Psalm 42-43 (II); Longing for God (II)

Mention of water and thirsting for a quenching draught in verses 1-2 leads the psalmist to think about another kind of water--his tears. Though he longs for the limpid and refreshing river, he only can taste the salty streams of tears that course down his cheeks. He weeps because people around him are mocking him, asking him where his God is. "If your God is so great," they say, "why is your life so miserable?" The psalmist knows that they have a point; it is the same question he has: "If God is so good, and if I am an earnest believer in God, why is my life so miserable?" To find an answer the psalmist searches his past. He ransacks the his memory much like we might rummage through an old trunk, our old high-school annuals, or papers or correspondence we have saved. He is not searching his past to write a history of his life; he is trying desperately to discover how his life went awry, how it was that he who once led a confident, faithful life in the community of believers now lives so painfully and so alone. How did the web become tangled? How did the skein of his life become so twisted? Can it ever be straightened out?

The psalmist, therefore, urges us to explore our past and to listen to our lives. Many of us were brought up in religious contexts that deemphasized personal feelings and that placed little emphsis on how past personal experience shapes our understanding of the gospel. The psalmist will have none of this mode of reasoning. He listens to his past, even if there are only faint echoes, to see what it tells him about himself as he longs for God. He encourages us to listen to our past and see it as a resource in coming to an understanding of God and the gospel.

"These things I remember as I pour out my soul;
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng" (v. 4, NASV).

He, who is now alone, remembers the times of community. He, who is now sad, remembers transforming joy. He, who is now despondent and on the defensive, remembers when he happily led a movement. Sometimes the vast caverns of our memory only enable us to recall the pain of life, but sometimes we recall, with tears of remembered joy, the times of fullness and happiness, when life fit and we had a vigorous role to play. But the pain of the present soon overtakes the joy of the past. The contrast is so strong; the vividness of the memory fades as he lingers on it. He returns to the pain of the moment. All he knows is that life at one time semed to make sense. Now it does not. He chides his soul to hope again in God. But the problem is unresolved and the pslamist is uncertain.

Back to the Present

The memory was a short-lived joy, like a candle tha tflickered briefly and bravely in the windy night air before being extinguished by a blustery gust. So the psalmist looks at his present situation. He is far away from Jerusalem--that place of the temple and the visible presence of God. He is at the heights of Hermon, a towering peak in southern Lebanon. The Jordan River finds its source in the neighborhood of Hermon and, as it rushes down from the mountain heights, it thunders and crashes. It is this experience of hearing the tumbling waters cascade down the mountain that lies behind verses 6-10. He hears the thundering waters below: "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls." He likens the crash of the waters to the tumultuous discord of his life: "all your waves and breakers hav eswept over me" (v. 7). That is, the crushing blows of the waters on the rocks below are like the crushing blows of the waves of God against him.

Instead of seeing the cascading waters as a testimony of God's awesome power or nature's controlled fury, he sees them as a physical picture of how he is being pummeled by life or, in the last analysis, pummeled by God. The waters hurtle against the rock. They explode in a fuy of foam and froth, of splattering of spray and spume. "Oh God," he cries, "I am being beaten, crushed, pummeled, drilled, blasted by these impersonal forces. They are churning out of control around me. I'm at their mercy. Why don't you enter and save? Why do the enemies keep oppressing me? Why must my tears be my food day and night? Why do I feel as if each day I am beaten up by forces that are far stronger than I?

The past did not save the psalmist. The present isn't helping much either. He then tries to reaffirm his faith in verse 8:

"By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me--
a prayer to the God of my life."

Though his reaffirmation might be sincere, the truth of his confession doesn't immediately change things, for he returns to the depths in v. 9. It appears that God has forsaken him, left him tethered to a pole amid the crashing waters so that the waters can vent their uncontrollable fury on him. He has confidence that he will again praise God, but reflection on the past and the present have not made that any easier. Psalm 42 closes with an unfulfilled longing. There is plenty of water, but it is the wrong kind of water: it is either the salty stream of tears or the crashing flow of the river. In neither case can he slake his thirst. He is dying of thirst in the middle of the waters.

Bright Hope For Tomorrow

Now we see why we must consider Psalm 43 with 42. For Psalm 43 continues the langauge and the longing of Psalm 42, but directs it to the future. The psalmist has come up empty as he considers the past and the present: the one provided the temporary relief of remembered joy, but that joy disappeared like a wisp of smoke; the other provided only an occasion for reflection on the degree of current distress. The psalmist doesn't, however, give up. He is like a person groping down a long, dark hallway, tyring each door to see if, on the other side, there is safety and comfort. The doors makred "past" and "present" did not yield this comfort. Maybe he can look to the future. He says,

"Send forth your light and your truth,
let them guide me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell" (v. 3).

This is the first time in the two psalms that the psalmist has actually asked God for something! He has been so wrapped up in his own concerns, so unable to feel anything beyond the contours of his own body, that he had not even asked God for help. He was full of questions but had not offered one supplication. Now he asks. His asking quickly leads him to action. God must send forth truth and light to lead him to the temple. Then, in verse 4, the psalmist says:

"Then will I go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the harp,
O God, my God."

He knows tha this thirsting for God will only be quenched when he is where he belongs--the house of God. He knows that he must, for the moment, give up brooding on the past, relinquish the beaten and battered feelings from the present, and rush with speed and determination to God. He doesn't think for a moment that the past is fully over and done or that the dragons of the present will never again lift their ugly heads; he knows that what he needs is to embrace and be embraced in the warm confines of the house of God. So, he runs to God, to the house of God. Like Pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress who, upon hearing the good news of the gospel from Evangelist, plugs his ears against all contrary words and runs headlong toward the wicket gate, shouting "Life, life, eternal life!" so our psalmist knows that he must resist the voices that continue to dog him about the past and present. He rushes to the altar of God, his great delight. All is not "dealt with" fully. But he will be in the place where hope returns, where sense is made of the past, and where an abundant stream of crystal-clear, limpid water flows, from which he can drink deeply until he wants no more.

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