The Lord Lifts Us – Psalm 30

A text – Psalm 30

¹ I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
² O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
³ O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.

⁴ Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
⁵ For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

⁶ As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”
⁷ By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed.

⁸ To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication:
⁹ “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?
¹⁰ Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!”

¹¹ You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
¹² so that my soulmay praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

A reflection:

This psalm is filled with praise for healing. The author was at the brink of death and received God’s gift of healing – we see it in verse 2, and then later, in verses 7-12. God gets all the credit for the healing, and God is the one the psalmist prays to and argues with and tries to persuade. The psalmist has a deep relationship with the Lord, and the Lord pays attention, does not hide his face any longer, and the result is healing and joy.

Look at the up and down movements – they are what captures my attention this morning – God draws the author up, God has brought the author’s soul up from Sheol, the place of the dead. The psalmist was on the verge of going down to the Pit when God turned mourning into dancing.

This psalm of joy and thanksgiving and praise fits our first and second lessons this week very well. In the Gospel of John’s story about breakfast on the beach, Peter, who still suffers from his denial of Jesus three times, is asked by the Lord if he loves Jesus. Peter gets to say three times that he does, and Jesus once again commissions Peter to continue Jesus’s earthly ministry, caring for all the flock. From the dismal depths of guilt and despair, the Lord raises him up to leadership and a calling. In the story of Paul’s transformation, that dedicated and persuasive man is demoted into the dust by the question, “Why are you persecuting me?” and then brought to the truth by Ananias and brought to a new calling to tend the Lord’s flock in faraway places and, it turns out, in distant centuries like our own.

The Lord lifts us all. Amen.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for this psalm of gratitude and praise. Thank you for the disciples near and far who became apostles to share the Good News with us who might never have known it. Help us to remember always that you are the one who lifts us, who loves us, and who calls us. Amen.