Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Wisdom Wednesday: Pause Psalm 130

Grace and peace to you, I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Today is Wednesday, March 20, 2024 This week, as the season of Lent moves into holy week, we at Peakland are concluding our time with the Psalms. This Lenten season we have been reading Pause: Spending Lent with the Psalms written by Elizabeth Caldwell. This week we consider Psalm 130: I’m reading from our big sanctuary Bible which is the Revised Standard Version Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord! Lord, hear my voice! Let thy ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! If thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all iniquities. This Psalm is a lament. It’s a confession that my soul and my actions have become twisted and turned away from God’s good path. That’s right at the start of the Psalm but then within a few verses, this Psalm has words of hope for us. Even as we confess our sins and iniquities, which push us down and make it hard to even stand, we also confess that with the Lord, there is forgiveness and plenteous redemption. I love those words, plenteous redemption. What they convey to me is that as low as we feel in our souls, depths of the ocean low, God’s forgiveness and God’s desire to redeem us and save us is deeper still. The good news from this Psalm is that God has an inexhaustible plenteous supply of mercy. I’m not the first methodist to be taken with these words. John Wesley, who established the Methodist movement nearly 300 years ago, wrote in his journal on Wednesday, May 24, 1738, that he heard this Psalm 130 as a choral anthem at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London just before he attended a group meeting at Aldersgate Street. John Wesley wrote in his journal about that evening at Aldersgate Street that he felt his heart strangely warmed, and that as in Psalm 130, he knew himself a sinner and he knew God’s plenteous redemption. John wrote, I felt I did trust in Christ; Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from sin and death. As we enter Holy Week, I hope we all experience strangely warmed hearts and souls. Peakland gathers for a single united worship this Palm Sunday, March 24 at 10:00 a.m. in our sanctuary. We’ll livestream the worship as well. We’ll begin our worship waving our palm branches and singing hosanna! We’ll end that service in darkness with a large stone covering Jesus’ tomb. Peakland will host a dinner worship service on Thursday, March 28 at 6:00 p.m. We’ll gather in the fellowship hall here at Peakland, break bread together and For Good Friday, March 29, I’ll post online a pre-recorded devotion for the day. And then on Easter Sunday, March 31. Peakland will gather at 6:30 a.m. for sunrise worship and then for our usual worship times of 8:30, 9:45, and 11:00. We’ll begin the service in darkness but quickly say to each other, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! All of these dates and times are on our website, PeaklandUMC.org On Easter Sunday, we’ll also have a preview of all the great ministries that Peakland will be doing in the weeks to come. Pentecost Confirmation! Hygiene and Menstrual Kits for Conference! Vacation Bible School! A summer Sermon series based on beloved Sunday School stories! So much is happening here at Peakland. Reach out to me at PeaklandPastor@gmail.com if you’d like to find your place here. Thanks be to God.