+ Lenten Midweek 5 – March 29th, 2023 +
Psalm 130
Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Psalm 130 begins in the darkness. The abyss. The depths.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
Imagery of the unseen depths of the ocean swell in our minds. The great caverns of the deep pour over us as we read and sing this psalm. Recall the waters that covered the face of the deep in Genesis 1. The and breakers that crashed over Jonah as he cried out from the belly of the great fish. The waters of the Red Sea that swallowed up Pharaoh and all his chariots and all his horses. It’s no wonder some of have thought Psalm 130 was written by a sailor or fisherman. Someone well acquainted with the deep.
Psalm 130 also begins in the depths and darkness of our sinful, fallen hearts.
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
We join the psalmist in praying, “O Lord, have mercy.” A short prayer. A good prayer. For days and weeks like this week, where death and darkness surround us and our brothers and sisters in Christ in Nashville.
It’s also an honest prayer. “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner. I deserve to be tossed overboard and thrown into the depths. I have earned the flood of your wrath that foams and swells like the roaring sea.” Lord, have mercy.
Jesus’ disciples and other men of Israel feared the depths of the sea. And for good reason. It was a place of chaos. A watery grave. A bottomless pit that echoes back the endless darkness of our own sin.
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
Our unfathomable sin, however, is no match for the unfathomable depths of God’s grace and mercy for you in Christ crucified and risen. Yes, our sin is dark and deep as the grave. But Christ’s death and resurrection have swallowed up the darkness. Christ crucified and risen is your light and life. Jesus has gone into our grave with our sin and broken out alive again, bringing you with him.
To us, our sin appears endless, like the oceans depths and the horizon of the sea. But Christ’s love for you is wider and deeper and stretches farther than all our iniquity.
But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.
Psalm 130 moves us from a holy fear of our sin, to a holy hope in the one who forgives our sin.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
We wait for the Lord, like a sailor keeping watch by night. We wait for the Lord in the darkness of this fallen world, knowing that Christ in his dying and rising for you is our lighthouse who will bring us safely to the shores of the new creation. Christ crucified and risen is our safe haven, our shelter from the storm. Waiting on the Lord is never in vain. For it is in His word that we hope and wait, watch and pray.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
Psalm 130 began in the depths, in a hole of sin and death. It ends, however, in hope the Lord; in the steadfast love of the Lord. In the plentiful redemption that is yours in Christ crucified and risen. For it is ultimately Jesus whom this psalm (like all the psalms) is really about.
Christ Jesus is the one dove headlong into the depths of our sin to rescue, redeem, and reconcile you.
Christ Jesus is the one who let all the breakers of God’s wrath for sin overwhelm him so that he would pour out upon you a lavish flood and washing away of sin in your Baptism.
Christ Jesus is the one who was marked with all our iniquities so that we stand before the Father washed in the blood of the Lamb.
Christ Jesus is the one in whose word we hope, for his word is a word of forgiveness.
Jesus’ word is a word washes away your sin, cleanses you, makes you a new creation, and gives you a new birth from above by His water, word, and Spirit.
Jesus’ word is a word that feeds and sustains us with his body and blood until we reach safe harbor.
Jesus’ word is a word that gives hope in the dark night, his steadfast love and plentiful redemption is yours.
Jesus’ word is a word that redeems you from all your iniquities. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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