June 1st, 2008
Psalm 46
A song of the sons of Korah. God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him. We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake, Before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains. Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, GOD of angel armies protects us. River fountains splash joy, cooling God’s city, this sacred haunt of the Most High. God lives here, the streets are safe, God at your service from crack of dawn. Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten, but Earth does anything he says. Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, GOD of angel armies protects us. Attention, all! See the marvels of GOD! He plants flowers and trees all over the earth, Bans war from pole to pole, breaks all the weapons across his knee. “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.” Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, GOD of angel armies protects us.
(Psalms 46:1-11 MSG)
There are times in each of our lives when we feel lost, scared and alone…perhaps even abandoned by God. Sometimes that moment is fleeting, and sometimes not. In the book Come be My Light, Mother Teresa correspondence illustrates a fifty year struggle with the absence of God’s presence in her life. During his monastic life Martin Luther despairs in a letter, “I daily find myself approaching closer and still closer to hell.” He signed that letter “an exiled son of Adam.” Saint John of the Cross, a 16th century Carmelite priest describes this desperation as the ‘Dark Night of the Soul.’ It seems no one is immune. For even Christ calls out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
But God did not forsake him. And God does not forsake us. Again and again throughout the Old and New Testament we are reminded that God is with us. In Exodus 3:12, when Moses fears going to Egypt to free the captive Isrealites,
The Lord said, “Moses, go set them free. I am the Lord thy God and I go with thee.”
Later, when God spoke to Moses’ successor, Joshua, He tells him, “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with you wherever you go.” In the very name of Jesus we are reminded that God is ever present; Immanuel – God with us.
You don’t have to worry, you don’t have to be afraid.
In Matthew 28:20, the Risen Christ tells his disciples, “and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” In the letter to the Hebrews we are told, “for God Himself hath said, I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee. “
It seems as a people we need a lot of reminders, perhaps especially in our darkest hour. It is appropriate to me that this is a song. You may know that I am a firm believer in Augustine’s statement that when you sing you pray twice. If ever you need a double prayer, it is in time of crisis. The crisis may be physical, such as an illness, external, such as a hurricane, or spiritual/emotional, like the Dark Night of the Soul. According to church historian Roland Bainton, 1527 was the “deepest year of Martin Luther’s depression.” It was in this year that Luther wrote Ein feste burg ist unser Gott! A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, possibly Luther’s most famous hymn inspired by Psalm 46. This psalm reminds us that even when the world is falling down around us, God is with us.
Like countless others before us, may we find the solace in these words to comfort and sustain us through the dark nights of our souls. Through war, fire, flood, illness, and despair….
I am the Lord thy God and I’ll be with thee. I’ll be with thee.