Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today’s readings include Psalm 38, Domine, ne in furore.

This long turbulent passage may be read in two different ways.

On the one hand, it is a particularly passionate outpouring of dismay at the effects of one’s sinfulness.

The psalmist describes in what we can only understand as the natural effect of our turning away from God—namely, dis-ease of every sort. The absence of rest, the presence of a fetid wound, weariness and soreness, feebleness, alienation, a lack of wholeness, feeling insensate: these are the complaints of one who suffer through the presence of sin and death.

On the other hand, Psalm 38 can be read as a description of the suffering that Jesus took upon himself as the Savior of the world.

Jesus allowed himself to experience wounds, disgrace, and death for our sake, the global effects of sin and death, although he himself knew no sin. He perfectly understands the pain of our existence, has destroyed these enemies and has provided the way for us back to God.

It is truly wonderful how a text can plumb existential depths and still take us back to Christ! 

Psalm 38, Jonathan Battishill (Anglican psalmody)

Yours in Christ,

—Justin