A Journey Through Advent: Day 9
Day 9
December 7, 2020
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Praying What Is, What Isn’t, and What Will Be
Psalm 27
Rev. Shelley Woodruff
Entering our second week of Advent, with two candles glowing brightly on our wreaths, we are just beginning to settle into the sense of waiting—the sense of yearning—that Advent creates. Today’s psalm makes perfect sense for this particular moment in our waiting. These words conclude Psalm 27: I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage, wait for the Lord!
The psalmist’s gentle certainty carries warmth in the words. God’s goodness is real and it is in reach. He knows this truth for himself, so he turns to his community, urging those in earshot to wait, to be strong, and to take courage.
The assurance and confident tone of these last two verses are not the whole story, though, for the verses that lead up to and inform the conclusion are a bit more complicated. Our author is not living a life of comfort and ease where peace can be taken for granted. Hardly. Our psalm tells us that evildoers assail him and devour his flesh, an army camps around him, war rises up against him, enemies and adversaries seek to do him harm, false witnesses rise up, and they are breathing out violence. Metaphorical or not, this psalmist is not in a good place.
And yet…. even though the author is up to his chin in deep water, the psalmist claims with confidence that right now—in the present tense, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
And in the future tense, our psalmist boldly claims that his heart shall not fear, that he will be confident, that God will hide him in God’s shelter and set him on a rock. The psalmist can even see the truth that should his own mother and father forsake him, God could never.
There is a characteristic of many of our psalms, including Psalm 27, that I find particularly true. Our psalmist simultaneously reaches out to God, begging the divine to be peace or relief or goodness while, in the next thought, stating that God is those very things.
Such double talk might make for slightly awkward poetry but isn’t it true? Can you recall a time when you were, like the psalmist, not in a good place? Where real or abstract enemies threatened your physical or emotional safety? Have you ever felt so hemmed in by advancing forces that you could not see a way up and out? In that moment, I wonder if you could also proclaim what you knew to be true about God even in the darkness. Could you claim that God is present and able and good while also begging for God to be that for you?
In my own life, my most profound sense of yearning and waiting was during the long and painful years that we waited for children. I did not have physical enemies, but my body and emotions and anguish were adversarial enough. I did not have an army advancing all around, but I did have a dark hopelessness that slowly inched forward, battling and defeating the edges of hope that surrounded me. And oh how I remember the prayers that sounded a lot like, “God, you are good. Be good for me. God, you do not forsake your people. Do not forsake me.”
We, like the psalmist, have all experienced that in-between feeling, and advent intentionally places us all in that in-between place for a whole season. We both wait for our Christ—the prince of peace—while worshipping the Creator of peace. We both ache for peace to reach our days while taking comfort from peace that has transformed our lives in the past. We both pray for God’s peace to break into our conflicted world while singing our gratitude for how peace has brought astonishing reconciliation throughout history.
With poetic phrasing and metaphor, our psalmist tells us, “I need help. God, please bring help. God is help. God will be my help,” all in the same song. All four are true and the psalmist shows us how to hold all four together.
Advent is teaching us the same. This is the time to pray: God, we desperately need peace. God, can you bring us peace? God, you have given us peace and you are our peace. God, you will bring us peace. All four are true. All four can be held together, especially in the light of the two candles lit on the Advent wreath
About a Journey Through Advent
This year is unprecedented in its challenges to our global, national, and local communities, let alone the challenges to our own church community and personal spiritual growth. And yet, the rhythm of the church calendar continues to hold us in a life-giving refrain: hope is alive!
This series of devotional readings, scripture readings, and prayers is designed to give you an opportunity to pause and reflect on the hope, peace, joy, and love that the Advent season brings.
We challenge you to set aside time each day to read, reflect, and pray through these offerings presented by our pastoral staff.
May you find encouragement in the remarkable hope this season provides us!