From despair to hope

Darkness is my closest friend. Psalm 88:18

I can’t remember when I first read – really read – Psalm 88. Oh, I am sure I had read it before, because I became a Christian in my teenage years and had early on got into the discipline of daily Bible reading. But there can often be a big difference between reading and really reading – the difference between skimming and digesting.

I became aware that it is pretty much alone in the psalms, because it is devoid of hope. Putting it in a single word, it is a psalm of despair, which by definition means the total absence of hope. The last line, “darkness is my closest friend”, struck me as unutterably bleak.

This is a place I have never been, I’m thankful to say. Down, yes; low and quite depressed, yes; just plain miserable, that too. But in the depths of hopelessness, no, thank God.

Let’s skim through all eighteen verses to get some kind of feel of this awful mood…

In verses 1-2 he pleads with God to listen to him: “day and night I cry out to you”. He is desperate.

In verses 3-9 he says, in effect, that he might as well be dead. And we need to remember that the Old Testament has little to say about life beyond the grave – no clear teaching about heaven and hell such as we find in the New Testament. Death is “the grave” or “the pit” (“sheol”) where, according to his understanding, people are no longer remembered by God and are “cut off from his care”.

He feels (rightly or wrongly) that God is angry with him, and also that his friends have turned away from him (“you have made me repulsive to them” suggests that perhaps he has some horrible disease). Bleak indeed.

In verses 10-12 he asks a series of questions, each of which clearly expects the answer No: “Do you show your wonders to the dead?... Do their spirits rise up and praise you?... Is your love declared in the grave?..  Are your wonders known in the place of darkness?...”

In verses13-18 he reflects that this has been the story of his whole life: “from my youth I have suffered and been close to death; I have borne your terrors and am in despair”. And then that terrible final line: “darkness is my closest friend”.

We are reminded very much of Job, not to mention Psalm 22, which Jesus echoed on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But at least those have happy endings. No happy ending for the writer of Psalm 88!

What can we take from this psalm?

First, the sheer honesty of scripture.

There are parts of the Bible which, if am to be honest, I rather wish weren’t there at all (the book of Judges is one!). But God doesn’t spare us the hard things; he expects us to face them with honest, open eyes.

Second, the realism of being a child of God.

From what we can glean about his insistence on prayer, this man was a true believer and had lived a faithful life. And yet he had suffered – and was still suffering – so much! In the same way, the Christian life brings true joy and satisfaction, yet it is anything but “now I am happy all the day”. If the gospel were a guarantee of an easy life, it would be nothing better than those stupid, shallow adverts that try to suck us in with easy promises. The blessings of glory will be ours – but we may have to wait, and quite possibly to wait a long time.

Third, the need to dwell on some of the things we know but the psalmist didn’t.

It’s a standard principle of Bible study to “compare scripture with scripture”, because no single passage or book tells us everything we need to know. We live with the New Testament in our hands as well as the Old – but the psalmist had to live with only a limited idea of what lay beyond death.

As I pondered Psalm 88 and the experience of despair I found my mind turning to the first Easter – the scene at Calvary first and foremost, of course. But then I thought of the next day, that dreadful Saturday. What did the disciples do that day? How did they pass those long, dreary hours? We can only imagine.

But then came Sunday. A picture that especially grips my mind is that of Mary Magdalene, running like the wind to burst into the room where the disciples were. I imagine her standing stock-still in the doorway, utterly breathless, uncontrollably weeping, hair everywhere, while every face was turned towards her, transfixed.

And then those spell-binding words: “I have seen the Lord!” Can you imagine the silence? – and then the sheer unspeakable joy welling up in every heart?

Surely we need some such scene – imagine it how we will - to accompany our reading of Psalm 88. Such a scene will one day be the experience of each of us who has simple faith in Christ crucified and risen. We too will “see the Lord”.

But let’s not leave it there, for there is also a fourth truth to take from this psalm: the need to develop a compassionate heart.

Untold millions today are living in the misery of Psalm 88, both Christians and others. War, famine, persecution, disease, poverty, not to mention floods and wild fires … Should we not therefore pray, and work, to bring such people comfort and hope in any way we can?

Soften my heart, Lord, soften my heart,/ From all indifference, set me apart./ To feel your compassion, to weep with your tears,/ Come, soften my heart, O Lord, soften my heart. Amen. Graham Kendrick