You have changed my lament into dancing; you took my hair shirt and clothed me with joy.

~Psalm 30:11 (NRSV)

There are various levels of depth to life, from the banal to the downright tragic. What a wonderful irony it is that we are granted the privilege of complaining about the banal when, in fact, the real complaint is justified only in the place of aberrational rejection and loss.

However, there is still a complaint. And none of us is alien to it.

The well-reasoned and timely complaint, one of Job-like proportions, is one in which we experience a grievance worthy of sackcloth and ashes; all self-contempt in the Presence of God, despite the thought of disobedience, in the face of the apparent captivity of misfortune. Life is such a thing that forces us beyond belief by the painful things that are endured. Only something as real as life could do this.

But pain is not the last word, as the millions who have been saved attest.

HOPE BEYOND PAIN

To tell the truth, I can only recall one noteworthy memory of experiencing such beauty in sackcloth and ashes: I felt totally rejected, but surrealistically not by God.

We know, indeed, that the experiences of sackcloth and ashes squeeze us and nothing can be conjured up but that feeble, though never feeble, Presence of the Lord in the languid horror of the moment.

Hope beyond pain is strange; We feel the full force of that pain, but we are able to bear it where it beat us before. At our lowest point, with scathing rejection, or an unprecedented and unrequited sense of loss, we are being swept away. But that’s not the best.

The figurative morning is yet to come.

RISE FROM THE ASHES

Psalm 30 speaks a lot about the pain of the night that precedes the joy of the morning.

And whether or not this morning is the real morning is of little consequence, for we can know, in faith, that not only will God deliver us, but that we will keep a beautiful memory of this event forever.

Life acquires such great significance as we rise from the ashes of our despair; if the pain persists at this time, God has much more in this for us than we can anticipate at this time.

From calamity comes peace; from despair, hope. The beauty beyond the hair shirt and ashes is the recognition of deliverance: God’s faithfulness to snatch us from death to life.

We are privileged to be found in the state that Jesus found familiar; as our Messiah rose, so will we be when practicing the Presence of God in these times.

© 2011 SJ Wickham.