Out of the Depths
Notes
Transcript
A Song of Ascents.
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!
For 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.
This week we come to the end of our sermon series, Selah: Life in a Minor Key. While I know how to pronounce Selah, I still have to remind myself of the correct pronunciation. I still want to say Say-lah and not Suh-lah. But, ya’ll know what I mean. If you remember Selah means, pause, change, breath, or shift. It seems like life has given each of us a Selah. We are pausing as we shelter in place and life seems to be paused.
It is also an interesting time to have a sermon title of Out of the Depths. What do I mean it is interesting to have this sermon title now? Well lets dive into our Psalm for the the and talk about the interesting sermon title along with this pause. Turn with me to .
A Song of Ascents.
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!
For 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.
Our psalm this morning is another Song of Ascents. This means it was a song sung as the Israelites journeyed up to Jerusalem. No matter what direction the Israelites came from the had to journey up to Jerusalem for their gatherings because it sat above all the land around it. This means for passover, festivals, and other gatherings at the temple the Israelites had to go up the hill to worship.
Throughout this Lenten journey we have talked about God being with us. We have discussed the need to remember that God walks with us as we journey through this season. God guides us as we go about repenting of our sins. God is there even though at times we may feel like God is not there.
The psalmist cries out of the depths. This may sound like the psalmist is crying from a place of despair or trouble, almost similar to the times we are in but it is quit the opposite. The psalmist is crying out of the depths of faith. When you think about it, we don’t always cry out to God from our faith but from our despair. I’m sure many of you have been crying out to God over the past couple of weeks out of fear and despair asking for the removal of this COVID-19 virus. Instead of despair their is faith and hope in the petitions of the psalmist.
If we read on we see that the psalmist recognizes the forgiveness that God offers. The psalmist states that God could strike anyone down for their iniquities but instead there is forgiveness and God should be praised for this. What is really interesting is that this is not a petition from a group but a petition from an individual. The reason for it being weird is that this individual would have been traveling in a group of Israelites as the ascended to Jerusalem, yet the psalmist is only sing from their individual point of view.
It is almost as if the psalmist is saying, only I understand the road I have traveled and am the only one who can be thankful for my journey. There is so much truth in this statement. There is only one person who truly knows the pain, suffering, joy, and happiness they are going through and that is the person that is experiencing those feelings. It is the old saying of walk a mile in my shoes and you will understand what I go through. Each of us have our own journey and have our own feelings that only we can experience.
This is something we have to recognize within us and others that we meet along the way. We can never truly know what a person is going through even if we have had a similar experience. When you lose a loved one, it hurts and you experience pain and grief through that loss. But, just because you lost the same loved one as someone else does not mean both of you are experiencing the loss in the same way. We each experience loss differently. We grieve differently. We cry out to God differently. No, experience is the same for different individuals because we are all different.
That is why the psalmist is crying out the way they are in this scripture. They are experiencing the journey different than all the other people they are traveling with. They are filled with joy on this long, hot uphill journey. Along the way the song changes. The song changes from an individual to a song of the people. The psalmist sings “O Israel, hope in the Lord.” Now, the song turns to those journeying together. The shout of reminders that God is hope. That God is love. That God is the redeemer and will redeem all from their iniquities.
This is quit a shift from, you don’t know anything about how I am feeling to we are all in this together and have a great God who redeems us. But, it is a reminder that we need today and every day. It is a reminder that God is journeying with us through this time of anxiety and fear. It is a reminder that God is with us and knows what we are going through. It is a reminder that we are not making this journey on our own.
Even though we are the only ones that know how we feel and are experiencing something, we are not making this journey on our own. In fact, we are making this journey together. We are worshipping the same Triune God along the way. We can lean on each other and remind others that they can lean on us. We can lean on God and offer God to those who are struggling.
God is hope, love, forgiving, and redeeming. This should bring comfort and joy to you just as it did to the psalmist. God could punish for all our wrongs but instead God offers a way to receive forgiveness. I hope you are as happy about this idea as I am. I hope you understand that even during these strange and dark times, God offers us hope. Friends, continue to cry out of the depths to God. Not out of despair but out of hope and joy from you faith. Know that God is walking with you and guiding you through this. And trust that God offers hope, forgiveness, and redemption during these dark times.