PJN Advent Series: Psalm 130: Waiting for Divine Redemption -- A Song of Ascents

By, Mx. Kate Davoli, MDiv

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.  Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.

I wait for the Lord; my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

DEVOTIONAL

Up from the muddy deeps of the underworld comes the anguished cry of a man who is already dead.

I have heard that cry.

It is the cry of Hussam Abu Ajwa
whose ten year old daughter Tala’s pink roller skates could not help her outrun shrapnel.
Of Mohammad Abu Al-Qumsan
whose twin little ones were dashed against the rock of a warhead.
Fathers of Children who died in political thirst for vengeance
and whose own hearts died with them.

Like them, the psalmist is dead, yet not at peace.
There is no reason to expect his cry will make it
from the depths of hell all the way beyond the firmament to where God abides.
It is unheard of.
Ours is a God of the living, after all.
What is the praise of dust worth.

The psalmist cries anyway.

Because any God worth worshiping
listens to the cries of the suffering
and answers their prayers.

The poet is no saint.
Only one who has done great evil argues “no one’s life is spotless.
That none stand in God’s judgment blame-free.”
But the psalmist cries for attention and redress anyway
in a last-ditch hope that it might reach the ears of this merciful sovereign.

That hope waits on God’s response.
“I can do nothing,” the psalmist knows.  “I am dead,
but I wait with the same anxious anticipation of the dawn criers.”
Those who watch at the city walls for the first hint of morning.
He believes God’s answer to the petitions of the suffering is just as reliable
just as dependable as the sunrise.
It will come, and soon.

Because any God worth worshiping
desires peace this much too.

PRAYER

Merciful Sovereign:
Like yours, let our ears be attentive to the pleading of the vulnerable.
Resurrect from burial these cries that roll forth from the depths
and add our own cries to them.
And slake the thirst for vengeance, borne from generations weaned on tears,
with nothing less than permanent, lasting peace.
In the name of your son, that Prince, we pray.  Amen.

Mx. Kate Davoli (they/them) has the honor of being first person to have been dismissed from the ordination process of the Presbyterian Church USA for being openly polyamorous. Their call remains, however, and Kate ministers to queer and ex-vangelical individuals and communities as a Ruling Elder, a lay preacher, a spiritual director, and a teacher of vocational discernment. They earned their Master of Divinity degree at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and currently they serve on the board of directors of More Light Presbyterians, Juniper Formation’s Daily Ripple Ministry, and the ecumenical collaborative LAMP: the LGBTQIA+ Affirming Ministries of Pittsburgh.