Psalm 30 Part II: The Dark Night of Grief and Death
To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication. What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper! Psalm 30: 8-10 (NRSV)
The previous devotional I posted about Psalm 30 mentioned the dark night of soul growth. In this devotional we will talk about the dark night of grief and of death. To do so, I’d like to visit the passage of John 11, which is the account of Lazarus rising from the dead. Pay attention to Jesus’ response. How did he handle this monumental, painful loss of a close friend? The darkness of grief affects even the Lord himself. Even though Jesus is working in the power of God and keeping everyone’s focus on the resurrection taking place, he still feels the emotion.
In verse 4, he says, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Verse 11 has more of Jesus’ words. He says to the disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. I am going there to wake him up.”
Verse 23 has Jesus’ words to Martha. “Your brother will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
In verse 22, it says, “When Jesus saw Mary weeping and the Jews who were with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He asked where they had laid him, and then he wept.”
Verse 36 noticed what the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
In verse 38 at the tomb, Jesus was greatly disturbed. He told them to take away the stone. Then he prays. Then he tells Lazarus to come out of the grave.
From what we understand of this story, watching Jesus in action, he sees death differently than we do. According to verse 4, the cause of decline, which for Lazarus was illness, is for God’s glory so that Jesus may be glorified through it. For believers who have placed their faith in Christ, illness doesn’t end in death. We go on living, only we do it in a different place. Each Christian life that has been redeemed from sin brings glory to God through the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
Jesus sees death as temporary, as nothing more than a child taking a nap. The time when the last breath is drawn is when the person falls asleep. They rest in peace, without any suffering, and then wake up in the presence of God. It’s a beautiful declaration from Jesus of how little of a threat death is to the Christian. As Psalm 23 states, we pass through the valley of the shadow of death. All it can ever do to us is cast its shadow over our souls, but once we’ve traveled through the valley, we arrive in a place of light, of wholeness, and of beauty, unharmed.
As we see in Jesus’ interaction with Mary, he entered into her grief. he stood there with her and felt it like she did. At those times of painful, shocking loss when there is nothing to say, we can remember that Jesus shares it with us. He enters into the sorrow and the sadness, offering himself as the source of comfort, as the source of life. Jesus’ love for Lazarus, for Mary and Martha, and for everyone who falls under the sentence of death stirs him deeply. The Bible says he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. This is the love that drew Lazarus from the grave. It’s the love that kept Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. It’s the love that held him on the cross for you and me.
In verse 8 of Psalm 30, the word supplication is used. It is a request or a petition. David asked God for something. This isn’t the first time David made requests of God. His psalms are filled with supplication for mercy in Psalm 4, leading in Psalm 5, deliverance in Psalm 6, and salvation in Psalm 7 as a few examples.
David was right to cry out to the Lord and ask him for what he wanted. He makes his case stronger by telling God if he goes down to the pit, there is no benefit for God or anyone else. God would lose one of his most devoted praisers. If David is removed from the scene, the dust is all that is left, and it can’t take his place. Neither can it talk to give testimony to God’s faithfulness. David finds meaning in his ability to praise God and to tell personal stories of God’s love. They might be all he has left at this point, and he knows that if God doesn’t answer his prayer, it’s over.
David has a very good reason to petition God. David knows God has made a promise to him. It’s a promise of an heir, a son to come after him as a successor. The son hadn’t been born yet, so David understands that he at least needs to live long enough to see God keep his promise. In this prayer of supplication, David is holding God to that promise.
“What profit is there in my death?” David asks. He believes it would be inconsistent with God’s character to take him out of the world by an untimely death before God had accomplished the promise which he had made to him concerning his future heir.
He doesn’t give up in despair that God has forgotten or changed his mind. He holds to what he knows to be true about God and uses it as the foundation to his prayer. God had made a promise to him, so David is going to petition God and keep praying until he sees that promise come to pass.
There’s a relationship between God’s promises and our faith. God doesn’t merely make promises in words to feed us with empty hopes and then afterwards disappoint us. God’s word goes forth out from his mouth. It shall not return to him empty, but shall accomplish what he desires, and achieve the purpose for which he sent it.
There is no deception in God. He is faithful. If there’s a promise the Lord has made to you and you’re still waiting to see it happen but circumstances in your life are causing you to question how in the world everything is going to work out, then keep praying. Keep petitioning God. Paul writes in Philippians, “Don’t be anxious about anything but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”
