Saturday 02 October 2021

Psalm 3:1-6

Background

In Handel’s 'Messiah' there is a defiance in the singing. 'I know that my redeemer lives' is sung in the face of war and famine, pandemics and injustice, human sadness and folly. At the last God will stand. God shall stand with me, and I shall see God.

I wonder sometimes how good a Christian I am even after years of trying to follow Jesus and be a minister. It is probably too much information to share that the book of Job draws me because I don’t always have the confidence that many Christians seem to have. I certainly don’t hold with doubtless conviction whole chapters of orthodox belief.

I was in hospital near Keighley because I had fallen sick at the end of a retreat weekend. I felt rotten and A&E suspected I had flu so I was whisked into an isolation room. I was asked about my heart, given a drug to prevent blood clots and made to lie down. My temperature was high, my head ached, and I was uncomfortable. As the evening came, the night doctor seemed suddenly to get worried. He was worried enough to worry me! He suspected that it wasn’t my heart that was the problem (requiring blood thinners) but a bleed in the brain (requiring the opposite). I was now troubled. I was lying down without covers, fans on me to reduce my temperature, and disturbed by nurses who woke me every hour to make sure I was still conscious. I thought ‘is this it?’ And I wondered what hymns I might choose! I thought, I’ve preached the word of God all these years, but do I believe it?  I realised, I really didn’t know quite what to expect about any afterlife. But this much I did know: I had been loved all my life by my creator, and that love would not end with my death. That was enough for me, no more details were needed. My defiant song was again 'I know that my redeemer lives'. 

Although I still felt rotten, it all turned out to be a false alarm and I was discharged with a sore head, an interesting selection of hymns, and the diagnosis of viral meningitis (the less dangerous sort).

 We are invited to pity Job and to hear his defiance. It doesn’t make it all right. Sad things are still sad things, but it does hold the hint that sad things are never to be the end of the story. Job senses this and our hearts go out to him.

To Ponder:

• What are your experiences of God in difficult times?
• What remains essential to your faith on which you can stand?

Prayer

God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in my heart, and in my thinking;
God be at mine end, and at my departing. (The Sarum Prayer)