Scripture: Psalm 62, Luke 23:56
Focus Verse: Psalm 62:1
For God alone our souls in silence wait.
Commentary: In Jewish tradition the Sabbath day begins on Friday evening and ends on Saturday evening. Jewish law mandated the dead body of Jesus be removed from the cross before the Sabbath day began … I call Holy Saturday the "time between times." As we leave the cross with those who cared for Jesus on Friday evening, anointing his body and preparing it with spices.
Together we walk into the holy and mysterious darkness that envelops our body, our mind and our soul. At some point, we let go. We let go of our hopes and dreams for the future. Tomorrow will never be the same. Our world will never be the same. The truth is that we can never really know what tomorrow holds. When the sun rises and the dawn envelops the world wherever you are, you are suddenly looking tomorrow in the face whether you are ready or not. Because we know the end of this story, we can wait in silent expectation on Saturday …
Psalm 62 is a psalm of trust in God. The psalmist exhorts the listener to wait on God, who is imaged as a fortress or refuge, one of the most common images in the Psalms. The psalmist encourages us to denounce faith in anyone or anything else, only God! When we pray with Psalm 62, trust grows through our silent waiting as God brings prayer to us. This helps us to move beyond our list of wants and encourages us to pay attention to the needs of others.
Reflection: How do you "keep the Sabbath and make it holy, which means 'set apart?'" How comfortable are you with silence and waiting? How often do you pray in silence, waiting for God to "speak" to you? Note: God speaks in many different ways, mostly it is in thoughts or feelings that come to us rather than in a "voice."
If music is a spiritual pathway for you, I offer Holy Darkness, a song written by Dan Schutte and sung via YouTube by John Michael Talbot with some adaptation to the lyrics but it is the beauty of the chorus that makes this the song for me and for this day:
Intercessory and Breath Prayer:
Gentle God, sometimes words escape me, and I simply want to sit in your presence, being with you without words. Let the names of those who need my prayers bubble up for me as I sit in your silence. I will hold them in my heart.
Breathing in … God of Silence
Breathing out … Hear my Prayer
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