I am a wretched louse for the doubts and fears I have. Please remind me of this day whenever I struggle again...which I know will be soon.
I did learn, though, from someone who thinks I have been immensely hurtful, again. I feel like an onion being peeled, and each layer is worse than the one before it. For someone who struggles with shedding the teaching that I need to be worthy, this is a crucible.
I am heartily sorry but how do I stop doing that which I do not understand? How do I address something that is not in my heart or mind and so puzzles me that can be in my words or my actions? This is doubly hard for someone who struggles with understanding forgiveness apart from the Eucharist and the Word of Absolution.
I was despairing and then remembered one of my favorite online sermons from Pastor Esget. I thought I would plunk it down here, as a reminder, hopefully, that this day is the day God gave me with both sides of the cross.
The God who hides Himself in times of trouble: Meditation on Psalm 10
September 3, 2008
We are working through the Psalms at our midweek services of Evening Prayer. Tonight was Psalm 10. Some of the material below is from the Heidelberg Disputation (AE vol. 31). I have long been indebted to Dr. Richard Stuckwisch for a lecture he gave on Deus absconditus in 1994, as well as Kantor Resch for teaching me that God comforts suffering sinners by means of the Psalms.
—-
“Why, O LORD, do You stand afar off? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?”
The LORD does stand far off, hiding Himself precisely when we feel we need His help most. The Scriptures are full of examples. The Canaanite woman implored Jesus to free her demon-possessed daughter, and Jesus seemingly insults her, trying to drive her away. Job endured the loss of his family, property, and friends, and from the dust shrieks to God, “I cry out to You, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You regard me. But You have become cruel to me; with the strength of Your hand You oppose me…. I know that You will bring me to death” [30.20-23]. Abraham and Sarah endured years of sadness on account of their childlessness. Elijah crawled through the desert, eating nothing for forty days and forty nights, then hiding in a cave from those who pursued him. Why?
That is the perpetual question the children of God are led to ask. “Why, O LORD, do You stand afar off? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?” “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” God has hidden Himself. Why?
In his theses for the Heidelberg Disputation (1518), Luther presents an answer to this ancient question about the hidden God. In the 19th thesis, he writes, “That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened.” In other words, you can’t tell what the invisible things of God are by the things that are visible to you. The things that are happening in your life don’t show you the hidden things of God.
In Romans 1, St. Paul shows us what we can know on our own about God: “Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” From creation, from the things that are made, we can see that there is a God and that He is all-powerful. However, what we cannot see and cannot know from nature is how God regards us.
So the natural assumption is that if things are going well, God loves us, and if things are going poorly, God must hate us. That’s why some false preachers see the punishment of God in a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, and why others will say that it is God’s will that you live in prosperity, with a luxury car parked in a garage attached to your luxury home.
It’s easy to condemn that kind of thinking – but we often fall into the same trap. When we are healthy, we say we are “blessed,” but when we are sick, we wonder if God is punishing us. Denominations say large churches with big donations are “successful,” and churches that are suffering and struggling are told they are doing something wrong, and so God is not “blessing” them. We are all, by nature, theologians of glory instead of theologians of the cross.
But this Psalm teaches us to be theologians of the cross. The psalmist complains that the ways of the wicked man prosper, even though he hates God, while the poor and helpless, who pray to God, get attacked by the wicked who ambush, enslave, and murder the godly. We cannot look to earthly success, to our health or a happiness quotient to determine whether or not we are blessed, to see whether or not God loves us, what His disposition toward us is.
The prophet Isaiah says, “Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!” Why then does God hide Himself? So that He can show Himself – but not where you expect. God hides Himself in order to reveal Himself in weakness and suffering, in sacrifice and the cross. There on the cross, precisely where our natural eyes see a weak, pathetic, miserable dying man, there we see God truly revealed. Where God is most hidden, on the cross, there is God revealed for who He truly is: the One who suffers with us, who suffers for us, who has endured our suffering and even taken it on Himself.
When it seems as though the LORD is standing far off from you, hiding Himself in your time of trouble, He is hiding Himself precisely so that you will cry out to Him for rescue, confess your sins, and then see God not in an earthly triumph but in the lowly forms of words, water, bread, wine. There God has hidden Himself, but you find Him there coming to you, lowly, riding on a donkey, yet righteous and having salvation.
God is a God who hides Himself to the patterns and expectations of this world. But He is not hidden from you. He is revealed to you in the means of grace, and there-and only there-you know God’s disposition toward you, namely, that He loves you, forgives you, and is not far off when you are suffering.
“Why, O LORD, do You stand afar off? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?”
The LORD does stand far off, hiding Himself precisely when we feel we need His help most. The Scriptures are full of examples. The Canaanite woman implored Jesus to free her demon-possessed daughter, and Jesus seemingly insults her, trying to drive her away. Job endured the loss of his family, property, and friends, and from the dust shrieks to God, “I cry out to You, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You regard me. But You have become cruel to me; with the strength of Your hand You oppose me…. I know that You will bring me to death” [30.20-23]. Abraham and Sarah endured years of sadness on account of their childlessness. Elijah crawled through the desert, eating nothing for forty days and forty nights, then hiding in a cave from those who pursued him. Why?
That is the perpetual question the children of God are led to ask. “Why, O LORD, do You stand afar off? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?” “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” God has hidden Himself. Why?
In his theses for the Heidelberg Disputation (1518), Luther presents an answer to this ancient question about the hidden God. In the 19th thesis, he writes, “That person does not deserve to be called a theologian who looks upon the invisible things of God as though they were clearly perceptible in those things which have actually happened.” In other words, you can’t tell what the invisible things of God are by the things that are visible to you. The things that are happening in your life don’t show you the hidden things of God.
In Romans 1, St. Paul shows us what we can know on our own about God: “Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” From creation, from the things that are made, we can see that there is a God and that He is all-powerful. However, what we cannot see and cannot know from nature is how God regards us.
So the natural assumption is that if things are going well, God loves us, and if things are going poorly, God must hate us. That’s why some false preachers see the punishment of God in a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, and why others will say that it is God’s will that you live in prosperity, with a luxury car parked in a garage attached to your luxury home.
It’s easy to condemn that kind of thinking – but we often fall into the same trap. When we are healthy, we say we are “blessed,” but when we are sick, we wonder if God is punishing us. Denominations say large churches with big donations are “successful,” and churches that are suffering and struggling are told they are doing something wrong, and so God is not “blessing” them. We are all, by nature, theologians of glory instead of theologians of the cross.
But this Psalm teaches us to be theologians of the cross. The psalmist complains that the ways of the wicked man prosper, even though he hates God, while the poor and helpless, who pray to God, get attacked by the wicked who ambush, enslave, and murder the godly. We cannot look to earthly success, to our health or a happiness quotient to determine whether or not we are blessed, to see whether or not God loves us, what His disposition toward us is.
The prophet Isaiah says, “Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior!” Why then does God hide Himself? So that He can show Himself – but not where you expect. God hides Himself in order to reveal Himself in weakness and suffering, in sacrifice and the cross. There on the cross, precisely where our natural eyes see a weak, pathetic, miserable dying man, there we see God truly revealed. Where God is most hidden, on the cross, there is God revealed for who He truly is: the One who suffers with us, who suffers for us, who has endured our suffering and even taken it on Himself.
When it seems as though the LORD is standing far off from you, hiding Himself in your time of trouble, He is hiding Himself precisely so that you will cry out to Him for rescue, confess your sins, and then see God not in an earthly triumph but in the lowly forms of words, water, bread, wine. There God has hidden Himself, but you find Him there coming to you, lowly, riding on a donkey, yet righteous and having salvation.
God is a God who hides Himself to the patterns and expectations of this world. But He is not hidden from you. He is revealed to you in the means of grace, and there-and only there-you know God’s disposition toward you, namely, that He loves you, forgives you, and is not far off when you are suffering.
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!
No comments:
Post a Comment