BUT GOD!

 22^nd Pentecost

Oct 24, 2021

Fr. Phil Eberhart

Isa 59:9-20 

Ps 13 

Heb 5:11—6:12 

Mark 10:46-52

 

 BUT GOD

 

Have you ever wondered where God is?  I mean, you’ve been in the press of life – you’re praying faithfully, but it seems like the heavens are brass, reflecting the sound of your voice back to you – in an echo chamber?

 

David was having one of those days when he wrote Ps 13.  It is a classic “lament” Psalm.  “HOW LONG, O LORD?” he cries out loudly. Four times in two verses he cries out…  HOW LONG…

1 How long will you utterly forget me, O Lord? * How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long shall I seek counsel in my soul and be so vexed in my heart? * How long shall my enemy triumph over me?

 

Feeling Forgotten by God

Feeling Hidden from God

Feeling Vexed by God

Feeling like you’re losing,

All because you begin to believe that God doesn’t care; He doesn’t hear you anymore (or never did);  Maybe God has turned into an enemy!

 

David’s voice is sometimes our voice, isn’t it.  This is why I love the Psalms – David just lets it all hang out.  He puts it all out on the table for us to see and deal with.  He gives our inner thoughts and feelings a real voice.  The things we can’t or won’t say out loud, that roll around in our heads when we’re hurting or discouraged or oppressed by life’s circumstances or by other people around us.

How long, O Lord?

But David moves on from there.  We cannot stay in that place for long.  Our psyche – our soul cannot take a sustained campaign against it. We are not like a well-fortified city with thick walls that protect us from life and other people – and if we are we find our self-protection has become a self-imposed prison.  No, we have to move out of our self protective mode in life to move into health and wellness for our soul.  How did David do it?

3 Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; * give light to my eyes, that I sleep not in death, 4 Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him”; * for if I am cast down, those who trouble me will rejoice.

Things begin to change if we feel we can be heard by God.  We might not like what God says all the time…

Like the guy that fell over a cliff and grabbed onto a tuft of grass on the cliff side.  Holding on for dear life he started yelling, “Is any one up there?”  Suddenly he hears a voice from above, “Let GO and Trust Me.” He thinks for a second, and says, “IS ANYBODY ELSE UP THERE?”

 

David’s other petition is “Give Light to my eyes.”  What is light in our lives?  Illumination…  Knowledge of what is TRUE…  Or what is REAL.

David later says that “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Ps 119:105)   Just a couple verses later David acknowledges,

“I am severely afflicted. Give me life, O Lord, according to your Word.”

Light and thus, life, come through the Word of God, as we seek to see what is True and Real, even in the midst of our darkest times.

 

So, what is the next step in this journey?

 

David says it in both places:  In Ps 119 the next verse says:  Accept my offerings of Praise, O Lord… and teach me your ordinances.

In the Lament of Ps 13, David turns his heart and mind 180 degrees:

But my trust is in your mercy, * and my heart is joyful in your

 salvation.

6 I will sing of the Lord, because he has dealt so lovingly with me; * 

indeed, I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High.

 

It’s time to call to mind what is true!   Jeremiah, in his darkest hour, in Lamentations, does this same thing.  Lamentations 3 is one of the darkest, gloomiest tomes in the scriptures, but at the end of it we find the word of a song we know as Great is Thy Faithfulness!  The first 20 verses are doom and gloom, then there is a BUT.

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope…”  Sing it with me:

 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
His mercies never come to an end!  
They are new every morning, new every morning,
Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord, Great is Thy Faithfulness.

 

We can put our trust in God’s Mercy.  It is never ending. 
It is Unfailing Love = HESED

 

BUT… GOD!

 

Like the man in our Gospel reading this morning, we know him as the Blind son of Timeus… By the side of the road, begging for mercy, until he hears that Jesus is near…

⁴⁷ When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁸ Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

 

BUT… GOD!

 

If you’re in that place that David was this morning – or if you ever get to that place where life has turned against you (and we all get there.) remember David, and Jeremiah, and Bartimeus.

JESUS, SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY ON ME!

JESUS, SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY ON ME!

Let’s pray together.

 

From our collect again:

Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

“Great is Thy Faithfulness
Great is Thy Faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see!

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy Faithfulness,

Great is Thy Faithfulness

Great is Thy Faithfulness,

Lord unto me.”