I know a woman who has had a number of jobs and in each job there was a problem boss who made work difficult and led to her losing her job. It was never her fault, never her problem. In each job she was doing great, but then the boss would do something wrong, the relationship deteriorated, and then the job ended. When we sink to the depths, we have to take responsibility for our part in the descent.

This is a difficult step to take because we do not like to acknowledge that we are at fault. We do not like to face our own sin. But that is an essential stage of our spiritual growth. I have mentioned before the transition we see in the letters of Paul of his own spiritual development.

Paul wrote Galatians in 47 AD and in his introduction you can feel the sense of importance he has about himself.
Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father,

Eight years later when Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, there is a bit of a shift that tells me Paul has matured as a Christian. (I Corinthians 15:9)
For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
Do you hear the humility in Paul that was missing in his letter to the Galatians?

Five years later in his letter to Philemon he describes himself as a prisoner of Jesus Christ and a year later in Philippians he begins his letter with:
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,

Seventeen years after he wrote the letter to the Galatians, at the end of his life he wrote to Timothy and in this letter we see the progression of Paul, the spiritual maturity of Paul, the process of sanctification at work in Paul’s life. (I Timothy 1:15)
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.

Paul moved from an apostle sent not from men nor by man, to the least of the apostles and to the greatest of all sinners.

When a London newspaper posed the question, ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ and invited people to respond, the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response:

Dear Sirs:
I am.
Sincerely Yours,
G. K. Chesterton.

This is step three, reflecting in the midst of our suffering and seeing our own sinfulness.

Step four in changing our outlook, even when our circumstances do not change, is to receive the forgiveness of God.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;
2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
3 If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness;

We are loved by God who wants us to share in the delight of relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God pursues us so we will come into his kingdom and the New Testament is chock full of evidence for this. (Romans 5:8) While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (2 Peter 3:9) The Lord is patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (1 John 4:19) We love because God first loved us. (1 John 1:9) If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

I have often thought that if I were God, I would have given up on me long ago. But fortunately for me, and for the rest of the world, I am not God. God’s love and his desire for us to be with him is so intense that we will always find forgiveness when we come to him with a repentant heart.

Step five is to become aware of the power and holiness of God.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;
2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
3 If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.

This seems to be a very strange response to forgiveness. We would expect the psalmist to say, “therefore we are grateful” or “therefore we rejoice”, but instead we read, “therefore you are feared.”

In Luke 5 when Jesus healed the paralytic, whose friends lowered him through the roof to get to Jesus, the reaction of the Pharisees and teachers of the law was: (Luke 5:21)
“Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

In Luke 7 when a prostitute washed the feet of Jesus with her hair and anointed them with perfume, Jesus told her “Your sins are forgiven” and the guests said to each other: (Luke 7:49)
“Who is this who even forgives sins?”

In forgiving sin, Jesus revealed himself to be the all-powerful, all-loving God of the universe.

To fear God is not to be afraid of God. Ramamoorthy talked about this a couple weeks ago when he preached from Psalm 128. To fear God is to have reverence and awe for who he is and for what he does. To fear God is to know who he is in all his power and glory. To fear God is to be like the apostle John when he received the revelation of the risen Jesus. John fell at his feet as though dead.

To fear God is not to take him for granted, not to think we can manipulate him to get what we want. To fear God is to make Jesus Savior and Lord of our lives.

Step one to changing our attitude even when our circumstances do not change is to be honest with ourselves and with God. Step two is to cry out to God for help from the bottom of our heart. Step three is to reflect and acknowledge our own sinfulness. Step four is to receive the amazing forgiveness of God. Step five is to come before God in awe and reverence for who he is. With these five steps there has been a change in attitude and this makes the end of the psalm possible.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

I have worked as a night watchman inside a building where I did not look for the sun to rise, but I did watch the clock, waiting for it to get to 6 AM so I could go home and get some sleep. I never had to watch for the sun to rise but I know that hours in the night seem longer than hours during the day.

When I was a young pastor in rural Ohio, I became certified as an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician). I did this so I could be exposed to a part of the town I might never see as a pastor. When there was a call, we would drive to the station and get in the ambulance and go to where we were asked to go. I discovered that there were an amazing number of calls in the middle of the night. People would not feel good during the day but then during the night when they could not sleep, their anxiety would increase and they would call us. Most of the time, they could have called earlier in the day or the next morning, but it is difficult to wait in the night for the morning to come.

A watchman stands on the city wall, looking out to see if any danger is approaching. All night long the watchman looks out to see what can be seen from the light of the stars and moon. Time stretches out and it is difficult to wait. He waits eagerly because as soon as the sun comes up it will be easier to see if danger is approaching and someone else will come to watch so he can go home to sleep.

So the watchman waits for the morning with great longing. The circumstances have not changed and the psalmist is eager for relief from his circumstances. He waits and waits. He knows the sun will rise. It is inevitable, but he has to wait for it to rise. As surely as the sun will rise, his circumstances will change. He waits with faith that God will act.

The wait can be a long wait. Abraham and Sarah waited most of their adult life for a son. Israel waited for at least 80 years for help to escape the oppression of slavery in Egypt. Israel waited for 400 years after the last of the prophets before John the Baptist came to announce the arrival of the Messiah. Simeon waited for years until finally he saw Jesus who had come to be dedicated in the Temple. We have been waiting for almost 2,000 years for the return of Jesus.

We do not give up waiting. We wait with hope.

When I thought about how this psalm reflects my own experience, I thought about the Village of Hope.

Each week in our bulletin I have pictures of the children of the Village of Hope who have birthdays during that month. This month I look at the beautiful, smiling faces of Yasmine and Kinza. I look at their faces and my heart breaks. I have kept the pictures of the children of VOH in the bulletin for more than three and a half years, ever since the government abruptly took away the only parents these children had ever known. With just seven hours notice, the parents were taken away from their crying children, kept under police guard at the airport in Casablanca, and flown to their home countries the next day.

For all of my years in Morocco I was on the board of the Village of Hope and for most of those years I was chairman of the board. I was there before any of the buildings were built and I was there when the first two children were received: Adam and Karim. Over the years we raised funds to build the buildings. We developed policies that would help the children to be prepared to be good citizens of Morocco. We worked through financial and personnel crises. We celebrated together. I have so many memories and my involvement with the parents, staff, and children at the Village of Hope is one of the richest parts of my years in Morocco. I used to visit the children about eighteen times a year. I would leave Rabat at 6:30 with boxes of pastries from Patisserie Souissi and when I pulled up to the parking lot at the Village of Hope, the children would call out, “Ami Jack! Ami Jack!” (Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack!) The deportation of these parents and our separation from the children has been the most severe blow to my faith I have ever experienced.

Ever since then I have stood on the city wall, looking out, waiting for the sun to rise. A year ago our hopes were raised when the court ruled in our favor, allowing us to resume our care of the children. But then the Appeals Court reversed that decision and now we are awaiting a hearing by the Supreme Court.

It is so hard to wait and I have despaired of ever seeing the children again, at least not until they turn 18. These children were loved so well for their first years, some of them for ten years. They were abandoned at birth and now have to deal with the reality of having been forced to be abandoned a second time.

When the deportations first happened in March 2010, my faith was crushed and I was unable even to pray a prayer of thankfulness and trust before a meal. I descended to the depths, expressing to God all the anger and bitterness I felt, even the anger I felt toward God. I cried out for help. I began to see that I had put confidence in a promise God had never made. God promises never to leave us and God did not leave us. My crisis of faith came because I wanted to be God and determine what would happen. I asked for forgiveness and God grew my faith. I have grown in faith over the past three years in a way that I can’t explain except that despite my analysis of the current political climate in Morocco, I have a very deep confidence that God has not abandoned the children. I may not be in control and I may not be the one to love them, but I have confidence God is at work in their lives.

So I am waiting. I am waiting with hope. God is so much more creative than I am. God is so loving and so powerful. God will work in the lives of these children and encourage them to choose him.

God is also at work in your life and in the lives of those you care about. Wait with trust. God will act. God will act because he loves you and because he has plans for you. God will act because a room is being prepared for you in his kingdom.

Psalm 130 is a beautiful psalm because it shows us how to be led to trust in God who will come to help us as surely as the sun will rise in the morning.