Wednesday in The Week of The 4th Sunday After Pentecost (07/01/09)

O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.

--Psalm 130:7

Those in recovery from chronic alcoholism might be among the first to tell you: Only a power greater that the self can restore sanity. Was the author Psalm 130 an alcoholic? There's no way of telling.


But we are made aware of the object of his hope. It is in the Lord. And the Lord brings with Him all that steadfast love. It is hard for some folks in our world to even love themselves in a positive way. The possibility of a Lord with steadfast love sounds like a fool's dream. Thus, they turn to other options to salve the wound and ease the pain. Yet eventually, even those options turn on them. That, obviously, is not a good place to be. The psalmist would call it a "depth."


Still, this Lord has great power to redeem. To "redeem" means to buy back. It's as though your life is crushed under a huge mountain of credit debt. Redemption means that the Lord "buys" the mountain and moves it. You are set free. This is the Lord who is the object of our hope.


PD