Blessed are the Hopeful
#Blessed are the Hopeful
PSALM 130
PSALMS OF ASCENT
Out of the depths I cry to you,
LORD;
Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
If you, LORD, kept a record of
sins,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence,
serve you.
I wait for the LORD, my whole
being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the
morning,
more than watchmen wait for the
morning.
Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing
love
and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.
After graduating from Oxford, John Wesley served as a missionary in the state of Georgia, USA, for several years. During this time, he realized he wasn’t converted, although he was a missionary. On the afternoon of May 1738, he went to St. Paul’s Cathedral, where he was deeply moved by a choir singing Psalm 130, also known as Dei Profundus, Latin for the first line – “Out of the Depths!” John Wesley gave his life to Christ that same night during a reading of the preface of Luther’s Commentary on Romans; his heart strangely warmed to the message of the beautiful music and words earlier that afternoon.
The collections of 15 Psalms that we have been studying the past year and a bit, also called the Psalms of Degrees or Ascents, are grouped and named because they describe a journey. The psalmist uprooting himself from Meschech and Kedar in Psalm 120, blood-thirsty and war-mongering tribes in North Africa and the Black Sea, is a picture of pilgrims of all ages and all times setting out towards Jerusalem, the city of God, to worship in His presence and celebrate His feasts.
In these five sets of three psalms, each focusing on a theme of distress in the first, power in the second, and security in the third, Psalm 130 speaks of hope that provides the pilgrim with power. We can divide the psalm into two parts: the first six verses are a prayer for gracious forgiveness, and the last two verses promise abundant redemption.
In the opening two lines, which start with “out of the depths,” we hear the desperate cries of a man over his head in trouble. Although we do not know the specifics, this points to the valleys of life that we all pass through sooner or later because of our occasional sinful behaviour.
Yet, despite his despair, the psalmist knows that God is not far away. Because he has already experienced His mercy and forgiveness in the past, a humble confession of repentance and faith naturally flows from him. He is once again in need of God’s mercy and grace.
Psalm 130 is the passionate plea of a man gravely distressed by a holy and perfect God’s wrath of sin, so he earnestly seeks forgiveness of his iniquities. His solemn appeal is enhanced by the eight repetitions of God’s names throughout the psalm. In this way, the psalmist unashamedly proclaims his wholehearted trust that only the Lord can resolve his grave spiritual predicament. This deep understanding of who God is and what He can do for him stirs the psalmist to confess, “but there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.”
Yet, we must remember that confession of sin is not necessarily painless, neither is forgiveness instantaneous. Sin may have lasting consequences. For example, drug addiction might leave permanent damage to a person’s brain. On the other hand, sin can be so offensive that the offended party needs to hear genuine and deep regret. For instance, a disobedient child who throws a ball in the house, shattering the front window and/or breaking an antique lamp, cannot simply mumble a “sorry Dad” and flippantly skip off as if nothing significant has happened.
The question is, does God ask of us more than confession of sin? Isn’t it clear from the Word that while He forgives us, He does not take away the consequences of our sin, but makes sure that we understand the full extent and consequences of our actions? The mess that our sinful behavior causes can rarely be quickly or easily resolved. For example, the Israelites’ wilderness wanderings affected two generations, and the exile in Babylon lasted seventy years. The repetition of ‘waiting’ in verses 5 and 6 is remarkably short and indicates the psalmist’s realization that he must wait patiently for everything to work out for the best. In any case, he is absolutely convinced that a forgiving and merciful God will come through for him and that in His perfect time.
It is this testimony of his own life, of how God rescued him from the depths, that makes him turn to the people in the last two verses and urge them to stand strong in God’s eternal hope. As God’s loyal covenantal love saved him from his physical need, so His loving-kindness will deliver the Israelites from their spiritual need, wiping out all their iniquities and guilt.
This joyful expectation of abundant salvation at the end of Psalm 130, It is He who redeems Israel from all their sin, urges us as Christians to cry out in the words of Revelation 22:20: “Yes, come, Lord. Jesus!” For indeed, He alone is the hope of the world and under His wings alone is healing for the sin-wounds of all His children throughout the world. Let us then cry out with one voice this month: “Yes, come, Lord Jesus!” – into my heart, into my home, into my family, into my body, into my country, into my continent, into every nation, tribe and language.
