The Soul Protected -- Thoughts on Psalm 130

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;

2 O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?

4 But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.

5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.

6 My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

It’s obvious that we need protection.  This psalm shows us a condition that we often find ourselves in.  Weak, crying out, out of our depth, homesick, waiting. 

How does this psalm of human condition help us to understand how God protects our souls?

In a lot of ways, this psalm argues with my new-testament world view.  I don’t believe we cry from the far depths.  We are not in the depths, we have been saved.  I don’t believe that we have to ask God to hear us, or be with us.  I believe that he just is, already. 

I can absolutely hook into the bit where the poet writes “with you there is forgiveness.”  And thank God, right?  I like that part.  That next line about fear, though -- it’s a line we like to shy away from, but I think it is the first that tells us about God’s protection of our souls. 

The Hebrew word that is translated as “fear” is so tricky.  It’s all over the Old Testament.  Fear of God the beginning of wisdom, the Lord inspiring fear in his people – the problem is we just don’t have an adequate word in English.  We could say that God is awesome – but that’s too much in modern slang to have much meaning.  We try to get rid of the “scared” implication by using watered down words like reverence and respect – but those are just too weak to describe how we should feel in the presence of God.  How can being afraid mean protection? 

I think of the fear of God protecting our souls like this – imagine you go out of your house and there is a giant spider web hanging across your porch.  I think it would make some of us turn around, slam the door, and shudder a bit.  And for some it would represented a real and genuine fear. 

Now imagine that the web is still there, but the house you’re leaving is on fire.  Are you still afraid of the spider? 

God is a bigger thing to “fear” than anything else in our lives.  If his fire is behind us, what can we possibly not walk through? 

This is a hint of God’s upside-down protection. 

The poet writes “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits – more than watchmen for the morning.”  I admit, this line gives me a feeling of homesickness so great that I cannot put it into words.  

 I am tired of this broken world.  I am tired of sickness and tragedy and hurt and grief.  I am more than ready to pack it in and head home.

But this is an illusion, isn’t it?  We don’t really wait.  I may feel homesick, but God is eternal.  Christ is now.  He did not suffer a thousand years ago, and it is over, because he is outside time.  He is suffering right with us, NOW, and our groans and cries to God match his.  His abandonment, his death, is now.  He is “I AM,” not “I was.” 

But he is also not “I will be.”  His resurrection and victory and excessive abundant LIFE is also now.  And his promise is that even as he shares in our suffering and abandonment and god-awful homesickness, we share in his resurrection, we share in his connection and we share in heaven.  Now.

What if we’re stuck in the part where he shares our suffering?  That’s okay.  The good news is not only that our sharing in life and heaven and victory is real regardless of what we feel at the moment but that God does not judge us for lack of faith when we can’t see it.  We might judge ourselves, think we need “more faith,” whatever.  But God doesn’t.

Christ is with us – in suffering and in resurrection.

So what is a soul protected?  I think I know what it’s not.  It’s not an attempt to shield oneself from the world, becoming so insular that we are no use to anyone.  The more we try to build our own walls to protect our soul the more we are vulnerable to hatred, to temptation, to self-centeredness. 

But wait!  Remember the poster on many Sunday School walls?  The dress-up kit sold in every Christian book store?  We have a recipe, a magic formula for protection right there in Ephesians 6!  
Take up these things and you will have nothing to worry about, right?  For a sword-and-sorcery, epic fantasy novel fan like me – oh, this is just gorgeous!  Let’s take a look --   The helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness – the sword of the Spirit – the belt of truth…   

Really, God???   Couldn’t we just have a belt of fiery angels at least?   The helmet of your-power-to-smite??   I have to be protected by spirit, and *faith*? 

It may be a fun image – but I think when we come right down to it it’s a wrong one.  I think Paul’s point was not the strength of these things – maybe his point was to show the upside-down world view of God. 

Does truth protect us from getting hurt? 

When was the last time you stood up and told truth that needed to be told and had no consequences?

Righteousness?  The times I get the most hurt is when I’ve honestly tried my best to do the right thing and it has been misunderstood or I have been taken advantage of.   Faith?  Is it this kind of shield? 

Faith as a shield?  Try holding it up --- is it seen as a strength that gives others pause?  Or is it seen by the world as weakness, foolishness.   The spirit?  I thought the spirit was a comforter – a dove.  Doesn’t seem very damaging. 

The world-view that Christ gives us is so often upside-down.  Love your enemies, bless those who curse you.  The workers in the vineyard getting the same wage regardless of when they begin work.  Calling the religious leaders of his time snakes and then partying with real people with real problems like you and me.  Why should protection of the soul look like we expect it to?  Why should we think that protection of the soul will keep us safe from the griefs of this world?

No.  The true protection of the soul is not in finding ways to protect what we have and stay alive. 

In our God’s upside-down worldview, a protected soul is one without protection.  

A soul protected is one without any barriers between itself and God. 

No barriers.  What does that look like?  I think it looks like death.

I’ve tried and tried to wrangle this into something palatable and pretty -- But the only conclusion I can come to logically from here is that death is the one thing that will fully protect our souls.  If heaven is, as I believe, the complete falling away of barriers between us and God then that is the only avenue of complete protection. 

Maybe – maybe -- that’s what Christ meant when he said we had to die…

With two “trulys” for emphasis he tells us, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.”

“Take up your cross and follow me.”   Is this meant to be watered down?  I had a bad rehearsal this week – oh well, I’m taking up my cross… how often do we use this verse for so very much less than what it is?

Theologian Charles Spurgeon wrote “I have now concentrated all my prayers into one, and that one prayer is this:  That I may die to self, and live wholly to him.”

We are promised that when we clothe ourselves with death we will find real life waiting.   I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live –

But Christ lives within me. 

Without even suspecting it, Neil deGrasse Tyson gave us the very same idea – just taking a little longer to find it through science:   

 “We have a genetic kinship with all life on earth, an atomic kinship to all matter in the cosmos; so when I look at the universe, I feel large, because I remind myself that not only are we living in this universe, the universe is living within us.”

Our souls are protected – and as we continue to die our protection only becomes greater.   Death is a fearsome thing – but like the spider on the porch, doesn’t it dwindle in the presence of God?  deGrasse’s image makes me less homesick – but another vision of death makes me more – Lewis’, in “The Last Battle…” 

“Soon they found themselves all walking together – and a great, bright procession it was – up towards mountains higher than you could see in this world even if they were there to be seen. 

The light ahead was growing stronger.  Lucy saw that a great series of many-colored cliffs led up in front of them like a giant’s staircase.  But then she forgot everything else, because Aslan himself was coming, leaping down from cliff to cliff like a living cataract of power and beauty. 

Then he was there, and he turned to them and said “you do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.” 

Lucy said “We’re afraid of being sent away, Aslan. You have sent us back to our own world so often.”

“No fear of that,” said Aslan. “Have you not guessed?”

Their hearts leapt, and a wild hope rose within them. 

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly.  “All of you are – as you used to call it in the Shadowlands – dead.

The term is over:  the holidays have begun.  The dream is ended:  This is the morning. 

This is a soul protected

Amen