By Chantalle Wookey
As worship leaders we can often steer clear of the kind of lament seen in this Psalm and I think to an extent this is understandable, it really is a pretty depressing psalm. "O Lord, my God, my Saviour, by day and night I cry to you." That mention of God as Saviour is as positive as it gets. This acknowledgement of what God has done is stated as fact even in the face of everything that comes next.
"You have laid me in the depths of the pit, in dark places, and in the abyss. ...You have put my friends far from me; you have made me to be abhorred by them... My sight has failed me because of trouble; Lord, I have called upon you daily; I have stretched out my hands to you. Lord, why have you rejected me? Why have you hidden your face from me? Ever since my youth, I have been wretched and at the point of death; I have borne your terrors with a troubled mind. Your blazing anger has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me."
Those of you who know me well, know that this year has been a difficult one for me but even with this I am not at the point of feeling comfortable with making this kind of bold claim of God. Maybe this is because this is something that is just not comfortable in our culture. However, this psalm not only cries out to God in passionate misery, but also lays circumstances upon God as the source of suffering. There are other psalms of lament, but they usually contain some hint of hope with such words as, "I put my trust in you, O Lord, and you will come to my aid." There just is no hint of this in Psalm 88. This is a cry of utter distress, this Psalm offers no words that aim to soften the intensity of expression that come with grief, anger, and questioning in truly painful times.
This psalm concludes with a gut-wrenching cry of a man who is alone and surrounded by darkness, "My friend and neighbour you have put away from me, and darkness is my only companion." There is no hint of gentle encouragement. No glimpse of hope of horizon. No Fear not, God is with you. This psalm is a cry of unbroken misery.
I'm glad we have Psalm 88. I would love to hear it read out loud in public more. The more I have read it the more I have realised there is a place for it in our lives and in our worship (well – duh Channy it is in the Bible!). There are times in our lives when we will experience things that leave us in total sadness. There are circumstances that really do seem hopeless.
This psalm demonstrates that expressions of grief are legitimate. This psalm encourages us to talk to God about any reality we feel we are in. It is not faithless to cry out in helpless and hopeless anguish. It has reminded me that God is big enough to want to hear how we really are and we don't have to appease him with words of piety or hope that do not feel true in times of desperate pain. Even in the deepest, most hopeless and darkest times, God is our companion even if all we have left to share with him is our brokenness.
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