5th Sunday of Lent (March 29) “Out of the depths”

Prepare to Listen.  In anticipation of the resurrection, be still and pray: Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.  (Psalm 51:12)
 
Prayerfully Read Psalm 130
Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD.  2LORD, hear my voice!  Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!  3If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, LORD, who could stand?  4But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.  5I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; 6my soul waits for the LORD more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.  7O Israel, hope in the LORD!  For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.  8It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.
 
Prayerfully Wonder
‘My soul waits for the LORD more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.’  Night watchmen/women watch for the morning; desperate people hoping for relief with morning light, watch for it; people suffering through the present pandemic watch and wait, desperate for a return to normal (the morning).  Whatever the reason, many of us have experienced, are experiencing and therefore know about waiting and watching for relief.
 
The psalm doesn’t state the psalmist’s problem.  We only know that the pray-er cried to God from ‘out of the depths’ (a word the signifies a bad situation).  Perhaps your present experience and thus your longing for relief feels like it too comes from ‘out of the depths.’  Hear the hope the psalmist offers.  Just as we know with certainty that, literally, morning will follow the night, so too, claims the psalmist, we know that the Lord will come.  We know this because ‘with the LORD there is steadfast love’ and ‘great power to redeem.’   Therefore, we rest in his word and wait in hope (that is, with calm certainty) for the ‘morning’ to come.  It will come, says the psalmist.
 
Prayerfully Reflect
What are you longing for today?  Can you trust in God’s steadfast love and great power to redeem even as you cry to him from ‘out of the depths’?
 
Respond to Jesus
With you, Lord, there is steadfast love and forgiveness of sin despite my actions.  May I live in hope of this today, as I long for you to come and heal our land and our world of this pandemic.  Amen.
 
Go live obediently in the world.  Be hope-filled even as you cry from the depths.