Bible Passage: Psalm 69:1-6
Pastor: Michael Willitz
Sermon Date: March 10, 2021

Bulletin Lent 4th Midweek

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Psalm 69:1-6

¹ Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
² I sink into the deep mud, where there is no place to stand.
I have entered deep waters, and the rapids rush over me.
³ I am worn out from my crying. My throat is sore.
My eyes are blurry, as I wait for my God.

⁴ Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs on my head.
Those who want to destroy me, my lying enemies, are strong.
I must repay things I did not steal.

⁵ God, you know my folly,
and my guilt is not hidden from you.
⁶ May those who place their confidence in you
not be put to shame because of me,
O Lord, the Lord of Armies.
May those who seek you not be disgraced because of me,
O God of Israel.

See the Savior Wait for God

Dear fellow redeemed in Jesus Christ our Lord,

It has been well said that from our perspective, there are three kinds of answers we can receive to our prayers. Sometimes, God answers, “Yes,” and he gives us what we have asked for. Sometimes, God answers, “No,” and he gives us something better than what we asked for. And sometimes, God answers our prayers, saying, “Yes, but not yet,” and we are left to wait for our requests to be fulfilled.

So are there any prayers which you are waiting for God to fulfill? Maybe you’ve asked God for relief from chronic pain, and you know that he will heal you, but it might be in the resurrection and not this life. Maybe you’ve asked God for deliverance from a specific sinful drive that you wrestle with, and while he gives you the grace and the strength you need, you are still fighting a daily battle. Maybe you’ve asked God to take you to heaven, but still you’re here with us on earth, waiting for God to determine that the time is right. There are ways in which each one of us is waiting for God. Does it encourage you, then, to hear that your Savior also waited for God?

In the book of Hebrews, we are told about our Savior, that, “In the days of his flesh, he offered prayers and pleas with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death,” [5:7]. The prayer before us in Psalm 69 is one such prayer from our Savior. It is a request for deliverance from the Christ as he waits for his God to save him. So let us take up this psalm today, and as we consider what Christ says in it, let us See the Savior Wait for God.

Now, we know that this Psalm is a prayer of the Christ, because the New Testament applies several of its verses directly to him. We heard one example in the sermon text on Sunday when we heard about our Savior’s zeal. After Jesus cleanses the temple, John reports in his gospel, “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me,’” [John 2:17]. Well, that verse, “Zeal for your house will consume me,” comes from this psalm, as well as several other verses that the New Testament authors quote. But the one time that we actually hear Jesus quote this psalm is on the night of his betrayal as he is walking to Gethsemane.

The Apostle John actually provides us with some markers of Jesus’ movement. In John chapter 14, we find the Savior with eleven disciples in the upper room. Then, at the end of the chapter, he says to the eleven, “Get up. Let’s leave this place,” [31]. As they leave that last friendly house, and as the step through the shadows of the city streets at night, Jesus continues to instruct his disciples, and we remember some of this instruction. This is the setting in which Jesus says, “I am the Vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me, he will bear much fruit,” [John 15:5]. This is the setting in which Jesus says, “No one has greater love than this: that someone lay down his life for his friends,” [John 15:13]. This is the setting in which Jesus says, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated me first,” [John 15:18], and then he quotes Psalm 69, and he applies it to himself. He says, “They hated me for no reason,” [John 15:25].

After more instruction to his disciples and after a prayer to his Father, the Savior then exits the city, and crosses over the Kidron Valley. The scene is reminiscent of a time 1,000 years earlier, when Jesus’ ancestor, King David crossed the Kidron, overwhelmed by sorrow, as he fled from rebel forces under the command of his son, Absalom. The difference is that David kept on walking until he escaped to the Judean wilderness. But Jesus will not flee or escape. He turns aside to a garden called Gethsemane, and there the Savior waits for his enemies to find him and for his God to save him.

You can picture Jesus praying in that garden as you hear him speaking in Psalm 69: “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink into the deep mud, where there is no place to stand. I have entered deep waters and the rapids rush over me,” [1-2]. Christ speaks as a man who is caught in the ocean tide. Have you ever gone to the ocean and felt the sheer power of the surf, as it tosses your body to and fro, as if you were nothing more than a helpless rag doll? And have you ever felt that same kind of helplessness when it comes to matters of life and death and to matters of salvation and destruction? Well that’s where the Savior is as he speaks these words. The Savior speaks as a man engulfed in deep waters. Like a tomb, the strong waters swallow him in. He feels the rapids surging past his neck. He senses the waves rolling over his head.

As he sinks deeper and deeper in a sea desperation, he seeks the help of the LORD his God. He says, “I am worn out from my crying. My throat is sore,” [3]. Have you ever screamed so much at a sporting event or at a concert that your throat just burned and chafed with hoarseness? Well the Savior’s throat is burning from all his crying out to God. He says, further, “My eyes are blurry, as I wait for my God,” [3]. In the midst of troubling times have you ever been robbed of sleep, and left not even able to see straight, knowing nothing else to do but bow your head and pray to God?

That’s where our Savior is. The waters that engulf him are his sorrows. He knows that many enemies will soon arrive. He understands that suffering and death are near. But what is the cause of this gathering storm? What is the reason for all of Christ’s torments? Why can’t he just get up and flee and escape like father David? Why is he here deep in prayer, waiting for his God? It is because of us, dear friends. It is because of our sins.

Jesus says in the psalm, “God you know my folly, and my guilt is not hidden from you,” [5], but we know that no folly or guilt comes from Jesus. No, in all of humanity, he is the one pure and unpolluted spring. How can he speak about folly and about guilt that is his? Well, the verse before that one helps us understand, when Jesus says, “I must repay things I did not steal,” [4].

The guilt is ours, dear Christian friends. The folly is ours. It is all debt that we have incurred by our sin, and Jesus has volunteered himself to repay our debt. Yes, we endure sorrows. And yes, our sufferings in this life are real. But if we were to get what our deeds really deserve, our situation would be infinitely and eternally worse. Instead, Jesus sinks to the depths for us. Jesus repays things that he did not steal. He takes our sins to himself like a casing of concrete around his feet, and he sinks with these sins to the depths of the sea, so that he can leave them there where they can haunt us no more.

See the Savior wait for God, and don’t merely see a poor soul in turmoil. See the heart beating with mercy in a Savior who loves you dearly. See the Son of God who is willing to endure even the cross for sinners. See his love that transcends all other love: that he would call us his friends and that he would lay down his life for us.

See, also, that God finally does answer his Son. He does finally deliver Christ from every sorrow. Though the Son sank down to feel torments of hell, though the wrath of a righteous God swept like a wave over his head, though the heavens darkened around him in the middle of the day, it did not stay that way forever. No, on the third day, God exalted his Son. He delivered him from death. He freed him from shame and suffering. No more were the waters of sorrow closing in on the Savior. No longer could his enemies pose any threat to his life. God answered the cries of his Son and raised him up to life and glory.

And this resurrection and exaltation of Jesus means something for us as well. The Savior says in our psalm, “May those who put their confidence in you not be put to shame because of me, O Lord, the LORD of Armies. May those who seek you not be disgraced because of me, O God of Israel,” [6]. In Jesus’ resurrection, our faith is not put to shame. In fact, this resurrection from the dead is the very foundation of our faith. In the resurrection of Jesus, we see that God is faithful, and he is able to deliver from the grave. Furthermore, we see that, surely, he will surely deliver us, too. For if he raised from the dead the one who carried all our sins, he will certainly also raise us whom he declares forgiven in Jesus’ name.

So we have courage and endurance to wait for our God. As we long for healing, as we crave deliverance, as we look for the resurrection and the life of the world to come, we can depend upon our God. We can wait for him. Though it seems to us that he lingers, he will not and he cannot be faithless. He himself has promised, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you,” [Hebrews 13:5]. And since Christ has fully dealt with all the debt of our sin forever, we know that this promise of God will certainly prove true.

So do not lose hope as you wait for God. Your Savior waited too, so that you are saved and so that your faith will not be put to shame.

Amen.

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