Psalm 77:1-20
We all love the book of Psalms. It is a book of praise, a book of worship to God. Isn’t that so? Do you love the book of Psalms? And yet there are parts of the Psalms that we never sing. These are the psalms of lament — psalms written in the genre of lament. A full third of the Psalms — of all 150 psalms — are laments. Whom are these psalms of lament meant for? For people who have fallen into depression. People who have gone through a divorce, who have suffered a huge loss in their lives, who have lost loved ones in accidents or been hurt in natural disasters like earthquakes or tsunamis. Of all the kinds of psalms, it is precisely the psalms of lament that speak to the souls of such people.
So now we are going to shift our mood a little. Not that all of us need healing, not that all of us are depressed, but it is possible that a day may come in our lives when we wonder: “Is God still with me? Does He really care about me?” In this psalm we read about worldwide, cosmic evil — not just some small misfortune that has befallen us, but the cosmic evil that reaches down to the bottom of hell. This is an evil that comes from the deepest darkness of the abyss and can break into our lives at any moment. Can you find such a song in our hymnals? A song like that would sound something like this:
Worn out I am with sighing and with groaning.
Tears I pour out through the long nights.
My pillow is soaked with all my weeping,
My eyes have become wells run dry,
For my enemy is bold and strong,
And I wonder — do I still belong to God?
That would be a text we would judge unfit for a song, because it is full of unbelief. Can you imagine us singing songs like that in church? But let us read Psalm 77. It has a heading. Its authorship is attributed to Asaph.
For the director of music. For Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A psalm. (Psalm 77, heading)
In the days of David, Asaph was the worship leader of the mega-church of Israel. He taught the people the various songs they were to sing to God and pray with, and this is one of them. And I am confident that it applies to every one of us.
A CONFESSION OF FAITH — v.1
This is a song to sing when we are in need, when we are at a dead end. How does a psalm of lament begin? With weeping. Actually the weeping begins at verse 2, because of the Hebrew custom of opening a story by announcing its happy ending at the very start. This psalm is like a film that opens with scenes from the end of the story and then takes us back to its beginning, in order to tell us how that happy ending came to be. Verse 1 is an expression of trust in God. It voices the faith, the joy, and the assurance the psalmist gains after he remembers God’s deeds and sings of God as a warrior who defeats chaos and the waters and wins that victory not for Himself, but for His people.
I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. (Psalm 77:1)
IN THE DAY OF TROUBLE — v.2-4
And now the lament begins:
2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted. 3 I remembered you, God, and I groaned; I meditated, and my spirit grew faint. 4 You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. (Psalm 77:2-4)
One of the rules for the right interpretation of a text is to look closely at it until we find the key word in the text — a word that is repeated and that catches the eye. It helps us identify the theme of the passage — what is being spoken about in it. What are the key words of this text? “My” and “I.” The psalmist speaks in the first person singular. He is speaking about himself. So to “my” and “I,” we would add the little word “me.” And there is nothing wrong in that. The psalm does not accuse us, does not condemn us for our despair, because it describes a normal human reaction to deep need. The psalmist shares with us what he did “in the day of his distress.” “The day of trouble” — this phrase describes a state of utter helplessness before a problem. Sometimes hardships and troubles come upon us; we run into situations we would love to change but cannot — we are powerless. And that is human, that is normal, that is understandable.
2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted. 3 I remembered you, God, and I groaned; I meditated, and my spirit grew faint. 4 You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. (Psalm 77:2-4)
It is natural to weep; it is normal in such moments to be unable to sleep and to ask ourselves the question “Why?”: “Why did all this happen? Why me? Why now? What did I do? Where did I go wrong? Why didn’t God prevent it? Why didn’t He stop it — isn’t He almighty?”
Here we have the pouring out of the soul of an honest man. If there is anything the psalms teach us, it is to be honest with God. To tell Him what is in our soul, and not what we think we ought to say to Him in the moment. What we have just read is the account of an honest man, wounded by grief and hopelessness to the very depths of his soul. And he calls out, he “seeks” the Lord. “In the day of my distress I sought the Lord, but I received no answer to my prayer… My soul would not be comforted… I could not fall asleep…” When was this happening? “When I fell seriously ill, when my marriage was turning into a nightmare, when I had troubles with the children. I didn’t even have words; I didn’t know what to say or what to do.”
THE GOOD OLD DAYS — v.5-6
After he has cried out to God, after he has sought Him, and his prayer has remained unanswered, the psalmist begins to think about God. His spirit is so faint that he can no longer keep praying aloud. So he begins to meditate. For him there is no hope in the present, so he turns to the past.
5 I thought about the former days, the years of long ago; 6 I remembered my songs in the night. My heart meditated and my spirit asked: (Psalm 77:5-6)
The psalmist begins to remember, to search and to long “for the good old days” — “when I was happily married… when I had a job and my business was thriving… when the children were small and gave us no trouble… when I didn’t have cancer… But now — now I have no words.”
This reminds me of Job — after all his struggle and weeping and crying out before God, he says (Job 29:2-6):
2 “How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me, 3 when his lamp shone on my head and by his light I walked through darkness! 4 Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house, 5 when the Almighty was still with me and my children were around me, 6 when my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil. (Job 29:2-6)
“Oh, where are the good old days, when everything was wonderful and things went just the way I wanted them to?”
THE QUESTIONS OF THE DEPRESSED MAN — v.7-9
Remembering the good old days and comparing them with his present trouble and hopelessness, the psalmist asks six questions — six — perhaps because the number six is the number of man, of the human. As if this is all that I, as a man, can utter.
7 “Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? 8 Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? 9 Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?” (Psalm 77:7-9)
These questions carry “the legitimacy of sacred doubt.”
I don’t know whether you have heard of Elie Wiesel’s book “Night”? In it he presents the diary in which he recorded his thoughts during the time when, as a teenager, he was in the concentration camp of Auschwitz — a believing young man who on his very first day sees a truck full of little children burned in a gas chamber. And he writes: “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.” Or in other words: “It makes me sick, I feel like vomiting at the thought that in such a moment the almighty God could remain indifferent, could do nothing in a situation like that.”
Later Elie Wiesel writes about how once, after returning from work in the field, he was forced to watch the hanging of an eleven-year-old boy. And he writes: “This little boy was too thin and too light for the weight of his body to break his neck.” So he agonized slowly and painfully — “struggling between life and death.” And they were made to watch that execution. Then from the group watching this terrible scene a voice was heard: “Where is God? Where is He?” In that moment Elie Wiesel heard a voice in his heart: “He is here — He is hanging on the noose of that rope.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_%28novel%29
In fact, the six questions are one and the same question asked in different ways. And that question is: “Have I been finally rejected by God?” To develop it, this question is related to the attributes of God that characterize His relationship with Israel — favor, covenant love, promise, grace and goodness (compassion).
7 “Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? 8 Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? 9 Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?” (Psalm 77:7-9)
THE INCREDIBLE EFFECT OF REMEMBERING — v.10-12
10 Then I thought, “To this I will appeal: the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand. (Psalm 77:10)
“The right hand of the Most High” is a term for God’s power and readiness to deliver His people from trouble. Israel was saved from the Egyptians by God’s right hand (Exodus 15:6,12) and was defended and preserved as a nation in the same way. The questions of the depressed man call God’s concern for the psalmist into doubt. But he knows one thing — that God does not change. Jesus Christ is “the same” yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He puts God’s actions in question, but not His existence. And he knows that if God exists, then because of His divine nature He is eternal and unchanging.
From here on the psalm describes the turnaround in the psalmist’s thinking. The contrast between v.3,6 and v.11 is striking — in v.3,6 the psalmist says “I remember,” and in v.11 “I will remember.” The action that causes the despair and the encouragement is one and the same — remembering. But in the first part of the psalm he remembers “the good old days,” while in the second part of the psalm he begins to remember God’s deeds (v.11-12). The thoughts that before were confessions of doubt now become confessions of faith. What causes the turnaround in the soul of the depressed man is the recalling of God’s deeds in ancient times. Here the focus turns from man and his hopelessness to God and His almighty power. The personal pronouns change from “I” to “you” and from “me” to “us.”
11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. 12 I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.” (Psalm 77:11-12)
Instead of sending up a plea for help or making a vow of praise, the psalmist decides to deal with his misery by remembering the wonderful deeds of God in ancient times, in the days of the first relationship between the Lord and His people. This decision of the psalmist raises the theme of remembering and remembrance in the psalm to its climax.
You see, remembrance is not something passive. It is something very powerful. Remembrance is the theological reason for preaching. Why do we preach God’s Word every Sunday? Because in this way we renew our faith. How do we do it? By going back to ancient times, taking a deed done by God or a word spoken by God in the Bible, and renewing it so that it can be applied to the present.
Remembrance is dynamic, because it prompts us to action. For example, if you have forgotten that you need to do something, and then you remember, you do it right away. An example of this is God in Genesis 8:1.
1 But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. (Genesis 8:1)
You see, the flood had lasted forty days (Genesis 7:17), and after they covered the whole earth, the waters stood over it a hundred and fifty days (Genesis 7:24). Then God “remembered” Noah and the people and animals who were with him in the ark. This memory prompted God to action — He “sent a wind over the earth,” so that the rains stopped. The principle of remembrance is also seen in God’s revelation through His creation — in the rainbow. Whenever He sees it, God remembers His covenant with Noah. The rainbow makes the covenant with Noah present again and reactivates God’s promise that He will never again bring a flood. In Genesis 9:8-16 we read:
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” (Genesis 9:8-11)
12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” (Genesis 9:12-16)
You see, the first one who remembers in this world is God Himself. From the time of Noah, whenever it rains and God sees the rainbow in the clouds, He remembers the everlasting covenant He made with Noah and with all living things on the earth. In this way He does not let the rain go on longer than necessary, and we can be sure that there will never be a flood again. Remembrance is not repetition, but the making-present of God’s deed, so that it is valid and has power for the present. We could say that through remembrance God continues to carry out His work in us, and so His work takes on new power for us — power that affects us and that changes us.
This is what the psalmist does too — he remembers God’s deeds and the miracles done by God in ancient times, and this affects him, changes his attitude, and gives him wings and the ability to cope with his trouble, his helplessness and his depression. Singing of God’s victory over chaos and the waters builds up his faith and gives him assurance that God will hear his prayer and answer his need (v.1).
I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. (Psalm 77:1)
The Lord’s Supper too is a “remembrance.” In 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 we read:
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)
What do we remember in the Lord’s Supper? Christ’s redeeming death — the death through which He paid the price for our sin, the death through which we have peace with God and which is the foundation of the New Covenant — our covenant with God through Jesus Christ. And you see, every time we take the Lord’s Supper, this reactivates God’s redeeming work and makes it present for us today. This reactivation is especially powerful, because it calls upon God’s Spirit and brings God’s presence into our lives. So remembrance gives us power to live as God’s redeemed children — people who are free from sin and who belong to God.
WHAT GOD IS GREAT AS THE TRUE GOD? — v.13-15
Remembrance calls God’s presence into our lives. After he does it — after he remembers the deeds of the Lord and begins to meditate on them and to call them to mind (v.11-12) — the psalmist forgets about himself. This act of remembrance of his brings God onto the stage. And he begins to worship Him and to sing to Him.
13 Your ways, God, are holy. What god is as great as our God? 14 You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. 15 With your mighty arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. (Psalm 77:13-15)
GOD’S CLASH WITH “THE WATERS” — v.16-20
Here the psalmist sings of the creation and of God’s greatest deed in ancient times after creation — the exodus from Egypt and the passage through the Red Sea. The imagery he uses is especially vivid — personifications and metaphors — the waters and the sea “see” God, are “afraid,” and “tremble.” The psalmist describes the clash between “the waters” and God as a warrior whose steps cannot be stopped and whose arrows are the lightnings of heaven. God comes against the waters and pierces them, passes through them and defeats them. And this victory is also a victory for His people.
16 The waters saw you, God, the waters saw you and writhed; the very depths were convulsed. 17 The clouds poured down water, the heavens resounded with thunder; your arrows flashed back and forth. 18 Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world; the earth trembled and quaked. 19 Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. 20 You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. (Psalm 77:16-20)
The theme in this passage is “the way of the Lord.” In v.13 the psalmist exclaims: “Your ways, God, are holy,” and in v.19 he notes: “Your path led through the sea.” Holiness is the fundamental attribute of God. It is everything in which God surpasses and exceeds man. In His holiness God is incomparable. This is seen also in the way He does things. If a man had to cross from somewhere or make a path, he would do it over dry land. But not God — His way is “through the sea.” In Exodus 15, in the song of God’s servant Moses, which he wrote right after the passage through the Red Sea, we hear Moses exclaim:
11 Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you— majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders? (Exodus 15:11)
I would like to draw your special attention also to v.19:
19 Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen. (Psalm 77:19)
The fact that God’s footprints are untraceable tells us that God cannot be tracked, cannot be explained, cannot be imitated. God’s ways are “unsearchable” — hidden, invisible and beyond human understanding. “The waters saw God,” but no human being witnessed this cosmic clash. God works and fights for us, and we see the consequences and the victories of His action, but His actual working and fighting remain beyond the reach of our sight. This fact should encourage us and tell us that the fact that we do not see God acting and doing something for us in a moment of need does not mean that this is truly so. Even though we cannot see His footsteps and cannot know His tracks, God still keeps making a path for us “through the sea.” He will never leave us or forget us. As we sing in our song:
“God will make a way, where there seems to be no way.
He works in ways we cannot see, He will make a way for me.”
DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME
In a little while we will have the Lord’s Supper. And the Lord said: “Do this in remembrance of me!” It is so natural for us to be focused on ourselves, on our own things, on our own problems… We think about our own experiences — about what we feel — even when it comes to our experiences with God. We think about “my salvation,” about “my relationship with God”… But as we come to the Lord’s Supper, let us do what the psalmist does in the second part of Psalm 77 — let us remember God’s deeds, and let us do it together. From the thought of our own night, let us turn our thoughts to the night in which the Lord Jesus was betrayed. To take part in the Lord’s Supper means to know what kind of night Christ went through. And when we take part in the Lord’s Supper, I invite you to recite the Apostles’ Creed together. Because in the Lord’s Supper we confess our faith — not “my experience,” not “your experience,” but “our faith.”
1. I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
2. and in Jesus Christ, His only Son,
our Lord:
3. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary,
4. Who suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified on a cross and was buried,
5. Who descended into hell
and on the third day rose again from the dead,
6. Who ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
7. Who will come again to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. I believe in the holy universal Church,
the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the dead,
12. and the life everlasting. Amen.