Lenten Devotional March 13, 2022

Scripture

Psalm 42

1 As a deer longs for flowing streams, 
so my soul longs for you, O God. 
2 My soul thirsts for God, 
for the living God. 
When shall I come and behold 
the face of God? 
3 My tears have been my food 
day and night, 
while people say to me continually, 
“Where is your God?”

4 These things I remember, 
as I pour out my soul: 
how I went with the throng, 
and led them in procession to the house of God, 
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, 
a multitude keeping festival. 
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, 
and why are you disquieted within me? 
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, 
my help 6and my God.

My soul is cast down within me; 
therefore I remember you 
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, 
from Mount Mizar. 
7 Deep calls to deep 
at the thunder of your cataracts; 
all your waves and your billows 
have gone over me. 
8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, 
and at night his song is with me, 
a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I say to God, my rock, 
“Why have you forgotten me? 
Why must I walk about mournfully 
because the enemy oppresses me?” 
10 As with a deadly wound in my body, 
my adversaries taunt me, 
while they say to me continually, 
“Where is your God?”

11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, 
and why are you disquieted within me? 
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, 
my help and my God.

Devotional

The Rev. Kendra Buckwalter Smith ’12/’13, Worship Coordinator

“Where is your God?” To inquiring observers, it seems that the psalmist has been abandoned. And indeed, our writer speaks from a place of desperate longing. Yet the psalmist chooses, even fights, to hope in the Lord. “Hope in God,” the psalmist speaks to the soul, “for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”

The psalmist writes in Babylonian exile, longing to worship God in the temple. It is a longing that resonates with the church of our own time as we have come to know what it feels like to be separated from our houses of worship and the worshiping community. Perhaps our souls have come to be more closely aligned with the longing, not only of the psalmist, but of God who indeed longs so deeply to bring us into the divine presence that God took on flesh, suffered at the hands of those who would not receive Jesus, and raised us to eternal life in Christ.

Where is your God?
God is on the cross, crying out in thirst, that all our longings may be quenched.
God is in the wounded body of Christ, that we may be made whole.
God is in the abandoned soul of Jesus, that we may never be abandoned.

Where is your God?
God is with you. Even now, leading a joyful procession to the house of God.

Prayer

God of longing and of hope, our hearts are restless until they find rest in you. As we walk this Lenten journey, may we know your presence in the depths of our souls and be led with all of creation to behold your face in glory. Amen.