Articulate Anguish

Psalm 38 says some shocking things about God. He is wrathful toward David (v. 1). He is not just distant; indeed, he is altogether too near, near as an enemy, ready to attack. Yahweh has drawn his bow and beaten David down with His hand of power (v. 2). Some of the arrows have hit home: David is wounded, his wounds fester; he’s covered with blemishes over every inch of his skin (v. 3).

If this were not in Scripture, would anything think of singing such a song in public, much less in church? Would any hymn writer dare what appears to be blasphemous? It’s Psalms like Psalm 38 that drive the Psalter away from the liturgy and Christians away from the Psalter.

That is a profound pastoral error. Few will admit it, but many, many have experienced what David describes here - God bearing down, God the enemy, God the archer. Many, many have felt the burning of wounds, and feel crushed under the hand of God.

It’s a great liberation to be given license to talk or sing to God like this. It doesn’t relieve or eliminate the suffering; but it makes the suffering articulable, therefore prayable, and our suffering is thus brought into our relationship to God.

Christians have always read the Psalms as the songs of Jesus Christ, and that adds yet another dimension. He is the chastised one, the wounded one, the rejected one, the man of sorrows and the suffering servant. When we sing Christ’s lament, our sufferings are incorporated into Christ and His cross, put in their place, a place where our suffering too, like the suffering of Jesus, might effect some small victory of comfort.