No Happy Ending

Psalm 88

I Cry Out Day and Night Before You

A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. To the choirmaster: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.

 ¹O LORD, God of my salvation;
   I cry out day and night before you.
²Let my prayer come before you;
    incline your ear to my cry!

 ³For my soul is full of troubles,
   and my life draws near to Sheol.
⁴I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
   I am a man who has no strength,
⁵like one set loose among the dead,
   like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
   for they are cut off from your hand.
⁶You have put me in the depths of the pit,
   in the regions dark and deep.
⁷Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
   and you overwhelm me with all your waves.
                         Selah

 ⁸You have caused my companions to shun me;
   you have made me a horror to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
 ⁹ my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon you, O LORD;
   I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰Do you work wonders for the dead?
    Do the departed rise up to praise you?
                         Selah

¹¹Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
   or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
¹²Are your wonders known in the darkness,
   or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

 ¹³But I, O LORD, cry to you;
    in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴O LORD, why do you cast my soul away?
   Why do you hide your face from me?
¹⁵Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
   I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.
¹⁶Your wrath has swept over me;
   your dreadful assaults destroy me.
¹⁷They surround me like a flood all day long;
   they close in on me together.
¹⁸You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
   my companions have become darkness.

I don’t blame you if you started into this Psalm and then just skipped it. It’s one of the hardest passages to read in the entire Bible, not because of its complexity or theology, but because of its emptiness. It’s a lament, and there are plenty of those in the Psalms, but it stands out as a lament with no happy ending. Most laments end with a renewed belief that God will make things right, or a vow of trust in God even when things look so dark, but Psalm 88? Not so much. The HCSB concludes the psalm with, “Darkness is my only friend.”

Some commentators suggest, based on verse 15, that the Psalmist has suffered from some lifelong near-fatal disease or malady. In that sense, what we read is a lifetime of pent-up, bitter complaint to God, at times mournful, angry, and even sarcastic. The only redemption in the words seems to be that the writer still acknowledges the existence of God.

Another take on these words came to be last night at Bible study, when we studied a Messianic Psalm and so clearly saw how it pointed to Jesus. I remembered my week’s studies of Psalm 88 and suddenly realized that it too, like the entire Bible, must point to Jesus. I read the Psalm again and started scribbling notes, unexpectedly overcome with grief at the suffering I put Jesus through on the cross.

Re-read these words, and imagine they’re being spoken or mournfully sung by Jesus as every minute drew him nearer to the cross. Verse 7 shows His glimpse of the wrath that sin merits. Verse 8 shows the abandonment He felt from disciples who fell asleep in Gethsemane or denied his friendship. Verse 14 foreshadows His first and only separation from God the Father and echoes the words on the cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

I don’t think the grief of Jesus that we see in the garden was confined to that one occasion. I think it was an undercurrent of His entire life on Earth. He knew, perhaps from day one, what His ultimate mission was, and that this mission would entail a moment’s separation from God on our behalf. He became sin, Who knew no sin. How could He not lament?

Oh, hallelujah, there is a happy ending after all! I credit my eternal salvation to that moment on the cross. But woe upon me if I fail to remember what it cost my Savior. This Psalm has now become a gem for me, one that I will not look upon often because it hurts, but one that I need to understand.