“Blessed Are Those Who Mourn” (Psalm 69)

A few weeks ago we considered how the Psalms invite us to become like a tree. “Blessed is the one who meditates on God’s instruction day and night—that person will be like a tree planted by streams of water that bears fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither.” If you mediate on these Psalms, pray them, and become trained by them, you will become like a tree.

Which I realize might not be an image that inspires all of us: “Jimmy, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a tree” said no one ever. But let’s consider just one example of the kind of person this tree image is describing. The apostle Paul.

Paul was probably the most successful missionary who ever lived other than Jesus, planting churches all across the Roman empire. But what I find perhaps most impressive about him as a person was his resilient perseverance and even joy.

There’s a moment in Paul’s life where he is imprisoned for an extended period of time because his preaching is viewed as a threat. Day and night he is stuck, chained to a guard, unable to do travel to cities to start church planting, unable to visit his Christian friends to encourage them.  To make matters worse, there have been rival Christian speakers, people who were jealous of Paul’s success who are now making use of Paul’s imprisonment to criticize him and seek to diminish his reputation among Christians, with the goal that if Paul ever got out of prison people wouldn’t listen to him. There must have been moments at night, in his isolation, that all of this would have made Paul overwhelmed.

And yet when he writes to his Christian friends in Philippi, he speaks of his joy. Because even though he’s in chains, well, he has a captive audience—he says, “Now the whole imperial guard knows about Jesus.” And even though his rivals are trying to diminish him, they’re still preaching about Jesus, and people are coming to faith. He says, “What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice.”

And this is not just Paul trying to put on a brave face in a hard situation, his version of saying, “It’s all good,” when it actually is tearing himself up inside. Paul will often speak frankly about his struggles. To another church he says, “We are afflicted in every way”—he’s been beaten, mocked, rejected by people: “but not crushed;” we are perplexed—Paul didn’t always understand what God was doing, but not in despair; ⁹ we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed.”

In some really, emotionally exhausting situations, those kinds of situations when it can feel like one is losing himself to anxiety and exhaustion and despair, Paul is able to live meaningfully and fruitfully and find joy. This is what it looks like to be tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither. Isn’t that something you want to become like? I do.

And the Psalms are written in such a way as to train us to become like that tree. This joyful resilience is not just reserved for “superheroes” like Paul, but it is available to us as we learn to sing the songs of Jesus.

For that, as we have said, is ultimately what the Psalms are. Every Psalm in one way or another points us forward to the great Son of David who would bring his people into lasting refuge with their God. These are the songs that trained and formed Jesus—the songs that Jesus prayed and memorized and sang that enabled him to be, more even than Paul, a resilient joyful faithful tree. And as we seek to be trained by these songs, we will find ourselves being trained by Jesus, increasingly becoming like him.  

If we want to be trained to maintain joy in the face suffering in the way that Jesus and Paul did, Psalm 69 is not a bad place to start. From the outset we see that it comes as a response to overwhelming difficulty; it’s a cry to God for rescue. “Save me, God,” it begins. And what we find in the first third of our Psalm, through verse 12, is a description of the Psalmist’s need, beginning not by describing what’s happening, but how this difficulty feels.

“The water has risen to my neck—or above my neck. I have sunk in deep mud, and there is no footing; I have come into deep water, and a flood sweeps over me.

I remember when I was a little boy, before I could swim, I was playing in a pond and chasing a ball. I got out just a little too far, so that my mouth could only be above water if I hopped. I panicked; I didn’t know how to get back, and perhaps the most frightening thing was how I felt almost completely invisible, the waters so covered me that I could be barely seen from shore. Thankfully a mom saw me and brought me in. But I felt lost in the waters.

That’s kind of the picture here. Floodwater is not just an image of drowning, it’s an image of the feeling of being dissolved, lost into chaos.

When I was younger I used to think of anxiety as a choice, a mindset that I just needed to change. “Stop worrying.” But I’ve come to understand that it’s not so simple. When we feel a threat, our body responds before we’re even aware of it. You know the feeling. You become aware of your heart beating faster; your shoulders tense up; you feel the adrenaline, it’s like you’ve had three cups of coffee and your mind thinks a mile a minute. Sleep is impossible. It can feel like a flood so that you can’t think clearly—you can’t see clearly, you feel lost in the sense of threat. The water has risen above your neck.

And in moments like that your faith feels so elusive, right? Sometimes in the middle of the night when I’m seized by a kind of fear or panic about something I dread; and I know that I need not feel that way, because God is in charge, I try to pray, I try to remember, and yet it all kind of feels like I’m climbing up a metal pole covered with grease. I get no purchase, it doesn’t help. Do you know what that feels like?

That’s what the Psalmist is describing: within this panic, he speaks of how he doesn’t feel God is anywhere close: “I am weary from crying,” not talking about tears, but crying out, “God, can you hear me?” He’s cried out so often that his voice has become hoarse, and yet he only sees darkness as he looks for God.

So in situations like this, when we feel like we are almost losing ourselves our own visceral physical response, what do we do? What is the way of joyful resilience, of a tree planted by streams of water? In these verses, we are shown what Jesus himself was trained to do as he meditated on this Psalm. This, in fact, is one of the most frequently quoted Psalms in the New Testament, often quoted in reference to Jesus. Jesus is familiar with this sense of being physically overwhelmed, like his body his revolting against him in the face of anxiety. He tells his disciples, “My soul is sorrowful, even unto death” meaning that it felt like his feelings threatened to overcome him. How does Jesus face this and find resilience? This Psalm trains us in the way of Jesus to respond to such hardship. I’d like to note 4 steps the Psalmist, and ultimately, Jesus himself takes that leads to resilient joy.

Names His Need

The first, which we’ve already begun to see in these opening verses, is the Psalmist names his need. He describes what is going on—and not in a detached way; he describes what’s going on as it affects him. Having described his interior life, he then in verse 4 begins to describe his situation: “Those who hate me without cause are more numerous than the hairs of my head. My deceitful enemies who would destroy me are powerful.” Now, my guess is that David did not count his enemies and count the hairs on his head to make the comparison—this is not trying to describe the literal details, but rather his situation as he is experiencing it. Because God doesn’t need to know the facts laid out—he’s already aware. But for the person suffering, they need to name their need before God to move towards a place of strength. And that’s what we find the Psalmist doing in the first 12 verses.

When you feel overcome by anxiety, this Psalm trains you in prayer to name as honestly and as completely what it is you’re experiencing. This is not complaining, this is not somehow faithlessness—this is what it looks like to turn to God. Sometimes it’s even helpful to write it down. I know a man from a previous church who fought in Vietnam and like many came home deeply traumatized. He was haunted by the awareness that he had taken people’s lives, and he didn’t know what to do with it. He told me that his time with the Psalms led him to write a lament. He wrote a prayer describing his grief, describing the pain and his confusion, describing it to God. And that, he says, is when he begin to experience God’s healing. 

When you are overcome, when you feel utterly disconnected from any hope in God, bring that very experience before God and describe it honestly. 

You Know

Secondly, the Psalmist finds his orientation through God’s eyes.

The sense of disorientation of our opening verses continues in the Psalmist’s description of his situation in verses 7-12. He’s being falsely accused because of his love for God. Verse 7: “I have endured insults because of you. Because, as verse 9 says, “Zeal for your house consumed me. Verse 10: “I mourned and I fasted, but it brought me insults.” Putting the details together, we can see that the Psalmist cares deeply for people’s relationship with God, and as he looks around he sees problems. He sees people turning their back on the true God, and it grieves him. He mourns, he fasts, and people look at him and find him ridiculous, just seeing him as a Debbie Downer. Why do you make yourself miserable over something like this?

As we hear “zeal for your house has consumed me,” we’re reminded that these words were spoken of Jesus as with passionate intensity he drives out people from the temple because he so deeply longs for his people to know the true God. Jesus who as he looks at Jerusalem weeps because of their failure to be reunited with God through Jesus. This depth of passion, this mourning caused many to question Jesus, even mock him.

And that’s what’s being described here—that’s what is causing the Psalmist in this moment to feel so utterly overwhelmed. Now some of you might feel a little confused by why someone could be so emotionally overcome by the fact that people are mocking him. But my guess is many others of you get it. At some point in your life, you have experienced some form of humiliation in public. Maybe it was something stupid you did, or maybe it was something cruel said about you in public that made you look awful—sometimes, even decades later when we think about moments like that we squirm and our face gets hot. Why? Because self is not a private thing. We gain a sense of what we are, how to view ourselves, through the eyes of others.

Which is why the Psalmist feels like waters are about to bury him. Because it feels like everyone thinks he’s in the wrong. He’s what people who have had too much to drink make jokes about late at night. Can you imagine how disorienting that would have felt?  

Notice how the Psalmist responds to this disorientation from others’ views of him. In the middle of both the first and second section, he interrupts himself with the words, “God, you know.” Verse 5: “God, you know my foolishness and guilt.” Lord, you see me rightly. You know where my faults actually are—and you know that in this I am being falsely accused. Even if everyone else misunderstands me, you know. And then again in verse 19: “You know the insults I endure, my shame and disgrace. You are aware of my adversaries.” Even when I feel alone, even when it seems like people can shamelessly lie and be cruel without any consequence, you know.

When we are losing our sense of what is real, when we feel like we’re flying in a fog and we cannot tell what is up or down, we find orientation, a sense of true up and down by considering the simple truth. God knows. God sees. When Paul is being criticized by rivals, at one point he says, “It’s a small thing if I am judged by you. In fact, I can’t even judge myself. God will be my judge; he sees, and he will bring to light what is hidden. God knows, and he will bring truth to light. That simple reality can anchor us when nothing feels clear.

Act by Asking

So in response to this overwhelming anxiety, the Psalmist describes his situation before God, he finds an anchor in what God knows, and then, third, he takes action by asking.

Our Psalm divides into three parts. The first, as we’ve seen, in 1-12, is a description of need for salvation. The second part is 13-29, and it’s demarcated by the Psalmist re-collecting himself. Notice verse 13: “As for me Lord,” “Me” was what was threatened to be lost in verses 1-12, but now the Psalmist finds me—how? “As for me, Lord, my prayers is to you..answer me with our sure salvation. And then again in verse 29: “As for me, let your salvation protect me.” As his physical response to his situation seeks to overwhelm him, he finds his selfhood by asking God to save him.   

See, part of what can be so disorienting and cause is to spiral is a sense of agency being completely taken away. We feel most overwhelmed when there is no action we can take against what troubles us.

But there is always a meaningful action we can take. There is a way we can channel all of our energy productively. We can bring our must urgent longings in the moment to God and ask him to satisfy them.

The situation described in verses 1-4 now is turned into asking: in rapid succession, he expresses his longing by asking again and again, 8 requests: “rescue me; don’t let me sink, don’t let those floodwaters cover my face; answer me, turn to me, don’t hide your face, come near redeem me. Ransom me.” So often when I pray I feel like because I know God is king and worthy of my honor, I should be polite, reserved and circumspect in how I ask. And of course it is right to pray as Jesus prayed, “Not my will but your be done.” But we must also remember that Jesus had no problems praying, “Take this cup from me.” When we are overcome, when we are filled with desperate longing, the right thing to do is take action by asking, asking even for those things that feel like they may be too small or too big, or even that you’re not sure is right to ask for.

Notice the second half of our section, when the Psalmist turns to the specific matter of his false accusers. “Let their table be a snare, verse 24 “Pour out your rage on them, verse 27 charge them with crime on top of crime; verse 28: let them be erased from the book of life.”

These verses are unsettling—how do they fit with Jesus’ command to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us? It’s a good question, and it’s one I wish we had more time to spend on, but let me just say this: it is precisely this kind of praying that makes it possible for us to love our enemies.

Because what this prayer is driven by is not just a personal vendetta. It’s the longing for truth and for justice. People have lied and falsely excused, and the Psalmist is expressing the longing that their lies would be exposed and what is right would be vindicated. When he prays, “Let not them be recorded with the righteous,” he’s asking that evil wouldn’t be treated as good. This longing is good and is right: when we long for lies to be exposed and for justice to be done, we are reflecting the very heart of God. And just as in the first half of this section the Psalmist takes refuge in the knowledge that he asks for rescue from someone whose love is faithful and whose compassion is abundant, now he finds strength in the knowledge that this same God is filled with wrath at all that is wrong with this world.

And this is what makes love for enemies possible. A friend of mine was sexually abused as a child, and, as is so often the case, the abuser was never punished; he called my friend a liar and his wrong remained hidden. She says that in this, the only way she was able to let go of her hatred and bitterness, the only way could forgive and even wish well upon her abuser was trusting that as angry as she was about what had happened, God was even more furious. And that God would deal with this wrong, exposing it either through bringing the wrongdoer to deep repentance, driving the wrongdoer to the mercy of the cross, or, if he refuses to repent, through judgment. Either way, she could deal with her powerlessness by taking action, by asking God to deal make right what she could not.

As we find ourselves overwhelmed when hardships hit us, this is the pathway of learning joyful resilience: naming our situation, orienting ourselves to the knowledge of God, and acting by asking God, appealing to the goodness of God to fulfill our desires.

Envision

Finally, beginning in verse 30, we have what to me is perhaps the most surprising part of this Psalm of lament. Nothing has changed for situation of the Psalmist. He’s still surrounded by false accusers trying to kill him. Injustice seems to be winning out. And yet this Psalm that begin with him almost drowning in anxiety concludes with joyful praise: “I will praise God’s name with son and exalt him with thanksgiving.” This is the resilience of a tree planted by streams of water. 

To be clear, this joyful note is not always possible. There are some moments, like we see in Psalm 88, when the darkness is so pervasive that all one can do in that moment is cry out to God in anguish. But sometimes, and here is one such time, the awareness that this situation is in God’s hands, the awareness that comes as we name our situation, orient ourselves to God’s knowledge and ask him our longings, this act of turning to God, can itself be enough to move from despair into praise. In this moment, the Psalmist is able to see where this is all going. Verse 33, “The Lord listens to the needy and does not despise his own who are prisoners.” Verse 35: “God will save Zion and build up the cities of Jerusalem.” To be clear, the Psalmist doesn’t know how God will deal with his specific situation. But he does know that God has heard, and that God will be good. And that allows him to begins to imagine and anticipate what God will do, and in that anticipation be filled with gratitude. 

Hebrews tells us that when Jesus went to his death—he went to the cross anticipating joy: “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” We know this was not a simple, effortless action on his part; his soul was sorrowful, even unto death. But Jesus, having been trained by Psalm 69, in the gardenchanneled all of his energy, all of his anguish, all of his anxiety into prayer, “Father, take this cup from me.” And after he had done so, after he knew that his God heard him and it was in his hands, with unimaginable resilience and strength Jesus, able to anticipate the joy that would come beyond the cross, the joy of salvation and triumph, went to his death.

And he promises us the same joy: “Blessed are you who mourn,” he says, for you will be comforted. “Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for you will be filled.” Even as we experience suffering now, as we entrust our situation to God, with our imaginations guided by hope, we can begin to anticipate what good things he will do, and in this anticipation, even now we can rejoice.

This was Paul’s secret to resilience. To the Philippians he says, “I rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help of Jesus, this will turn out to my deliverance—so that whether through life or through death Christ will be honored.”

And this joyful resilience, like a tree planted by streams of waters, can be yours and mine as well as we allow the Psalms to train us and teach us to take refuge in our God. Let’s do that now.