Psalm 87 (LXX)/88 (MT); Luke 2:29-35; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; John 12:20b-36); Psalm 21(LXX) /22 (MT).
In the last episode, when we were supposed to be pursuing the Psalms of Orthros, we made an unwarranted detour into a Psalm of praise (Psalm 86 LXX/ 87 MT), due to my own mistaking of the numbering of the Psalms, which differ between the Greek and Hebrew text. In fact, the six psalms recited during the Orthros are heavily petitionary, and accompanied by intercessions and petitions for forgiveness for the whole congregation! I hope that my error will have given us a little respite from this “heavy” atmosphere, but now it is time to return to the business of Sunday early morning—our contrition before God. We turn to the ACTUAL fourth psalm recited among the six, Psalm 87 (88 in the Hebrew), in which we re-enter the darkness of the human condition:
No Christian can pray this Psalm without recalling immediately the unfathomable sufferings of Christ who went “into the pit” for us, and was considered “forsaken among the dead” for our sake. Psalm 87/88 indeed breathes the air of Holy Thursday through Saturday, recalling also the more mysterious passages of the epistles, in which we hear of how Christ became “accursed” for our redemption (Gal 3:13), and how the Father “made the One who knew no sin to become sin for us” that we may become like Him (2 Cor 5:21). The Psalm traces the downward plunge into curse, sin-bearing, and death, while only hinting at the upward rise to salvation and theosis.
O LORD God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee: Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry; For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave. I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength: like one forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth. Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: LORD, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.
Wilt thou show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer come before thee. Wherefore, O LORD, dost thou cast off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from me? I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: indeed, having been exalted, I was humbled and brought to distress. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off. They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together. Lover and friend hast Thou put far from me, and mine acquaintances because of my misery.
The Psalm presents to us a major paradox: the speaker is isolated, cut off by God from lover and friend, and even seemingly by the LORD, who “hides” His face; yet the speaker prays as though God is listening: he mourns his plight, and stretches out his hands in petition. In the first stanza, the petitioner describes his persistent and ongoing prayer; in the second, he continues to mourn, asking rhetorical questions concerning the status of the dead, and ending on a dark note of solitude: lover, friend, and even acquaintance have been taken away from him. The pray-er is alone with God, a man without any human support, under the deep waters of chaos. The heaviness of this psalm is remarkable, and yet does give us this encouragement: that in prayer, utter realism is acceptable to the LORD, who knows our darkest situation.
Here we see the constant mediation and bearing of our sufferings that characterized Jesus’ entire life: crying day and night, full of sorrow as the Prophet Isaiah foretold (Isaiah 53), a man who has taken on vulnerability, one whose life was directed towards death, one laid in the pit, one seen as an “abomination” by others. We may be reminded of Jesus’ response in John’s gospel to the coming of Gentiles to seek Him, as He approached that fateful last Passover week:
Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself…. The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
(John 12:20b-36)
What a strange response our LORD gives to the phenomenon of Gentiles seeking Him out! Why not simply be glad that His name is coming to be known among the Gentiles? Why think immediately of the dark time into which He must enter? Jesus Himself gives the answer: “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth, it remains alone.” This is the same dynamic that St. Symeon the righteous described to the Theotokos on the feast of the Presentation (which is coming fast upon us!): “This child is set for the FALLING and RISING of many in Israel” and “as a light to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:29-35). The light and the raising up do not come without the falling and the entrance into the abyss. In our fallen condition, we see God the Son using even darkness and death to reverse our plight, and make us “sons of light:” He is, so to speak, the ultimate Practioner of an unexpected divine judo.
Jesus does not mince words here, in the same way that the Psalmist is utterly honest: “now is my soul troubled” is in absolute harmony with the Psalm’s “my soul is full of troubles.” For He must take on the human curse and bear the sin of humanity, drinking the cup to the dregs, and going down to that abyss where the human being is stripped naked, and alone. He is the perfect Die-er, though, and in taking on this ordeal, bursts through death into light, bringing all of us with Him.
In Orthodox circles there is often debate concerning how literally we are to take the separation of the Son from His Father, whether we are considering this Psalm (“Why dost Thou cast off my soul?”) or His words on the Cross (“My God… why hast Thou forsaken me?” cf. Psalm 21 LXX/22 Hebrew). What we can say is that the Holy Trinity is always together in will and in love, even while the incarnate LORD took on Himself the curse of death and the burden (though not the actual deeds) of human sin. Already we have a model for understanding this in second antiphon of the Divine Liturgy: “who without change became Man and was crucified.” The fathers knew well the mystery that they were proclaiming. God the Son is from everlasting and to everlasting God, and always united to the Father and the Spirit; yet He became and He truly died. We do not say that He was always human, or that he only appeared to be human—He became. And He actually died, and was buried. Death involves, of course, human separation from the Life-giver: that is what death means. In some ineffable way, then, we must think of Jesus as experiencing human separation from God, in empathy and solidarity with us, while still remaining one with the Father. We hold these two in tension, not exaggerating the separation as though Jesus were not also the divine Son, nor minimizing it as though this were only a psychological sensation that Jesus felt. As with the mystery of the Incarnation and Crucifixion, so too with the mystery of His descent to the Abyss: He remained with the Father on the throne, even while with the thief on the cross, and with the dead in Hades. He fills all things with His light, truly descending to the dark to do this. And so, amazingly, the cross itself becomes the point at which God’s glory, and the exaltation of Jesus, is seen.
Fourth century St. Cyril of Jerusalem puts it this way:
He was not crucified because of helplessness but because he willed it; his death was not a result of involuntary weakness. “I am numbered with those who go down into the pit.” What is the sign? “You have taken my friends away from me” (for the disciples fled away). “Will you work wonders for the dead”? Then [says the Psalmist], “But I, O Lord, cry out to you; with my morning prayer I wait on you.” See how these verses manifest the actual circumstances of the passion and the resurrection?
(Catechetical Lectures 14.8, FC 64:36–37)
Psalm 87 roundly acknowledges the “wrath of God” that meets our human sin, and is experienced in our fallen condition of decay, suffering, death, and separation. Yet its second half, without moving to a resolution, hints at what is accomplished for us by the One who drank the cup of death to the very bottom. It does this by means of four lively rhetorical questions, which partially resolve in a cadence of hope:
Wilt thou show wonders to the dead?
Shall the dead arise and praise thee?
Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave or thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall thy wonders be known in the dark and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?…
But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer come before thee.
The prospect of morning prayers being accepted by the LORD shines its light back on the four questions, reminding us, who know the gospel, that wonders were shown to the dead, the dead did arise and praise the LORD, his lovingkindness and faithfulness were declared in the grave, and his wonderful righteousness was seen in that shadowy land of Hades where life is forgotten.
Similarly, the next two questions asked by the Psalmist are seen in a different light when we remember that they are introduced by the prospect of Jesus’ morning (and eternal) prayers for the world: “Wherefore, O LORD, dost thou cast off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from me?” Why? Out of love for the world, for this seed is buried that it may bring forth fruit, and no longer be “alone”—though, in truth, the Son is always with the Father. Solitude, suffering, death, degradation—all these tragic conditions meet in the only One who can sing this Psalm with integrity and without exaggeration. (Yet the LORD wants us to learn this Psalm as well, not only with our lips, but also in self-giving lives.) Jesus, the only perfect One, who consented to be plunged into the river Jordan “to fulfill all righteousness,” took on with complete obedience, love, and humility, that second deeper descent. Alone, without family, friend, or acquaintance, He faced the darkness forged by human disobedience, and won for Himself a holy and living people, who were to follow in His footsteps, and learn to sacrifice their lives for the good of others. He showed wonders to the dead, and raises them (together with us) to newness of life.
Edith M. Humphrey 