March 28thPsalm #70
Come, bring your burdens
On a recent Sunday the Prayers of the People featured the following pleas for God to act:
- Comfort a family in deep grief over the sudden death of a young father.
- A congregant going in for surgery.
- For voices for peace to be heard in the Russian war on Ukraine.
- For resources to help those living on the margins.
- For the church in Colombia as they meet for their annual assembly.
Our prayers assume that God cares about our needs, small and large. And this prayer – Psalm 70 - is a little unusual in that it is bold about telling God what to do in trying circumstances.
In the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (at least in its earliest editions) this psalm was part of the opening prayer in the daily worship of the church:
O God, make speed to save us; O Lord, make haste to help us.’
What Psalm 70 makes clear is that when we are in a panic and all we want to do is urge God to take action, we can dare to do so.
In a letter dated May 15, 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote to his parents from prison: “I read the Psalms every day, as I have done for years; I know them and love them more than any other book.” Earlier in the same letter, Bonhoeffer wrote, “One of my predecessors here has scribbled over the cell door, ‘In 100 years it will all be over.’ That was his way of trying to counter the feeling that life spent here is a blank … ‘My time is in your hands’ (Psalm 31) is the Bible’s answer. But in the Bible there is also the question that threatens to dominate everything here: ‘How long, O Lord?’ (Psalm 13).”
Psalm 70 is an individual lament that begins with an urgent entreaty for divine intervention: “Be pleased, O God, to deliver me. O LORD, make haste to help me!” (verse 1). The psalmist cries out to God for deliverance from enemies, who “seek my life” and “desire to hurt me” (verse 2).
The psalmist then asks that those people “be put to shame and confusion” and “be turned back and brought to dishonor” (verse 2). Although Psalm 70 includes a moment of hope (“Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say evermore, ‘God is great!’” [verse 4]), the psalm immediately returns — and ends — with a call for God to act: “But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay!” (verse5).
“Do not delay!” The psalm ends with a final, urgent appeal. There is no recorded divine response, no move to praise.
Psalm 70 provides us with a scriptural basis for lament, for airing our grievances, and for asking for help but it also is a reminder that we might not receive an immediate answer.
It also reminds those of us who live in comfortable circumstances today, that somewhere, someone is always praying this prayer, and we ought to be attentive to their cries. Others might be hurting, calling out for help, awaiting deliverance. Others might be crying out, but hearing no response.
In his deeply moving memoir A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis at one point reflects on Jesus’ invitation “Knock and the door will be opened unto you.” But in his grief and in his seeking of answers as to why his wife had died of cancer, Lewis claimed that he had in fact not just knocked but pounded on the door of heaven until his knuckles were raw. But, Lewis wrote, from the other side of the door “all I could hear was the bolting and double-bolting of the door.”
His writing breaks off at that point and then the next paragraph begins. “I wrote that last night. It was a yell more than a thought.”
‘A yell more than a thought.’ Who has not had such an experience? As we approach the season of Easter, we remember that Jesus ultimately embodied the role of the faithful sufferer who fully entrusted his life and future to God.
https://youtu.be/pS692PsC5Rc - Come, bring your burdens to God