Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk.
You are welcome to share this and include in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Scripture: Psalm 22:23-31
23 You who fear the Lord, praise him
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel
24 For he did not despise or abhor
the affliction of the afflicted
he did not hide his face from me,
but heard when I cried to him.
25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord.
May your hearts live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.
28 For dominion belongs to the Lord,and he rules over the nations.
29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord,
31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.
Devotion:
This passage can only really be understood in the context of the whole of Psalm 22. We recognise verse 1 as words quoted by Jesus on the cross in his darkest hour. This lament fills the first half of the Psalm which makes verse 23 and following all the more remarkable. The movement from lament, petition, even pleading, to praise and adoration is reflected in the period of Lent. Jesus, humiliated, suffering, experiencing darkness of the soul, is resurrected and glorified.
On our office wall at NTC we have Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote: ‘only in the darkness can you see the stars’. King’s experiences of injustice and suffering led him through many dark times. Yet, in those experiences, he discovered hope, made even more profound and brighter because of the contrast to the darkness of the moment. He saw the ‘stars’!
This Lenten period gives us the opportunity to once again look at life that is far from ideal. Lost opportunities, sickness, restricted movement, uncertain circumstances, anxious thoughts, sinful humanity (… add a description of your own struggles) all darken our experience of life. Yet, the act of crying out to God in whom we trust brings hope and light of which we had lost sight. In the Psalm, even in the lament, there is woven a thread of trust; ‘It was you who took me from the womb’ (vs 9); ‘But you, O Lord, do not be far away’ (vs 19); ‘He did not hide his face from me’ (vs 24). The Psalmist’s desperate appeal and lament turns to praise! ‘You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him!’ (vs 23). Perhaps it is an Apostle Paul singing praises in prison. Perhaps it is a parent grieving a lost child who thanks God for the privilege of having their child for a short while. Perhaps it is one who is learning to live with the uncertainty of employment yet thanking God for daily provision. We perceive the stars (the hope) in the midst of difficulties. Let’s give voice to our lament but do so in the context of an appeal to our faithful God. Lament becomes the springboard to praise of our God, our Saviour, our coming King. ‘Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.’ (Martin Luther King Jr. in his ‘I have a Dream’ speech 1963).
Prayer:
Father in our lament of lost opportunity, shattered dreams and uncertainty, we turn to you. Like the disciples of long ago we say, ‘To whom else can we go? You have the words of life’. In these days of Lent, we pray that you will remind us again of your faithfulness and steadfast love. We praise you in the midst of our sense of loss. We thank you for your sustaining grace in the midst of our feelings of abandonment. We dare to trust you, Lord in these moments. We bow before you and worship you. You, O Lord, are our Deliverer and Redeemer. Amen.