Daily Lesson for September 28, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 88 verses 1 through 14:

1 O Lord, my God, my Savior, 

by day and night I cry to you.

2 Let my prayer enter into your presence; 

incline your ear to my lamentation.

3 For I am full of trouble; 

my life is at the brink of the grave.

4 I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; 

I have become like one who has no strength;

5 Lost among the dead, 

like the slain who lie in the grave,

6 Whom you remember no more, 

for they are cut off from your hand.

7 You have laid me in the depths of the Pit, 

in dark places, and in the abyss.

8 Your anger weighs upon me heavily, 

and all your great waves overwhelm me.

9 You have put my friends far from me;

you have made me to be abhorred by them; 

I am in prison and cannot get free.

10 My sight has failed me because of trouble; 

Lord, I have called upon you daily;

I have stretched out my hands to you.

11 Do you work wonders for the dead? 

will those who have died stand up and give you thanks?

12 Will your loving-kindness be declared in the grave? *

Your faithfulness in the land of destruction?

13 Will your wonders be known in the dark? 

or your righteousness in the country where all is forgotten?

14 But as for me, O Lord, I cry to you for help;

in the morning my prayer comes before you.

On this morning after a very difficult day in our nation’s Capitol, and indeed, a difficult day for the nation itself, the Lectionary gives us Psalm 88 — a psalm more deeply dark and full of despair than even the Lamentations.

I need not comment on my perceptions of yesterday’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Nothing I could say would actually change anyone’s mind, certainly not the minds of those who will likely cast votes in the coming days. 

What I do know is that the hearings so many of us watched or listened to yesterday are a mirror for our deeply divided country. They reflect our impasse and animus towards one another.  They are indeed a like a mirror; and one has the suspicion that as in a mirror, if all the tables were turned, and the accusations and recriminations reversed, left would suddenly be right, and right left.

I worry now deeply for this nation. Historically, the Supreme Court has been one in which the American people have had a relatively high degree confidence.  That confidence has eroded in these most recent and heatedly partisan years. However the Kavanaugh vote turns out, what happened yesterday and in recent weeks will only exacerbate the public’s distrust.

There is no resolution to Psalm 88. It is the one psalm without any resolution, without even a single note of hope.  Its first verse is weeping; its last verse is darkness. It is the right psalm for the day.

So what else can be said?  Is there any word of hope or surety?  Only that the Psalmist is still praying, still calling upon the God of his salvation. The Psalmist prays today because there is nothing more he can do to change tomorrow. If deliverance is to come, it will have to come by divine intervention and inspiration.  

He will have to be saved by grace. 

So then may we be saved also. May we be saved by grace through faith, from ourselves and for God’s sake.  For God’s sake — and for the sake of this nation.