Waiting for the Lord

The psalm appointed for Sunday, despite my reservations expressed on Monday, is quite a piece of liturgical theology. If you look it up in your handy-dandy study Bible (rather than the BCP), you’ll find that it is given both a title and a style heading.  My HarperCollins Study Bible calls Psalm 130 “Waiting for Divine Redemption” and places it among several other psalms in the style of “A Song of Ascents.”

Concerning the style, a note for Psalm 120 reads, “A Song of Ascents, the superscription to each psalm in the collection Pss 120-134.  Most of the psalms are brief, often reflecting concerns of and images from the family and agricultural life of the common people.  The meaning of the superscription is debated.  It may refer to an ascending style of poetic form.  More likely, it has some reference to the ascent of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem and/or the sanctuary there.  These psalms may have been sung on such pilgrimages.” (p918)

How many of us haven’t come to worship on Sunday morning, after a week of getting beat up at work, running ragged with the kids, eating crappy drive-thru dinners, and barely getting enough sleep to function, totally in need of God’s presence in our lives?  How many of us can’t relate with the community as they cry out to God, “Out of the depths have I called to you, O LORD; LORD, hear my voice; * let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.”  Or to put it in more accessible language, “Are you there God?  It’s me, Steve.”