A text – Psalm 43
1 Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people;
from those who are deceitful and unjust, deliver me!
2 For you are the God in whom I take refuge; why have you cast me off?
Why must I walk about mournfully because of the oppression of the enemy?
3 O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
4 Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
A reflection:
The psalms are strewn with laments and complaints – almost one-third of them. This one is probably written by a priest-musician who once led musical parades praising God but now walks mournfully and is ridiculed. His soul is cast down and disquieted. Does this mean he lacks faith?
I had the same question put to me recently by a friend who was recalling Jesus’ words from the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Why did Jesus lose his faith as he was dying? she wondered.
Well, I don’t know Jesus’s mind, and I am unacquainted with the priest-musician who wrote Psalm 43. But I believe these psalms do not spring to mind when a person is without faith. I believe they are beautiful psalms of deep faith, called to mind in times when it would be easy to give up on God and everything else. But the deep faith that still calls on God even in times of trouble, expecting that God will hear and do something, this is deep faith for sure. Not weak faith. Not lost faith.
When Jesus cries out the opening words of Psalm 22, he is identifying this human moment of feeling alone and abandoned, reminded of a psalm he has heard many times. He is completely human and aware of how humans feel alone and lost, even though they also know God and they hope in God’s promises. I think Jesus might have been finding solace that someone had written something beautiful, something that he had memorized long before, and used it to comfort himself on that cross. I believe the psalmist of our passage this week also believes God will rescue him and his fellow worshipers and restore them to songs of praise and parades of joyful worship.
Laments are not sung in the absence of faith. They are sung in solidarity with anyone who has ever suffered, sung out to a God they believe is listening and who is powerful enough to keep promises.
A prayer:
Lord God, thank you for loving us. Thank you for understanding our condition because of the life of your son. Help us not to lose heart, not to fall into despair, but to call upon you in every time in our lives. Amen.
