10/24/16
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.
Psalm 130, the Psalm appointed for this week, portrays the believer in a place of trial. We don’t know what the “depths” might be. Whatever they are, they don’t look pleasant. They are place of sadness, of trial, of mourning, even of despair. Verse three, with its reference to God’s counting of sins, suggests that this is a situation of sin.
We look around ourselves and find fallenness. We are dejected and are told to grasp what is good and pull ourselves up by it. But we’re in a pit we have made by ourselves, with our own sin. We find nothing to hold to but our own ability, and that is what got us here in the first place. What are we to do?
We cry out to God, just as the Psalmist does. We recognize that our Lord has not even counted our sins. He didn’t need to. He knows what we are made of. Yet of his great mercy and grace he lifts us out of the pit and shows us mercy. Life was looking pretty grim. But God is good.
If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.
Psalm 130, the Psalm appointed for this week, portrays the believer in a place of trial. We don’t know what the “depths” might be. Whatever they are, they don’t look pleasant. They are place of sadness, of trial, of mourning, even of despair. Verse three, with its reference to God’s counting of sins, suggests that this is a situation of sin.
We look around ourselves and find fallenness. We are dejected and are told to grasp what is good and pull ourselves up by it. But we’re in a pit we have made by ourselves, with our own sin. We find nothing to hold to but our own ability, and that is what got us here in the first place. What are we to do?
We cry out to God, just as the Psalmist does. We recognize that our Lord has not even counted our sins. He didn’t need to. He knows what we are made of. Yet of his great mercy and grace he lifts us out of the pit and shows us mercy. Life was looking pretty grim. But God is good.
If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.
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