Psalm 77

To the choirmaster: according to Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph. 

1 I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.

2 In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted.

The psalmist begins with absolute confidence that God will hear him as he cries out to Him aloud day and night. This psalm is what grief looks like. We don’t know the situation, and frankly the generic nature of it makes it easy for anyone to identify with. My assumption is that someone he loves has died — a spouse, a child, a friend. And in those moments, all humans go through the various stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. There is no bringing someone back from the dead and so there is no way forward except through this painful process, one that will be marked with numerous starts, stops, and backsteps. At night it can be most difficult because loneliness can be more acute, lying awake, unable to rest, mind racing, refusing to be comforted. The petitioner stretches out his hand without wearying. The lifting of hands was a common posture of prayer, out outward posture that reflected the inner state of the heart. This is a way of demonstrating the lifting up of petitions to God as well as perhaps the sense of giving the petition and the pain to him. Lack of sleep will be a recurring theme in this psalm as it is one of the realities of grief. The phrase, “my soul refuses to be comforted” doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want comfort. It just means that he can’t find comfort in anything at all. He’s attempting to find resolution, but deep within, his soul, is unable to rest. The psalm reminds us of Jesus praying in the night, sweating as drops of blood in intensity, his soul refusing to be comforted as he faced the greatest and most important test of his life. Repeatedly crying out to the father, ultimately he accepts what is coming to him. As hard as this truth may be, it is the way through grief and into life. Jesus demonstrates that. 

3 When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah

4 You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

The psalmist doesn’t find any comfort in thinking about God, in thinking about anything (the word “meditate” doesn’t have an object). Doing these things just makes him moan and weakens his resolve. Sometimes when we grieve, thinking about God makes us angry actually — “If you’re all powerful and good, why didn’t you prevent this from happening?” In fact, the psalmist declares that it is God who holds his eyelids open. He’s the one that’s keeping him awake at night. It’s so disturbing that he cannot speak. It’s clear in the words that follow that the psalmist gains his voice and vents his frustration with God. Thinking about God is supposed to make things better, but in this case it seems to be making things worse. In the opening verses of the psalm, the petitioner couldn’t keep quiet, crying aloud day and night, but now he’s so troubled he cannot speak. He is angry (another one of the stages of grief) as he thinks about God who must seem uncaring at this point. The God who could have done something to prevent pain and chose not to all of a sudden doesn't seem so loving and just. Is the psalmist afraid to open his mouth that he might says something blasphemous? When I get angry, my initial response is to keep it inside and fume, thinking first what I am afraid to say, trying to find ways to soften it or clarify my anger. The psalmist is in that silent phase, lying on his bed throughout the sleepless night, thinking about God, this situation, and what the future will look like. There are no answers, just thoughts and a soul that refuses to be comforted. 

5 I consider the days of old, the years long ago.

6 I said, [Hebrew lacks I said] “Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart.” Then my spirit made a diligent search:

The psalmist turns his thoughts to the past, the days of old, the ancient times. For the Jew, this means going back to the stories of the patriarchs, some 1500 years ago -- Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses. It meant a review of Israel’s history -- the judges, the kings, the temple, and now the exile. The history of the American people only goes back a few hundred years, but the psalmist can trace his ancestry back to the very beginning. That’s a lot of territory for rumination, a lot of divine and human activity to consider in trying to sort out what God is doing in the current moment. He also looks back into his own history, his songs in the night, his own personal worship and contemplations. The word “meditate” here is “se-ach”, a synonym of “hagah”, both of which mean to ponder and speak to oneself aloud. His mind will not stop and so the psalmist stays awake through the night turning things over in his head. Sleep can be hard to come by when you can’t shut your mind down. Even in a dream state, the thoughts keep coming and while dreaming get twisted up with fantasy. Nothing seems to be clear in the haze of fatigue and insomnia. In looking for answers in the present, the psalmist turns to the past. Memories are curious things. We remember things through our own experience and these memories are not solid over time. This has been studied and confirmed. Two people can have very different memories of the same experience but describe it differently. Truth and fiction are blurred when we look back. We have been told things by those who have gone before, but these things are all colored by their memories. This is the advantage of a book. The Bible gives us a snapshot of what people thought at a certain point of time in history. The psalmist turns to these truths in the past to help him sort out his present. This is wisdom. 

7 “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable?

8 Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time?

9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Selah

In his pondering, the psalmist asks five questions in rapid succession. The first has to do with time: Is this situation permanent? Is this the new normal? Is this the way things are going to be from now on? Is there an end date anywhere on the horizon? This is a natural question when grieving. One is tossed into an unfamiliar world suddenly and one of the first things we ask is, when will we get there? When will this be over? The remaining four questions have to do with God’s character. Is God loving? Is he faithful (will he keep his promises)? Is he gracious (will he forgive our sins)? Is he still compassionate (or have we gone one sin too far and his anger is irreversible)? There doesn’t seem to be any question of God’s power in this situation, just his will, his willingness to do something, to act on our behalf to fix things and return them to the way they were in the before times. In our pain it may feel like we’ve been abandoned, but this is not the case. While it may feel like God has walked away from us, the truth is that he is walking with us. We only have to look to Jesus to know that this is true. Like the psalmist we look to the past to give meaning to the present and find strength to keep moving forward. God is suffering with us -- a uniquely Christian perspective on the problem of pain. No other religion posits that God himself experiences suffering with us. He hasn’t ceased to be loving, faithful, gracious, and compassionate even if it feels like this in the moment. The past gives meaning to the present. A two thousand year old cross changes everything every day. 

10 Then I said, “I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High.” [Or This is my grief: that the right hand of the Most High has changed]

11 I will remember the deeds of the LORD; Yes, I will remember your wonders of old.

12 I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.

Verse 10 is difficult to translate. It is literally, “I said, my anguish that is the years of the right hand of the Most High”. The verses that follow may provide some clarification as the psalmist remembers and muses on the works of God in the past. The psalmist seems to be struggling as he remembers what God has done for his people in the past and yet now his right hand seems to be in his pocket. His anguish and grief are enhanced by a feeling that God has changed. But as he remembers, his perspective changes. He determines to remember the deeds of the LORD and his wonders of old. As he does so, he meditates on them, turning them over in his mind and speaking aloud the stories of God’s saving acts. Both words for meditate are used in verse 12 in parallel (hagah and see-ach). The psalmist chooses to tackle his anguish with contemplation, with thinking. This all starts with remembering. This is a frequent technique of the psalmist -- look to the past to give meaning to the present. One of the things we can be confident about because of the past is that God is at work. And he is often at work in such a way that the struggles we are enduring ultimately work out for our good and God’s glory. These things work “together” for good. Not everything bad that happens to us has a silver lining, but the whole taken together, always results in good and glory. Four hundred years of sojourning in Egypt were not good, but they made God’s miraculous deliverance through the plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea even more dramatic. Looking back, it’s easier to see that God’s hand is not in his pocket. Rather he is painting a masterpiece. We can only just see a small piece of the canvas, and it is impossible to tell from the relative few brush strokes of our lives what the entire picture will become. But we know that God is the artist and author of history. And as we remember his works of the past, we can be confident that he is still at work, creating a masterpiece that includes us and somehow our anguish becomes part of that story. 

13 Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?

14 You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples.

15 You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah

As the psalmist reflects on God’s wonders, his mood changes from frustration to faith. HIs review of history renews his hope. He begins with a statement and a rhetorical question. “Your way, O God, is holy.” God’s way is like no other. To be “holy” is to be set apart, different, like no other. YHWH is not like the gods of the nations or for that matter like any of the gods that we worship today. A god is anything that we make as ultimate in our lives, and these gods are very much like us. There is nothing really unique or different about them because they are the mirrors of ourselves. Our wants, our desires, our glory -- these are the things that we serve. So there’s nothing holy or unique about that. But God’s way is holy, and there is no god who is like our God, no god that is so holy, so different, so other. He stands outside of us and so can critique and shape us. A god of our own making will do no such thing. Exhibit A that God is holy is that he saves us. We cannot save ourselves, so God steps in with his own arm and redeems us. He buys us out of slavery. He purchases us, pays the price for our freedom. I don’t know everything that the Hebrews understood about the word “redeem” as it relates to God’s actions. Certainly slaves were redeemed, purchased from their owners and set free, and so it is a fitting metaphor for God’s actions on behalf of Israel as it relates to freeing them from slavery in Egypt. But what price was paid? This doesn’t seem to be present in the story of the Exodus. God merely acted with his right hand and his outstretched arm. No payment seemed to be involved. Of course this is where the beauty and wonder of Christianity comes in. God himself paid the price by entering our world, suffering with us, and receiving in himself the penalty that we were due. The price was the life and the suffering of his own son. The exodus story would be told among the nations and they would marvel. The salvation story of Jesus has been told among the nations as well and people all over the world, across a multitude of languages and cultures have accepted this story and become part of this story. We are the children of Jacob (the liar) and Joseph (the arrogant teenager), and like our ancestors in the faith, God has redeemed us, saved us from ourselves, transforming us into a new people shaped by our Maker.  

16 When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled.

17 The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side.

18 The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook.

These verses break the pattern of two-line parallelism suggesting that something significant is happening. God is getting off the sidelines and taking his hands out of his pockets. And when he does, watch out! The fireworks begin. First, the sea catches a glimpse of him coming and starts to shake, right down to the deepest deeps. The waters seem to tremble in fear as they move back and forth, the swells crashing into one another. Waves whip up and batter the shore relentlessly, tsunamis powered by underwater earthquakes flood the lowlands. Then the waters above the earth join the action, the clouds pouring water accompanied by non-stop thunder and lightning. Yes God is visiting the earth. These meteorological events then have their effect on the earth. A whirlwind brings devastation on the surface of the earth, uprooting trees, damaging structures, carrying everything that is loose away to be lost forever. At midnight it feels like day because the lightning is so efficiently lighting things up. The inhabited world is wide awake, seeing everything come apart in the strobing effect of the lightning. Finally, the earth itself trembled and shook, earthquakes and tremors rocking the mountains and hills, cracking foundations and causing walls to fall. This psalmist had been asked where God was and why he seemed to be so passive. Do you really want to awake a sleeping giant? Be careful what you ask for. The psalmist moves from being somewhat impertinent, questioning the very character of God earlier to full confidence in him, observing his dramatic presence in the world. This psalm points us to Psalm 18 where God also shows up in dramatic fashion to make his presence known and intervene on behalf of his servant. The storms today remind us of God’s power and presence -- the destructive power certainly, but also the power to change things, to turn things around and upside down, to affect our circumstances in surprising ways. Storms also reveal God’s presence as we call out to Him in the midst of them and feel his presence and hear his reassuring words. The upheaval that is described here is in reference to the exodus event, where God led his people through the sea as he moved water, sky and earth to make a way for his people. He’s the same God today as he was then. Stand back and watch him work. 

19 Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen. [Hebrew unknown]

20 You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

The psalmist finds resolution to his crisis of faith by looking to the past, remembering how God led his people through the waters, an unseen shepherd. While referring to the crossing of the Red Sea, the statement is true in general as well. God’s way is through the sea, his path through the great waters. The sea represented struggle and chaos, even death, in the ancient world, and so God’s way is not around the sea. God doesn’t lead us in paths that avoid struggle and difficulty. Rather, his way is through the sea, through trial and storm, directly into the worst that life has to offer. Christianity does not offer pain avoidance as the prosperity gospel preachers tell us. Instead, Christian offers the better truth that God is suffering us. He’s taking the first step through the waters. We follow him in his suffering, and knowing that he is suffering with us and has made it to the other side, tells us that we can as well. He is the Good Shepherd (John 10) who lays down his life for the sheep, who goes through the waters for us. It’s no surprise that the waters of the Red Sea for the Jew because the waters of baptism for the Christian. It represents death. Your baptism was the first of many waters you will pass through until you make that final journey into death itself. For every one of those journeys know that Jesus is leading the way, going before you, assuring you that you will make it across. This is the great news that Christianity offers a world in fear of suffering and death. We don’t need to have all the answers about where God is in the midst of suffering. Why does he allow it? It doesn’t make any sense that this good person died so young. Why does one person suffer and another one doesn’t. None of these questions can be answered because God’s ways are unknown, his footprints are invisible. We can’t trace out his path and know what he is up to. Did any of the Israelites think that they were going to walk through the Red Sea? I doubt it. It was inconceivable. The only way was around it. That was the only possible path they saw. And yet God said, “Follow me through it.” We would much prefer to go around obstacles, pain and suffering, but God in his wisdom leads us through it. In doing so, our faith and character are strengthened and his glory is magnified.