Psalm Meditation 669
Third Sunday of Easter
April 14, 2013

Psalm 88
1 O LORD, God of my salvation, when, at night, I cry out in your presence,
2 let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry.
3 For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.
4 I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; I am like those who have no help,
5 like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.
6 You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah
8 You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a thing of horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9 my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call on you, O LORD; I spread out my hands to you.
10 Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise you? Selah
11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
12 Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But I, O LORD, cry out to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O LORD, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Wretched and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.
16 Your wrath has swept over me; your dread assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long; from all sides they close in on me.
18 You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me; my companions are in darkness.
(NRSV)

To my knowledge, this is the only psalm that ends without any sense of hope and in at least one translation the last phrase is, “and darkness is my only companion.” Not only is the psalmist surrounded by darkness, there are no friends or companions with whom to share the sense of gloom, despair and abandonment. The only note of hope in the psalm is that it is addressed to God, and perhaps that it has been written down at all. To address the psalm to God acknowledges that God is present in the times in which it feels as if no one is available to the psalmist, to us. To write the psalm down is an acknowledgement that this companionless darkness will not last forever and that at some point the psalmist will have someone with whom to share this gloomy sense of emptiness.

One of my professors recommended this as a psalm for those who are grieving. Find a private place and read this out loud with as much energy as one can muster, at least once a day. For a time it will be hard to get through, the pain will be intense and folks will be drained by the experience of reading or reciting this aloud. At some point it will grow easier and yet later the psalm will have lost the stinging pain that goes with grieving. At that point one is encouraged to pick another psalm of lament that ends on a word of hope.

The hope contained in the psalm is not in the words themselves, the hope is in God to whom the psalm is directed. Even though the psalmist feels abandoned there is still a sense that God is close enough to hear and perhaps to respond to the feeling of being helpless, hopeless and worthless. While I would hope and pray that you never feel this deeply abandoned I know that most of us have or will go through a time like this in our lives. I am instead grateful that a psalmist had the faith and courage to put this sense of loss in a form that can be passed down to us.

April 8, 2013