Devotional
Psalm 116:1-9 (114 LXX) is simple and beautiful, a beautifully simple psalm.
I love the Lord because He has heard the voice of my supplication.
Because He inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call on Him as long as I live.
The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish; then I called upon the name of the Lord: “O Lord, deliver my soul!”
Gracious and righteous is the Lord, and our God is merciful.
The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, He saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
For He has delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling;
therefore, I desire to please the Lord in the land of the living. (The Ancient Faith Psalter, 256)
“I love the Lord!” exclaims the psalmist. Psalm 116 is the only psalm that opens with this exclamation. How many Christians spontaneously cry out this way when the Lord blesses in a big way? Whenever something outstanding pleases them, people often say things like, “I love this food!” “I love my car!” “I love my house!” “Oh, I love this dress!” This psalmist loves the Lord, and for good reason, which he explains in verse 8:
“He has delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.”
Where were you when the Lord Jesus found you? This line exactly sums up my salvation experience. Immediately, also, in the very opening lines of the psalm, I hear the voice of Jesus Christ looking back on his experience with the cross and death. And so, Christ and I are intertwined in the words of this psalm. Verse three–the snares of death were in fact encompassing me when I first cried out to the Lord for his help, I felt the pangs of hell, and I was indeed suffering distress and anguish–all this metaphorically. Christ, on the other hand, experienced and suffered all these things concretely, intensely, in his body and soul as he hung nailed upon the cross and witnessed himself descending into Sheol, or hell*. “…then I called upon the name of the Lord: “O Lord, deliver my soul!” (vs 4). *(See Apostle’s Creed, available at https://www.ccel.org/creeds/apostles.creed.html)
4 Gracious and righteous is the Lord, and our God is merciful.
Unlike idols humans make for themselves, our God is a God who hears (Psalm 115:3-8). He is both gracious and righteous.
God’s righteousness is found in his judgment and condemnation of sin. We all know what condemnation feels like. We all see and experience it in our own court system. God’s judgment first expressed itself when he threw (cast) Adam and Eve out of their garden home. How many parents have ever thrown their own children out of their homes when they feel their behavior merits such stern discipline? God is holy, and he demands holiness in those who are near him, even his own created beings.
God’s graciousness appears when God takes the form of human beings and takes upon himself the judgment and condemnation of the sin he detests. Our creator took the punishment of his creation’s sin in his own flesh and blood. God did not abandon, he made a way where there was no way. In Christ, God opened the door of return to his home and to his own side.
Jesus, however, sings this psalm not in his role as Creator God but as human being, as one of us, a brother in distress.
The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, He saved me.
All Christians can sing this line as their personal testimony, “… when I was brought low, He saved me.”
Psalm 116:1-9 (114 LXX) is truly a resurrection song, an Easter Sunday rejoicing.
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