Day 27: Psalm 6 & 99

To read the Psalms and to really see them as a whole, they are an emotional journey that doesn’t make much sense to us - or interest us.

We might have some of the same thoughts as the Psalmist, but we are too learned, too refined, too afraid of glares to say them. To be blunt, the Psalms are way more comfortable with sadness and worship than we are. I keep thinking about this Psalm:

I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. Psalm 6:6

That’s in the Bible? And then this one:

The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble; he sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake. Great is the Lord in Zion; he is exalted over all the nations. Let them praise your great and awesome name— he is holy. Psalm 99:1-3

How is all of this contained in one book? It’s emotionally volatile.

Who talks like this? Who shows up to coffee to console a friend and discusses drenching a couch with tears? We can’t handle sadness. Even the DSM IV (what psychiatrists use for diagnosing) says two months is the appropriate time for someone to be sad over the death of a loved one, beyond that it’s probably depression. We treat it as an illness, not a reality. Even worse, in church, we act as if sadness is a lack of faith. No one bothered telling that to the Psalms. Why do the Psalms plunge so deep into darkness? In my experience, it is not sadness that really crushes people. It’s the energy we spend trying to avoid our sadness that does us in.

The sweep of the Psalms reveal that there is a connection between our ability to be sad, not avoid it, and our ability to feel joy and see life as the gift it is. Let us not forget, Jesus cried at a funeral (Lazarus) and turned water into wine at a wedding.

Those who have learned to dance at weddings are also those who can cry at funerals.

Jared