God Has Done Great Things For Us
By The Ven. Sarah Woodard
From our Easter perspective, we know that if we pray only for God to reimpose life as we have known it in easier or better times, our prayers have fallen short of the expectations and the future that God intends. God has in mind not simply restoration but resurrection.
We lean in on repentance and the reflection on mortality as Psalm 126 offers words of encouragement remembering God’s care for us in the past and enduring this present season thoughtfully and can make us ready to receive the future God has prepared for us. The Psalmist encourages us to slow down from the triumphal Palm Sunday ahead into triumphant Easter Sunday, ignoring the sorrow of the Holy Week in-between. We have a way of looking back to the good days. Have you ever been overwhelmed with nostalgia? It might be from a holiday gathering when all of your relatives were with you, well and happy. It’s like being a child again with the truths of precious days. Other truths are harder to recall as well as tensions that ensued.
In the psalm we step out of the happy past and stand with the psalmist in the present. The silence of that space is often deafening and gives us an empty space where we step back and wonder what has happened to the people of Israel.
Yet, we have confidence in God to restore us as we move from hope to those who sow in tears to those who reap with shouts of joy to an affirmation of our faith.
Often we rush out of grief and sorrow and are uncomfortable with tears, impatient with the process of healing which takes time; after all, it can be like a triad — physical, emotional, or spiritual.
Periods of hardship and grief can feel like drought in the soul. Life recedes and we can become hardened like cracks appearing in our emotional and physical well-being. We look to God as Israel does. The people asked God to relieve the dry, parched places within them just as God sends rain to the Negeb. Water spills over the banks into surrounding fields. New life springs up and hope is restored.
Attention and care given to seasons of sorrow and grief become the groundwork for new life.
Many of us feel good about the way life is going at present while others are not at that place. Some who mourn may be sitting next to us today. Others live far away. We are called to stand with each of them in the midst of their tears. Such is the baptismal vocation to which God calls us, especially during Lent.
