Grace and peace,
Friends.
This is Mark Ludman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighborhood monk in docks.
Welcome as we continue to work our way through the Psalms of Ascent on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
As the psalmist sings these songs of pilgrimage.
Just take a moment now as we start to become still.
Allow yourself to settle into a comfortable position.
Take a gentle breath in.
Slowly breathe out.
Let your breathing slow,
But still notice it.
And as you breathe,
Become aware of the presence of God.
A God who meets you exactly where you are,
In the heights,
In the valleys,
And even in the depths.
As we continue our pilgrimage through the Psalms of Ascents,
We've travelled through many landscapes of the human heart.
We've longed for peace,
Lifted our eyes in trust.
Remembered God's faithfulness and learned to rest.
We've even received blessing and discovered that even wounded places.
Can be places where grace is found.
And today.
.
.
The pilgrim descends,
But as we listen to today's psalm,
Psalm 130,
Notice that the pilgrim doesn't descend away from God,
But deeper into the truth of their own heart.
Psalm 130 begins.
With one of the most honest prayers in scripture.
Out of the depths I cry to you,
Oh Lord.
It's a prayer of someone who knows that they can't save themselves.
Someone who's reached the limits of their own strength.
Someone who's discovered that the places where they feel most lost become the very place where they encounter mercy.
So let's listen for our first time to Psalm 130.
And as you do,
Just listen for the words or phrases that seem to stand out for you.
And allow them to settle in the silence that follows.
Psalm 130.
Out of the depths I cry to you,
O Lord.
Lord,
Hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
If you,
O Lord,
Should mark iniquities.
Lord.
Who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you.
So that you may be revered.
I wait for the Lord,
My soul waits.
And in his word,
I hope.
My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning.
More than those who watch for the morning.
O Israel,
Hope in the Lord.
And with the Lord there is steadfast love.
And with him is great power to redeem.
It is He who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.
So what words or phrases settled with you in that first hearing?
Perhaps out of the depths.
Or I wait for the Lord,
Or even,
With the Lord there is steadfast love.
Just allow that word or phrase to remain with you and become your prayer as we reflect on the psalm today.
Now Psalm 130 is one of the great prayers of the spiritual tradition.
It's known within Christianity.
As one of the Seven Penitential Psalms.
Ancient prayers of repentance and mercy.
But before it's a prayer of repentance,
It's a prayer of relationship.
The psalmist is crying out because they believe God can hear.
They call because they trust that God is near.
There's already hope present in the very act of prayer.
The depths are real.
But the depths aren't God's absence.
And this is one of the most important lessons from this psalm.
Because a lot of us imagine that when we descend into difficult places,
Places of grief,
Regret,
Failure,
Shame,
Uncertainty,
That somehow we've moved away from God.
That scripture repeatedly tells us another story.
God meets people in the depths.
Jonah Beneath the Waves.
Israel while they're in exile.
Elijah in exhaustion.
Jesus in the wilderness and at the cross.
God meets us.
And we're reminded that the depths aren't beyond the reach of divine love.
Let's listen one more time.
And as we do,
Just notice the movement of the psalm,
Where it begins,
But where it moves to.
Psalm 130.
Out of the depths,
I cry to you,
O Lord.
Lord,
Hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive.
To the voice of my supplications.
If you,
O Lord,
Should mark inequities.
Lord.
Who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you,
So that you may be revered.
I wait for the Lord.
My soul waits.
And in his word,
I hope.
My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning.
More than those who watch for the morning.
O Israel,
Hope in the Lord.
And with the Lord there is steadfast love.
And with him is great power to redeem.
It is He who will redeem Israel.
From all its iniquities.
So did you notice the movement of the psalm there?
It begins in the depth,
But it doesn't remind you.
The prayer moves slowly towards hope.
The psalmist writes,
I wait for the Lord and waiting is one of the deepest acts of faith.
Now quite often in our busy modern lives,
The cultures we live in see waiting as wasted time.
And so we try and avoid the waiting,
Fill them with something.
But the pilgrim discovers that waiting can become the place of transformation.
The seed waits beneath the soil,
The dawn waits beneath the horizon,
The heart waits for the whisper of God.
The psalmist waits,
Quote,
More than those who watch for the morning,
Unquote.
And that's so important.
The psalmist says it twice,
More than those who watch for the morning.
It's a beautiful image.
Those who watch for the morning are certain that the sun is going to rise.
They remain awake.
To receive it,
And so it is with grace.
We don't have to earn God's love.
Or God's mercy.
But we wait.
And we receive,
We open ourselves to the God who's already coming towards us.
And the foundation of that hope.
.
.
Well,
It's certainly not anything we've done.
It all stands on God's steadfast love,
And that,
My friends,
Is grace.
Let's listen one more time.
And this time,
Hear the words as a prayer of surrender,
A prayer that's offered by every heart that longs to come home.
And just sit with this as your own prayer in the silence afterwards,
Just for a minute or so.
Psalm 130.
Out of the depths,
I cry to you,
O Lord.
Lord,
Hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive.
To the voice of my supplications.
If you,
O Lord,
Should mark inequities.
Lord.
Who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you.
So that you may be revered.
I wait for the Lord.
My soul waits.
And in his word,
I hope.
My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning.
More than those who watch for the morning.
O Israel,
Hope in the Lord.
And with the Lord there is steadfast love.
And with him is great power to redeem.
It is He who will redeem Israel.
From all its iniquities.
Let's pry.
Merciful God,
From the depths we call to you,
From the places of uncertainty,
From the places of regret,
From the places where we feel lost or overwhelmed,
Hear our prayer.
Teach us that there's nowhere we can go where your love cannot find us.
Where we carry guilt,
Meet us with mercy,
Where we carry shame,
Meet us with compassion.
Where we carry fear,
Meet us with hope.
Give us the patience to wait for you.
The courage to trust your promises and the humility to receive the grace that you offer us so freely.
May our souls learn to wait for you more than those who watch for the morning.
For you are the God whose steadfast love never fails.
You are the God who redeems and you are the God who brings light from darkness and life from the depths.
Step as we rise with you God today and always.
Until tomorrow,
My friends,
God's grace and peace be with you.
