The power of biblical meditation
August 11, 2023 - Friday, Memorial of Saint Clare, Virgin
Psalm 77:12-15, 16 and 21
Psalm 77 begins with a complaint (verses 2-11). Being in distress and unable to sleep, the psalmist is troubled by a thought that perhaps the Lord has changed. Verses 8-10 include powerful and troubling questions that crossed the mind of the psalmist:
“Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?” (According to NIV)
The psalmist does not give us the answers to these questions. Instead, he begins to recall God’s wonderful deeds from the past. This is the part of Psalm 77 that we heard today in our liturgy (Ps 77:12-21). Its primary focus is on the liberation of Israel from Egypt. This event is at the heart of the Jewish faith. It sustained them in the dark moments of their history and it is celebrated yearly on the feast of Passover. What surprises many scholars is the fact that the psalm ends with this recollection. There is no more complaint. Did the meditation on the liberation of his ancestors from Egypt bring relief to the troubled spirit of the psalmist? Was he finally been able to fall asleep?
I once wrote an article titled “In Remembering There is Salvation. A Plea for a Spirituality Rooted in the Holocaust”. In that article, I explored the importance of remembering. It was the act of remembering that shaped biblical faith. God remembers people in their distress and people remember what God did for them. The Exodus of Israel from Egypt begins with God remembering his people: “I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. (Exodus 6:5). Then, after their liberation, the people are called to remember what God did for them: “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deut 5:15).
The act of remembering also plays a crucial role in our faith. Saint Paul tells us to remember where we were before knowing Christ: “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12). Then, he tells us to see the difference that our faith has made in our present life: ”But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13). By recalling the wondrous deeds of God they become present in our lives. That is the power of biblical reading and meditation. It gives us the answers to the psalmist’s questions:
The Lord will not reject forever.
He will show his favor again.
His unfailing love has not vanished.
His promise has not failed.
God has not forgotten to be merciful.
He has not in anger withheld his compassion.