Genesis 3: 8-15 Psalm 130
2 Cor. 4:13-5:1 Mark 3: 20-35
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
The group was preparing to climb Mt. Rainier. They would take three days, their guide said, rather than the more usual two, because they could. They had time. And on that day when they would reach their goal…when they would summit…when they would climb to the top of this Northwestern peak…they would begin their final ascent at just after midnight. Some grumbled at this. Why awaken so soon after barely making camp? Why hike under the dark veil of the inky early morning hours?
On that day, as they made their way to the top, they went around toward the east. Their breathing punctuated the stillness of the dark, and it was visible to them. And as they neared the top, the rising sun greeted them. It illumined their goal. They were treated to both the miracle of sunrise and the majesty of mountaintop at the same time.
My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.
The Psalmist in the 130th Psalm cries out to God….and they are not just any cries. They are cries from out of the depths.
Unlike those summiting the mountain, others watch for morning from the depths. In most cases it is not a sunrise or a time of day for which they wait. It is, rather, that they are waiting for a metaphorical morning. A lessening of darkness. A lightness. Something brighter.
Each of us knows our own particular darkness. We know it well. We know the feel of each of its curves and rises. We’ve come to know it so well that we can anticipate it’s arrival. In our western world we are encouraged to learn to manage it. The sharing of our darkness, of the deep places from which we cry out too often results in platitudes like “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”…”just move on”…”snap out of it.” And of course, if we could do those things, we would.
But our deep places settle in around us. The broken relationship. The illness. The childlessness. The breached trust. The alienation. The fear. The missed goal. The forgotten dream. The addiction. The depression. The desperation. The loneliness.
St. Paul was well acquainted with depths. He knew struggle and change, he knew afflictions about which he wrote in his letters to the early believers, but never clearly defined. In our second lesson today, we heard his words from the second letter to the church at Corinth. Here Paul writes of the challenges that were inherent in being a follower of Christ. Those early believers did not enjoy the same religious freedoms that we do. They were persecuted in numerous ways, often martyred for their beliefs. And yet, Paul writes, they continue to speak. They do not lose heart. Although their outer natures are wasting away, their inner natures are renewed day by day. Paul does not deny the struggle. He doesn’t gloss over it or even offer some solution to it. Instead he clings to the knowledge that what God is building in them and in this world is eternal. He finds comfort in knowing that God will build the Kingdom.
The reading from Genesis this morning is often called the story of “The Fall.” It’s as though the writers of this book decided to offer a clear explanation for humankind’s separation from God. We have scapegoats. We can blame the man and the woman in Eden, just as they can blame one another and a serpent. But if we imagine what the man and woman were feeling there in this story….as the story goes they had done the very things they had been told not to do. And they were afraid of the consequences. How many of us have been there? Of course there are the obvious examples of breaking the rules when we were children and the awful anticipation of what would happen when we were found out. But even as adults we do the very things we know not to do…and we do them in spite of ourselves. And then we sit in dread of the natural consequences that will surely come to pass. The way we lose face or reputation or our own sense of who we are. The way another is hurt or disappointed.
Out of the depths I cry to you O Lord hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! If you should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you…
Like the Psalmist we give thanks that God is a God of forgiveness. When the depths are of our own making, and we cry out to God, we find a God who is there for us, who has not left us. If we borrow the imagery of the writer of the Genesis story, God walks among Creation, longing to be with us.
Too often, I think, that we categorize our deep places as being places where God is not. If we are despairing, we think, then God is not there. And if we are hopeful or happy or fulfilled or content, then God is there. But this is our construct. Scripture tells us that God is always present. God is Omni-Present. The Psalmist knew this well. God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Where could I go from your spirit? Where could I flee from your presence. You are there. You are everywhere.
We take comfort and we garner strength in the knowledge that even in those depths, when we cry out to God, God is already there with us.
In her book, Jesus Wept, Barbara Crafton shares the words of a woman whose depths involved a life long struggle with clinical depression. She writes:
I used to think that being happy meant that God was with me, and being unhappy meant that God was not with me. I assumed that my depression meant that God had abandoned me, because if God were with me, I would feel happy. It laid an extra layer of distress on me, as I felt guilty for being depressed, as if my feelings had caused God to leave. As if it were up to me to control God, making God be with me or not, by what I felt. Of course it also painted an unflattering picture of a God who only wants to be around shiny happy people. And if I felt abandoned, it way my own fault for not being shiny and happy. Eventually I learned…that God is not going to fix my depression. But God didn’t cause it either. And God stays with me through it, loving me anyways. I have learned that even when I feel empty, even when I can’t sense it, Love is there. And it’s not up to me. God is there no matter what I do or how I feel.”[1]
Over the course of the last week and a half, our city has continued to struggle to make sense of the senseless. How can so many lives be lost? Where was God in this? Out of the depths we cry to you, O Lord!
Gloria Leonidis was the next to the last life taken on an unimaginable day. At the site of her death, a downtown parking lot, a unique memorial has been installed. It is called Only Light and it is a beam of light that shines down upon the very place, the very ground, where her life on this earth came to an end. We can only imagine the pain that her family and friends feel. But we can imagine it because somehow we have a pain that, although different, feels somewhat similar. We know of loss. We know of anger. And we know of hoping for light in darkness, of waiting for morning in the dark night. Only Light is based on a quote by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “”Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Those who were climbing Mt. Rainier in that early morning darkness watched for the morning. The Psalmist watched for the morning. Gloria Leonidis’ family still watches for the morning. Barbara Crafton’s parishioner watched for the morning. St. Paul watched for the morning. The man and woman in the garden watched for the morning.
And we…we, too, watch for the morning. But we do not watch alone. God is with us. Thanks be to God for this immeasurable gift. Amen.
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