Psalm 88
Man Kei Ho, Ph.D.
This psalm is different from all other psalms. When we come to the last verse of the psalm, the psalmist could not see any light at the end of the tunnel. The psalmist expressed how he suffered afflictions in life, he was hopeless and lonely. He pleaded with God over these sufferings, yet God seemed not to have opened a way for him. As he looked forward to his life, it was full of darkness. Thus in the darkness of his life, he wrote this psalm. And these were the questions that he asked:
v. 10 Do you show wonders to the dead? Do the dead rise up and praise you? He meant: “If I die, how can I praise you? Or in other words, if I continue to live then I can praise you, so why do you want me to die?”
v. 11 Is your love declared in the grave or your faithfulness in destruction? He is really saying, “God, where is your faithfulness and your loving kindness? Why is it that I have to go through such great suffering?”
v. 12 Are your wonders known in the place of darkness or your righteous deed in the land of oblivion? He meant: “God, where is your power and your righteousness? If you were powerful, you could accomplish what I asked. If you were righteous I would not have to suffer so much. Why did you not show your power and righteousness in my affliction?”
v. 14 Why, O Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me? The psalmist is saying, “After going through such great afflictions, why don’t you look at my sufferings and open up a way for me?”
There are two major types of psalms in the Bible: one type is the song of laments, the other is one of praise and thanksgiving. The psalms of lament are very important because they depict the experiences that we go through in life. Anyone who has not gone through days of lament has not really lived. Such songs of lament in our lives truly show us the real meaning of life. In Ps. 90: 9, 10 Moses said: “All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is seventy years – or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” Moses is trying to tell us that life is indeed brief and full of hardships. No matter how trouble-free we would like our lives to be, we cannot avoid what Moses expressed in these verses. Of course God is a God of mercy and yet His loving kindness and mercy are generally shown through afflictions. There are other psalms which show that those who went through hardships still praised God afterward. If David, whose life was really full of laments, had not passed through the valley of the shadow of death, he would not have known how God had walked with him. Songs of lament play an important role in the believer’s life as well because we get to see God’s grace through our afflictions. The psalmist had songs of lament, so do we, for we don’t sail through life so smoothly. Yet our songs of lament are written by us, whereas the psalmist’s songs of lament are recorded in the Bible. The psalmist’s lamentations are different from our songs of lament just as his prayers are also different from our prayers. An example is found in Psalm 137:9. The psalmist prayed: “He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rock, he is blessed.” The psalmist can pray this way, we cannot pray this way, because our prayers should be prayers of blessing and not curses upon our enemies. But why is it the psalmist can pray this way? Because he is declaring the judgment of God, it is not his own prayer. He is praying with God’s authority. Therefore the lamentations of the psalmist compared to our songs of lament are different in some ways. What are these differences?
We all know that the Bible is both divine and human, a hundred percent God’s book and a hundred percent man’s book. If we study the prayer of the psalmist and how he pleaded to God out of his heart, looking at it from the human standpoint alone is incomplete, because the psalms were inspired by God. When the psalmist faced tribulation, and wrote from his heart, it was God who was writing his psalm at the same time. We do not look only at how the psalmist spoke to God, we must also look at how God spoke to the psalmist. Whatever the psalmist had written was also what God had written.
The psalmist asked many questions, showing that he could not understand all the troubles before him and did not have the strength to bear all his problems. He said that he lived among the dead and his life was almost coming to an end. He was very lonely because God had taken away his friends. He pleaded with God with all his strength, asking Him to show him the way out. But when he came to the last verse he still had not found the solution. Possibly, he died without ever seeing God’s salvation. How did God answer the psalmist’s questions?
There was a young girl who hoped that her mother would give her a birthday gift just as she did every year. But for some reason, her mother forgot to buy her a present, so the girl was very sad. In her anger she ran to her mother and accused her: “Mom, you do not love me because you did not buy me a present!” The question is really this: Does the girl really understand if her mom loves her or not? Yet it is precisely because she accused her this way that shows the mother really did love her. If she had not already known that her mom loved her, she would not have come before her mom and accused her that way. Likewise, when the psalmist comes before God accusing Him of shutting out His face, of forsaking him, of being so unrighteous and unfair, it is really because he believes that God has not forsaken him. In reality, deep down in his heart, he believed this fact – God will not leave him. His lovingkindness is always present with him. When the psalmist expressed his questions before God, the answer is really in the question itself. The psalmist indeed understood that God has not really forsaken him. This psalm also expresses the fact during the course of our life, there are times when burdens are so heavy on our shoulders, we feel we can no longer bear them. We have so much afflictions, sadness, and tears. Many times we would like to give up.
Rev. Yang Mugu
楊牧谷 had cancer and underwent a long process of really difficult treatments. He wrote that the pain was really unbearable, but he expected a better tomorrow after these treatments. He soon discovered that his daughter was afflicted with lupus, which is incurable and brings great physical pain. Rev. Yang wrote that it was like a tidal wave – one pain after another – had crashed down on him. He said, “God, you really have high regard for me, for you gave me this type of lamentation.” When we do not have his kind of afflictions and we read his books, we really cannot identify with him. But what the psalmist experienced was much more than what Rev. Yang went through. And yet, when we encounter such afflictions and our faith begins to waver, we continue to plead with God to take away the afflictions. He does not take away the afflictions; instead, he adds more. How can we bear such pain? When we can bear no more, little by little, we loose our grip on God. The moment when we release our hands from God is the moment that we understand the reality of our faith. We discover that God has not loosened his grip of our hands, He is faithful even if we are faithless, for He cannot deny himself. The reality of our Christian faith is this: when we have no strength to hold on to our faith, He continues to hold us tightly and to preserve our faith in Him. The psalmist showed that God did exactly the same with him. We don’t know if he saw God’s salvation during his lifetime, but we do know that he was in God, and God did indeed keep him. The reality of our Christian belief is not in our own hands, it is in the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of this faith that it is in Christ’s hands, He can preserve our faith until the day when we meet Him. What kind of a God does the psalmist portray in this song of lament?This psalm shows us that God is a God who allows us to speak against him. In our afflictions we often speak against God and accuse him, just like the prophets of old, of being unfair and unrighteous. Yet in the Old Testament, God is the Creator of heaven and earth. He is the awesome God who desires that we fear him. He is described as sitting on high and when we come before him we must simply prostrate ourselves and worship him. God allows his children to go against him, yet He is truly merciful and understands what we are going through.
Second, He has heard our prayers, and this psalm is the best evidence of this fact. God wants to tell us through this psalm that He has heard the prayers of the psalmist. Even His silence does not mean that He has not heard us; He does not look down on our prayers and our afflictions. In my seminary years, I had many different professors. What I learned most was not what they taught, but their life testimony. One Old Testament professor was a pastor among the middle-lower class people. His Ph.D. in Old Testament was from the Princeton Seminary, one of the best schools in America. His had a deaf son, about ten years old, who had to undergo surgery on his impaired ears and they could not use anesthesia. During the procedure, he had to hold his father’s hands tightly. Whenever the surgical apparatus touched his ear the pain was unbearable. The father was gripping the son tightly, and every time the son felt pain, he felt as if something pierced his heart. The son’s eyes seemed to say to his father: “You have betrayed me, why do you allow me to go through such great pain?” The father wanted so much to say: “If only I could bear the pain for you, I would. But I cannot take your place. For your own good, you must endure this pain.” Many times God allows us to bear the pains of life and we cannot understand why, when we haven’t done anything wrong.
Thirdly, the psalm tells us that God is a faithful God who will not forsake us. God has seen and heard the psalmist’s sufferings, but it seems God did not solve his problem. Yet amidst great affliction, God did preserve the faith of the psalmist. Even though our lives are taken away, even if we cannot see a way out, He is still our God, our Lord. Whether in pain or not, this is a fact that cannot be changed.
Fourthly, He is a loving God. He has not promised that in this life we would not have sorrow. Many times we encounter different types of hardship. Many times He does not remove these hardships, yet He promised to walk with us and to bear our burdens, just as the poem, “Footprints in the Sand,” expressed. When life was at its hardest, there was only one set of footprints. When we could not bear our burdens anymore, God was the one who lifted us up and carried us through life’s adversities. As we look back we can see God’s grace, yet during our lifetime, we might not even be able to see His solution.
Fifth, He is our only hope. In the midst of hardship we want to look for a way out. Apart from God, where can we find the way? We have hope, which is the only solution that can lead us out of affliction. During the civil war in America, there were many Afro-American slaves who were being sold and bought like commodities. Despite their hardships, they accepted the gospel, and yet their lives did not change. They saw their wives and children being sold in the slave market. They knew that in their lifetime they would never see each other again, but their only hope was in God. Hence they wrote many “negro spirituals” expressing the hope that one day they would never have to live this way again. The solution may not happen during our lifetime, but we can be confident that all our afflictions will end. One day we will no longer sing such songs of lament. When we meet our glorious God, and look back upon our lives, everything will have passed away. Our glorious God is waiting for us. This kind of hope affirms our life, and everything we’ve experienced on earth – all our pains, brokenness, and tears – all of these will pass away. We will see our God face to face. What does this hope bring to us? The reality of life - we know we have the eternal glorious life that cannot be destroyed. This is our only hope. It was also the only hope of the psalmist, which was why he could still write this psalm. From the human perspective, he was really broken. Yet God has allowed this psalm to be preserved for our sake, to teach us that we can continue to have hope. Although the psalmist could not witness the end of his affliction, he may have died without seeing his problem solved, yet he was certain of attaining that glorious hope. We too must realize that this is not only a psalm written by the psalmist; it is really God who wrote the psalm. Through the problems faced by the psalmist and the questions he threw against God, we can see how God has truly answered the psalmist.
This message was delivered by Dr. Man Kei Ho on February 14, 2007, during the annual BSOP retreat at Kuhala Bay Resort. Edited and transcribed by Jean Uayan.