Psalm 30 Part III: Redemption
You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O Lord my God. I will give thanks to you forever. Psalm 30:11-12
By verse 9 of the psalm, David has reached his lowest point. In a moment of desperation, of impending death, and of discouragement, he calls out in verse 10, “Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me. O Lord, be my helper.” It’s a statement of calm, childlike trust. It’s like David is saying open-endedly, “Your will be done. You know what I want, but you do what you want in my life.”
If the psalm would have ended here, we’d actually feel pretty satisfied. The psalm as a whole follows a pattern similar to one found in our own lives. We enjoy good times, a span of prosperity, a self-assurance of our own security. But then something happens, like a diagnosis, or financial loss, or pain in a relationship, and we petition God to return our lives back to normal, or to at least ease our anguish. We remind God of his promises, we pray much the same prayer that David did for God to be our helper, and then we wait.
That’s how most things turn out in real life. So if Psalm 30 were to end at verse 10, we’d consider it satisfying, and we wouldn’t necessarily expect David to say any more.
But the psalm doesn’t end that way. There are two more verses, and they are brighter and more exuberant than anything that came before. “You have turned my mourning into dancing. You have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”
Something has happened that is even more significant than the first event that caused David’s sorrow. It feels like David has a sort of Job moment. What I mean by that is what we learn about Job at the very end of his story. Job received double not just of material possessions, but of the expected Biblical life span. He dies full of days. The Renovare Life With God Bible says, “In the midst of his prosperity and wealth, Job was stripped of all that had once defined him. He’d felt disoriented, deserted by God, and defensive toward his friends. Still, he clings to his conviction of God’s sovereignty. He feels God has left him, yet he can’t give up his belief in God’s ultimate goodness. I know that my redeemer lives, he says.”
In the darkness of intense suffering, God was Job’s redeemer.
Redemption means deliverance from some evil by payment of a price. Prisoners of war were released on a ransom. So were slaves. There’s also the concept of redemption of property. Ransoms and redemptions were the payment of the price of deliverance. The redeemer is the one who pays the price.
David knew he was under a sentence of death for what ever reason, we don’t know exactly, but the situation was dire enough David wasn’t getting out on his own. He needed a helper, a redeemer, a healer, and a restorer.
During high school, one of my sons worked at the redemption center in Pella. When I asked him about the concept of redemption, he talked about that job. Pop cans come in, get counted, and then the person who brought in the cans gets a reimbursement. The cans are redeemed at a set price.
In a sense, Job has brought in all his cans. He’s been doing so for a long time, hoping he will get rewarded at some point for what he lost, for all that he’s been through. He gets another family, but the first family is still lost. He didn’t get them back. The end of the book of Job is left hanging because everything hasn’t been made right yet.
Redemption has two parts. Job and David and others like them in the Old Testament see the first part. They know that God has the character to compensate for loss. They live in trust, like we do today, that God will recompense all losses because there has to be more. When will the people, the health, the safety, and the goodness we’ve lost be returned to us?
Jesus’ death and resurrection has happened between our era and Job’s and David’s, so we know the method God will use to restore and redeem, but it hasn’t fully happened yet. This is the tension Job lived in. He’d lost his first family but was given a second family. When will all of Job’s family be restored to him?
David, too, is feeling this tension. From earlier in the psalm, we can conclude that David lost prosperity and security like Job did. We also know he lost his son Absalom. And yet, David had hope. He expected that God would always act as a Father toward him. He expected that his faith would someday bring into physical substance the promises God had made to him. In hope, David cried out to the Lord and waited on him. This hope helped him to persevere. The promise of God’s redemption fueled David’s hope. He’s dancing and he’s praising God.
We live in the same tension, and with the same hope that Job and David did. We are still waiting and still trusting for the final, full redemption when death is conquered. When there is no more crying or pain, and all things will be made new. Relationship with the people we love will be restored. It makes our hearts ache, doesn’t it? Sometimes, I wonder if, underneath the goodness that both Job and David received from God’s hand, there was still an ache. An ache for what is still missing, and an ache of hope for what is still to come.
Hold onto your hope because at some point, those first rays of sunlight will crack through the clouds. Dawn will arrive, bringing with it the sunrise. Weeping may remain for a night, but it will end. The morning will replace it, bringing rejoicing.
Friends, you are favored by God. Sometimes he uses the darkness to make the strongest statement of his love for you. Do not fear the pain, or what may wait on the other side of it. God wants you to live free from the sin that casts shadows over your soul, chilling it against the blessings and gifts of the Lord. Sunrise eventually breaks forth in our lives at each stage of growth until that day when death comes. Then the ultimate sunrise of healing and victory envelopes our lives in a place where there is no more night. No more darkness. No more death or mourning or crying or pain. The Lord is our light and our salvation. Whom shall we fear? The Lord is the stronghold of our lives. Of whom shall we be afraid?
