Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 6: A prayer of faith in times of distress

A Prayer of Faith in Time of Distress

Psalm 6 New King James Version (NKJV)

O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.
² Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
³ My soul also is greatly troubled;
But You, O Lord—how long?

⁴ Return, O Lord, deliver me!
Oh, save me for Your mercies’ sake!
⁵ For in death there is no remembrance of You;
In the grave who will give You thanks?

⁶ I am weary with my groaning;
All night I make my bed swim;
I drench my couch with my tears.
⁷ My eye wastes away because of grief;
It grows old because of all my enemies.

⁸ Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity;
For the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping.
⁹ The Lord has heard my supplication;
The Lord will receive my prayer.
¹⁰ Let all my enemies be ashamed and greatly troubled;
Let them turn back and be ashamed suddenly.

Having faith is about being aware of our need and weakness rather than self-sufficiency and strength. In Psalm 6, we eavesdrop on the prayer of a writer – a poet – made needy by sickness. This is the first psalm in the psalter which takes up the cudgels on behalf of the bedridden and diseased. We learn that the supplicant is weak and in need of healing, troubled both in body and in soul and wondering HOW LONG is this affliction going to go on for? 

As tonight we learn that in UK, as in other European nations, we face a new future of a fairly tough 'lock-down', another way of feeling curtailed and constrained, and also untethered because our purposes and lives feel like they are being stripped away day by day, we might all be asking this question HOW LONG?

That sense of being out of control and in the grip of great uncertainty really holds our attention here. We learn more. The person at the heart of this prayer of lamentation suggests this illness puts both the blame and their hope in the lap of God. The present and the future are quite simply in the lap of the gods! This afflicted soul is weary with groaning (vs 6), his bed ‘swims’ with his tears (vs 6), her eyes waste away with grief (vs 7), they even seem to grow old in the sorrow of it. And then, there is a change of heart and mind. Linked to the physical illness is a sense that others are engineering things to the psalmist’s detriment – ‘Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity,’ he cries out. Why? What’s changed here? Well it seems that it has been through the very act of weeping, and crying out the supplication for a turn-around, the writer has a wonderful sense of God not only hearing the prayer – but that this receipt of the prayer will lead to the afflicted one’s enemies (who are these people?) being put to shame. The structure of vs10 is interesting. As we are discovering with Hebrew poetry, the terse and careful construction of the verses creates waves of reverberation. Shame, trouble and yet more shame seem to surround the enemies.

One of the things I am learning about the Psalms in general, and also in particular, is the necessity to pay close attention to their structure as well as their meaning. Often the psalmist will introduce a line and then re-emphasise the meaning with a second (and even a third) more focused line. We learn in vs1 that the poet feels ‘rebuked’ and then ‘chastened’ by God’s ‘anger’ and then ‘hot displeasure’. And s/he asks God to stop. S/he then describes their body as being ‘weak’, and their bones as being ‘troubled’ – then s/he takes up that word troubled and applies it to their soul as well. 

How often, when we are ill and feel out of control, do we tend to tell of our symptoms and speak out about how we feel, often quite repetitively. We can perhaps identify with the specifics of tears on our pillow or even onto our sheets. The non-specific nature of the psalmists situation is part of the genius of these writings. They enable us to inhabit them. They enable us to enter into them, They enable us to find that they speak of our situations.

How many of those who are watching and waiting over afflicted loved ones, or who are living through the symptoms of Covid19 themselves, would find comfort in this prayer of faith in a time of distress? How many would blame God and then also seek God to bring relief and comfort?

Lord Jesus Christ,

may the tears shed in your earthly life

be balm for all who weep,

and may the prayers of your pilgrimage

give strength to all who suffer;

for your mercy’s sake.