Daily Lesson for August 17, 2018

1 Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord;

Lord, hear my voice; *

let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

2 If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, *

O Lord, who could stand?

3 For there is forgiveness with you; *

therefore you shall be feared. 

4 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; *

in his word is my hope.

5 My soul waits for the Lord,

more than watchmen for the morning, *

more than watchmen for the morning.

6 O Israel, wait for the Lord, *

for with the Lord there is mercy;

7 With him there is plenteous redemption, *

and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

The first words of this psalm in Latin are “De profundis” — meaning “from the depths”.

From profound depths the Psalmist sees his people’s sins.  Sin is its own punishment; and the nation now lives in sin. It sowed the wind and now reaps the whirlwind.

And the Psalmist knows he is not without charge. He too is fallen. He too is guilty.

“For if you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, 

O Lord, who could stand?”

It is into this state of utter and profound culpability that he comes as a beggar for mercy, a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips, longing and pleading and waiting for God’s grace.

It is a spiritual axiom that only those who have come to the knowledge of their need for grace ever find. It is hard for a single person to come to this point. It is perhaps even harder for a nation as a whole. For we absorb a myth of righteous valor, making it almost impossible to see the truth about ourselves before it is too late. 

And so, a people are brought into the depths, where they wait, and call, and watch for first light.