6 Epiphany (B)

(St. James' McLeansboro)

There are two ways to die in the desert: by thirst and by drowning. The psalmist is
well aware of both extremes: a parched desert and a flash flood. Throughout these two psalms, Psalm 42 and 43, flood and draught serve as metaphors for fulfillment and yearning, joy and despair -- in God . It is a pilgrimage full of painful wrenchings and surprising gifts, of desiccation and delight. To put it bluntly, these psalms acknowledges the paradox about the life of faith. Water is life and water is death. And death is life, life is death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

In the first half of Psalm 42, the psalmist thirsts for God, longing for his presence. He knows that only God can quench his thirst; and “he understands that the dissatisfaction of life is the thirst for God” (Mays 173). His food is his tears; he feels forgotten and cast off, and taunted by “those” who ask him where his God is. “The taunt and the social conduct that it represents are ‘the oppression of the enemy’ (42:9, 43:2), the cause of the lament (42:3,9; 43:2);” (Mays 175). He remembers the experience of worship with both despair and with longing. And we can relate to those feelings. We feel abandoned by God for any number of reasons. Sometimes we are the ones who have left, but yearn for his presence. Other times we are challenged by difficulties, and finally there are just dry seasons in our relationship with God. Even as Christians, we feel a longing for God’s presence in our lives, especially living as we do “in a world that constantly raises the question, ‘where is your God?’”(Mays 176). We feel abandoned by God. We wonder why we don’t perceive his presence in our lives, or in the world. And we suffer because of the taunts of society and the challenges to our faith.

The Second half of Psalm 42 speaks of a downcast soul, still thinking of God, but now he is overwhelmed by torrents of roaring water. IT seems that the psalmist is near defeat, on his knees, drowning, dying and broken. And then . . then he remembers. He remembers the covenant love of Yahweh and surrenders. The tide turns. There is still despair, but something has changed. There’s a glimmer of hope. Likewise for us, it is when we are broken, when we are overwhelmed, when we are dying inside, we become willing to surrender to the Lordship of God. While our circumstances may not change, we come to trust in the Lord’s ability to manage our lives. There is light and there is hope.

In Psalm 43 the lament continues, with a petition for God to take up the Psalmist’s cause, and rescue him. After surrendering he has the confidence to ask for rescue, and turn to God who is his shelter. He is still oppressed, but he prays for light and truth to guide him to God, where he can once again join in worship and praise. After we surrender our lives to the Lord, the clouds of despair part, and we can begin to see more clearly. We have the confidence to ask for light and for truth and for guidance, and we are brought to a desire for praise and worship.

In the same way that the Psalmist suffer, and we suffer, Jesus also suffered during his incarnation, and “echoed the language of these psalms in speaking of his own downcast, disquieted soul.” (Mays 176). Jesus understands our suffering. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught us that if we yearn for him we will be blessed: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). Finally, Jesus “reveals himself as the source of the water that satisfies the thirst of the soul (John 4:14; 6:35);” (Mays 176). He gives living water, water that is gushing up into eternal life.

It is not without significance that in nearly the center of this 16 verse lament, the name THE LORD stands out in striking contrast to the twenty or more times God is named, depending on the translation. God is Elohim, or El, the sovereign creator. THE LORD is Yahweh, the God of covenant, of faithfulness, of loving-kindness. THE LORD initiated the old covenants with Abraham, and with Israel through Moses, and with David and his line. Covenant is a special relationship as the Lord’s chosen people, but it “involved more than privilege; it also entailed responsibility. . . .For Yahweh to be their God, Israel had to be like him.” (Alexander, 424). This relationship was conditional. They were to obey his commands. Their behavior was to be without reproach. And, as we know, none were able to do this.

But Jesus as the seed of Abraham, and the offspring of David, did meet God’s requirements. His sacrificial death and the shedding of his blood ratified a new covenant. A new testament. And the Good News is that Jesus is Lord. When we surrender to Jesus as Lord, we are by his blood brought into a relationship with God. Because of Christ we are able to be the New Israel. We are able to be like him, following in his footsteps, imitating him (1 Peter 2:21). Jesus is our light (John 1) and our truth (John 14:6). He is our guide, leading us to the Father in worship.

St. Augustine is remembered as saying, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee, O God.” That, too, is the thirst the psalmist felt, the desire of the mystics, and our truest longing. One of our problems today is that we don’t recognize that thirst for what it is, but we try to fill the void through alcohol, sex, drugs, food, television, anything to numb the pain of this horrific thirst. But nothing will satisfy this gaping hole in our souls except its source. When we are able to admit our deficiencies and surrender them to God, surrendering our entire lives to the Lordship of Christ, life begins to get better. It is more fulfilling. The emptiness is filled by God and our desire to please him. As we pray and yield all aspects of our lives to the Lordship of Jesus, we find we are filled. In his exchange with the Samaritan woman in John 4, Jesus recognizes that her problem is dissatisfaction, and he offers water that satisfies. That same living water is available to us when we surrender and offer him our lives. As we offer more of our self and our gaping need to God, more of the emptiness is filled.

Yes, it is normal for us as Christians to suffer and to feel far from God. But in remembering what he has done for us, and his love for us, we can get re-oriented to look to God as our hope and our help and our salvation. The psalmist remembers and anticipates temple worship and prays for light and faithfulness to guide his path to the temple and to God. In corporate worship we gather together to remember his love, and set our focus on God instead of our problems. In remembering his experiences of worship, the Psalmist is able to move from despair to hope. In worship, “in and through the holy space filled with the faithful and their liturgies, the soul ‘sees the face of God.’ That encounter is the answer to the question set by the society and the solution to the troubles that challenge faith” (Mays 175). Where is your God? He is here, now, present in our worship. He is present in the Eucharist. He is here.


Works Cited
Alexander, T. Desmond, et al., eds. New Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
Mays, James L. Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Psalms.
Louisville: John Knox Press, 1994.