Despair from Out of the Depths (Psalm 130)
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Call to worship:
Call to worship:
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Reading #1, for perspective:
Reading #1, for perspective:
7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
Reading #2, main text:
Reading #2, main text:
A song of ascents. 1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; 2 O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. 3 If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. 5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. 6 My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. 7 O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. 8 He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.
Opening illustration:
In 1/100th of a second, the demise of the whole crew was sealed forever.
In May of 1968, a botched payload of torpedoes exploded aboard the USS Scorpion, killing and sealing the fate of the nuclear submarine and her entire crew, sending everyone deep to the bottom below the North Atlantic.
The crew was decimated instantly in the initial explosion—noticed only by seismic recordings picked up by three listening stations spread across the vast Atlantic.
Then, for three minutes and ten seconds, a series of implosions and mutilations of the ship’s hull continued to rock the underwater soundwaves, as the ship’s wreckage descended all the ocean’s depths, being crushed by more and more ocean pressure as it went, until the Scorpion’s dead and her mass of twisted steel came resting at 11,000 feet (2 miles) below the water’s surface.
Scorpion’s demise transmitted no sailor’s screams or cries for help—and the only traceable sounds were the moanings and groanings of struggling metal as it sank further into the deep. In 1/100th of a second, all were lost—with almost no trace uncovered for nearly 5 months.
“(It was) three minutes and ten seconds of destruction, before the ocean went suddenly quiet.”[1]
* * * * *
Hook thought:
Belgic Confession, Art. 17: Man had “plunged himself…into physical and spiritual death and made himself completely miserable.” But God “set out to find him…[and] comfort him.”
* * * * *
I. Trouble and Tension (vv. 1-4)
One commentator calls our psalm this evening the “S.O.S. Psalm,” the Save Our Ship Psalm[2]:
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; 2 O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.
And notice the names and titles that the psalmist uses to call out to God:
Do you know God this evening as both LORD (Jehovah) and Lord (Adonai, my Lord)?
Do you know him as the covenant God of promise AND the ruling God of might?
In despair and sorrow, do you know him as close by? Do you also know him as high and lifted up?
Most centrally, do you know him as the God who is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent…he’s at the lowest point with you in your point of deepest need…and yet he’s seated, at the very same time, in the highest heavens, seated on his ruling throne…and he cares?
This is the need of the psalm!
* * * * *
This is a “Psalm of Ascent,” a pilgrim psalm sung on the road to Jerusalem. Here the psalmist is on the road to Zion, for what should perhaps be the “high point” of the year. And in this march to Zion, the psalmist sings NOT A SONG OF CELEBRATION or joy. But he sings a song of lament, of sorrow, of pain, of sadness.
“Out of the DEPTHS, I cry to you, O Lord.” It’s a cry for help, a cry of demise. Hear the cry of despair. (O JEHOVAH. O ADONAI. Hear me! Give ME your ATTENTION! Turn to me! Notice me!)
* * * * *
But in the despair, in the depths—the psalmist gets something that my son ALSO appreciated in his swim lessons: the psalmist gets to call for help.
My son, in swim lessons, did it like this:
When it was time to learn how to go underwater—he bargained with his teacher. “You’re not going to put my head in the water today.” “My mom says you shouldn’t put my head in the water.” (Lies!) Etc. Etc. Etc. Until one day, he had the ace in the hole:
He said to his teacher, “Mom says today is my last lesson.” (Then he had it accurate and honest 😊 And he was saved and released from being a three-year old having to go putting his chin in the water.)
* * * * *
So hear the psalmist’s hope. Hear the trust. From the deepest darkest place—he can call out! From the abyss, he has the sense and trust that someone hears! There’s optimism, there’s realization that there’s relief. So he calls!
3 If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.
Here’s the TENSION and the TROUBLE, laid bare—and some of us might actually prefer being 11,000 feet way below the Atlantic, rather than go where the psalmist dares here to go…
He points to NAKED, BARE, UNCOVERED sin. He points to SHAME. GUILT. EMBARRASSMENT. HUMILIATION, a real MESS. (We talked on this theme this morning, from Matthew 5:23-24!)
It’s TERRIFYING. It’s PAINFUL. It can be EXCRUCIATING.
There’s someone knowing the sin, too. Someone “marking” it, someone “observing” it. And the Hebrew word there means knowing it and observing it “meticulously,” “fully,” and “thoroughly.”
There’s no skating over the sin here, or letting it slide. It’s UNCOVERED and it’s KNOWN.
“Iniquities.” That’s GUILT, that’s PERVERSIONS, that’s DEVIATIONS and TWISTINGS, that’s FAULTS.
The sins aren’t “photoshopped” or airbrushed over. It’s no social media-ed attempt at “here’s my life, and look how glorious and perfect it always is!”
This is me sitting in my car, thinking I can quick pick my nose—and I look in my rearview mirror to see you driving right behind me! (And you’re smiling, because you KNOW I was picking my nose!) And you pull right into church, after me...
O Lord (Adonai), who could withstand this [type of knowing] and bear it? Who could endure through it and come out “standing” on the other side?
* * * * *
And look to see that the text isn’t pitting God against himself.—The YHWH who “marks” iniquity is the Adonai who issues and determines “standing!”
* * * * *
And the sin isn’t “photoshopped,” it’s FORGIVEN. And high up and down low, the Hebrew signifies that the forgiveness is PLENTIFUL. It’s ABUNDANT. It’s “divine,” and it’s a SEA and OCEAN swimming with FORGIVENESS and WASHING.
And the FORGIVENESS leads to FEAR. NOTICE THE SHIFT!! --- Verse 3 is the fear of FALLING and not being able to STAND. But verse 4, under forgiveness, the relief starts to appear of FEARING, of REVERENCING, of HONORING, and RESPECTING.
So there was a Christian thought I read the other day which encapsulates this so well: it said, “Breathe IN your forgiveness, and breathe OUT your praise!” Or, in other words, RECEIVE God’s forgiveness and dealing with your sin—and then respond back by RETURNING the praise to him!
And the HOPE of the passage starts to come into view…
II. Trust and Testimony (vv. 5-8)
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. 6 My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
Notice here that the VOICE of pleading (v. 1) now finds a WORD of trust!
And the psalmist settles into “waiting.”
* * * * *
So it makes me think of going to the St. Joseph train station on the Amtrak line by the beach, and WAITING there on the platform for the train to take me to Chicago.
I go to the station. I stand on the platform. I may even see the light of my train coming toward me, way in the distance down the tracks.
I may be waiting there. But I have the timetable, telling me when the train is scheduled to arrive. (I may be seeing the light down the tracks, coming my way.) So I settle in, I scroll social media on my phone, I’m relaxing, and I have confidence that the train is eventually going to pick me up, like the schedule says and like the usual routine of the Amtrak train has fulfilled in the past.
* * * * *
So the “waiting” here suggests a HOPE and an EXPECTATION. It’s a “WAIT which WATCHES.” It’s a WAIT that’s CONFIDENT, EXPECTANT, and it’s PATIENT.
Verses 5 and 6 move back to a personal note. As in verses 1 and 2, the individual is self-reflecting again.
* * * * *
And if you’ve ever had to SIT WATCH for the morning—then you know the EXHAUSTION for the present and also the EAGERNESS for the coming dawn, that the psalmist draws from here as the image.
You know the monotony of waiting for the sun to come up, the boredom as you’re forced to stare into the dark while everyone else tumbles into sleep. (I got to experience this one night, working the night shift at the prison and visiting the staff up in the walltowers!)
For a few hours, the night watch gets activity and work to do from people coming in and out of the gate and having their own business to do. But eventually, the night settles in…and it’s just you and the streetlights…and the night watch gets tedious. The night watch gets monotonous.
But then there’s also the eagerness…the anticipation…the clinging to the ASSURANCE that the sun will come and those first rays will peek above the horizon!
There’s a TRUST that the psalmist relies on, even in the midst of deep pains and sorrows. And the Hebrew words and vivid “watchman” image bear it out!
There may very well be the exhaustion for the time being. But there is eagerness as well, and anticipation, and assurance.
* * * * *
And the psalmist wants to share that assurance with YOU!
7 O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. 8 He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.
The psalmist looks CORPORATELY once again, like in vv. 3-4. And he senses having a church and a congregation around him now (“ISRAEL”).
The one who clamored in the deep, now encourages the Old Testament church, “Israel.”
* * * * *
It takes a “move of the Spirit” to come to this point: to begin in such a dire and traumatic space as the psalmist does, and to arrive in this place so peaceful and at ease. A place which preaches, and which gives an encouragement!
I wish for this kind of ability in the midst of troubles. And I just think of my mom when she entered hospice, in those last days asking me if I would preach her funeral. There was just no way! Mustering the strength, the words seemed impossible. We had to get another pastor to preach it instead.
But not so for the psalmist. He can speak! Even in the dumps and depths, he can find hope—and he finds the strength then to share that hope!
* * * * *
So to recap: what is the remembrance that lifted the psalmist from the depths of despair, and into the heights of hope and trust? Let’s take stock from the passage:
There is forgiveness (v. 4), or the Hebrew: “divine pardon”
V. 7: “steadfast love” (HeSeD) & PLENTY/ABUNDANT redemption
V. 8: the YHWH who marks iniquities also redeems iniquities!
This is how the psalmist is able to conclude the way he concludes! This is the glorious inventory that the psalmist waits on!
Parting thoughts
In May of 1939, another submarine (the USS Squalus) was sunk during a training accident off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine. Her fate, however, was helped by being settled only 300 feet below the water’s surface—and her crew was able to radio to the shore for help.
Crews rushed to the assistance of the Squalus—and from the surface, they lowered a dive chamber which could raise men from the sunken sub, one at a time, and lift them back to safety.
One-by-one, Squalus crew members emerged from the disabled and sunken sub into the waiting dive chamber, and they were raised to their rescue to the waiting ships and vessels on the water’s surface.[3]
* * * * *
The compassion and care of the Israelites’ God is important, which we already read from Exodus 3:
Jehovah hears the cries; He sees the tears; He knows the suffering, and He responds by COMING DOWN.
We sing of this, and read of this, at Christmastime. He has COME DOWN! He has joined us. He has rescued us and saved us. And he is OUR HOPE and OUR TRUST.
Belgic Confession 17, again: humans had plunged themselves into death and misery. But God “set out to find [us]…[and] comfort [us].”
1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
9 (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? 10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)
And here is the prophecy quoted and fulfilled in the escape of Jesus from out of Egypt (which is so similar and almost identical to our Psalm 130:1 this morning):
1 “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
The same word there in Hosea 11 is there in Psalm 130, as well: QARAH, CALL, CRY OUT.
* * * * *
Give him your voice, and your all, today!
Amen.
Parting Blessing:
Parting Blessing:
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Song considerations:
Psalm 130 (Tune: Avon/Martyrdom); I Will Wait for You (Getty); I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art (Tune: Toulon); He Will Hold Me Fast; It Is Well with My Soul; I Stand Amazed in the Presence; Christ Our Hope in Life and Death (Getty); Christ, the Sure and Steady Anchor; God Leads His Dear Children Along; O God of Mercy, Hear Our Plea; Christ is Mine Forevermore; Jesus Strong and Kind; What a Friend We Have in Jesus; Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners; His Mercy is More; Lord, from Sorrows Deep I Call (Psalm 42); Grace Greater Than Our Sin
[1]Adapted from Sherry Sontag, “Death of a Submarine” (ch. 5), Blind Man’s Bluff: the untold story of American submarine espionage.
[2]Ernesto Cardenal, qtd. Baker Commentary on the Old Testament: Psalms 90-150, p. 524.
[3]Adapted from https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/s/squalus-ss-192/squalus-ss-192-sinking-rescure-of-survivors-and-salvage.html.