God the Refuge

Let us pray…Gracious and ever-loving God, as we come to the end of our Lenten season, we come before you this afternoon looking for your guidance and comfort. We come with hearts heavy by the load we have carried for the last year and laden with the burdens that we have carried all this time. In this moment, we pray that you would speak to us in that small still-speaking voice and help us to close off the world for just a while as we prepare to celebrate the meal your Son instituted for us to share, Amen.

Our Lenten Journey...

Our Lenten journey this year has taken us through several Psalms written hundreds of years before Christ was born. We have spoke, mostly about David and his words, but have looked within ourselves at where and how we have moved away from God in so many ways. We have taken a deeper look into our hearts to see the places and areas that we might need to change ourselves in order to bring the kingdom of Heaven a closer in our lifetimes. We have also taken some time to consider how much we and others have cried out to God in our despair as a means to cry out for our time and world.

Tonight, we take a look at one final Psalm of Lament. While it is a Psalm that cries out to God from a personal place, it also begins moving us toward the celebration on Sunday morning of Christ’s resurrection. This is a time of transition in our study of the Psalms and for us as God’s people. Life is going to be different from here on out...both in Biblical times as well as today. Tonight, Maundy Thursday, is the night we remember that Jesus will be arrested, tortured, and crucified for our sins. Tonight also represents a transition for us from only virtual worship to a time of safe gathering once again. It is also a time of transition from what we have always done to a new way of creating normal. So, as we move through this time tonight, I want you to be aware of how you feel, what you sense, and how the words of this Psalm affect you as an individual but us as a community of faith together.

Psalm 71:1–2 NIV

In you, Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness, rescue me and deliver me; turn your ear to me and save me.

Let’s begin with the first two verses tonight…read the passage again…What are you hearing in these words? Are they echoes of words you have spoken for yourself recently? Are they words you have spoken at any point in your life?

I would venture a guess that many, if not all of us, have felt this way at some point in our lives. We have been at a moment of transition and thought, “There is no way I can carry on.” I know I have multiple times in the last year. Between COVID and helping my father, there were many times that I prayed for it all to just end so that I could get some relief. The key to that statement is that I prayed. The Psalmist is praying to God in this Psalm, asking for rescue from some form of oppression. Whether that is a physical force that stands in their way or if it is an internal battle that they are waging, ultimately it does not matter because they are calling out to God to...

Psalm 71:4 NLT

My God, rescue me from the power of the wicked, from the clutches of cruel oppressors.

read the verse. One thing that stands out to me in this Psalm is this idea that no matter what is happening in the writer’s life, they still have enough faith and maybe more importantly, enough strength in their faith to know that God can and will deliver them from their opposition. We need to take that into hearts, especially tonight. Remember, this night is about what is going to happen to Christ in the next 24 hours.

I know that we did not cover any of this on Sunday and we are not going to cover much of it tonight but for those who may not know the story well, this is the night that Christ’s life is sold into the hands of the Roman government for 30 pieces of silver, equivalent to about $6,000 or two to three months of wages. While this is not much to sneeze at, especially if you live paycheck to paycheck, if someone were to sell your child’s life, would you say $6k is enough? Right…I would think that this sum of money was likely a lot to Judas but not enough in my mind to warrant selling someone’s life. But I am digressing…so, Jesus has eaten a meal with his disciples, instituted communion, and knelt before them to wash their feet. He has sent Judas off to do what he must do and now Jesus is preparing himself and the others for what is going to come next…his arrest, a few mock trials, some beatings, some floggings, and most certainly a lot of punishment he did not deserve.

Now, the reason I am telling you this is because I can hear this story echoing throughout the Psalm for tonight. In verse I read a few moments ago, I can hear this echoed through the prayer that Jesus prays in the Garden. “Father take this cup from me...” But in the very next breath, Jesus whispers, “your will be done.” Jesus knew that God was the only one who could stop the events that were about to occur from happening and he knew that God was the only one refuge he needed. We see him in the Garden praying and I can hear the echoes of these words coming from his lips...

Psalm 71:10–14 NIV

For my enemies speak against me; those who wait to kill me conspire together. They say, “God has forsaken him; pursue him and seize him, for no one will rescue him.” Do not be far from me, my God; come quickly, God, to help me. May my accusers perish in shame; may those who want to harm me be covered with scorn and disgrace. As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.

God was, and always will be for that matter, the one hope that we have to withstand all that this world can throw at us.

We will always have people who stand up and say that we are hypocrites or that we don’t walk the walk that we talk. There will always be those who do not understand why we put our hope in something that cannot be seen, felt, or smelled. There are always going to be enemies that we have to stand against in this world, both inside and outside of ourselves. It is the very nature of the world.

Psalm 71:14 NLT

But I will keep on hoping for your help; I will praise you more and more.

What I want you to hear clearly this night and to chisel into your hearts from our study of the Psalms of Lament for Lent is this verse…read verse…when we lose hope, we lose everything and that is not what Christ gives us by his arrest, death, and especially his resurrection. Continue to hope in God and God will strengthen all of us for the days to come, Amen.