Psalms of Sadness and Joy-Psalm 88

 As we approach Good Friday and Easter we continue our reflections on the Psalms. Today looking at a Psalm which reads like a deeply personal prayer of lament by one who is dying or grieving. Psalm 88

Death knocks us about!

We all know that

and we don't like it

I spend quite a lot of my time talking to people about death

their own, their husband's or their wife's,

their parent's, their child's,

their friend's

None of us escapes this.

This Psalm expresses many of our fears

and terrors about death

"Life is full of trouble!"

"I feel forsaken"

"I feel I am  in a deep dark Pit"

A Pit we call variously, Sheol, Hell or perhaps

in our unbelieving world

Oblivion!

I cry out but nothing seems to alter the inevitability

This is perhaps what frightens us 

As we encounter death, as we face our own death,

everything seems to crash in around us.
As we look back into Genesis we begin to understand 
what that what those curious stories are about
is how we were once created in God's image
immortal and free
and gradually, increasingly we are overtaken by death
life becomes shorter,
anger and violence creep into human society
and the focus is no longer life
but death.

For thousands of years 
humanity has lived with that looming spectre of death
where everything seems gray and shadowy
where life seems a pale imitation beyond the grave
of the struggle that this life has been here .
I feel feel like I am drowning, I am in a Pit,
I am hopelessly and inevitably alone.

That was then, this is now.
This Psalm is really one which is dominated by the vision of death.
What the Christian revelation is all about is 
that what life is really to be  focused on is 
Jesus
and that we have been saved from that shadowy, terrifying world
which is not the correct way to view what life is all about.
If we allow ourselves to enter in the mystery of death
we often get that.
Death is not the filter through which we are to view our lives
The Cross and Resurrection say to us that it is not Death that matters. It is God's power to act in our lives
Quite what this means takes time to understand
It is a different perspective

In what ways

Do I allow fear and deathliness to govern my life?

Where is God calling me to experience the salvation of Jesus?

For me? For others?