The Suffering Servant
For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing; my strength has failed because of my iniquity, and my body has wasted away. Psalm 31:10 NASB
Sorrow/ Sighing– “Why can’t you be more positive?” “You seem so discouraged all the time.” “I’m tired of your pessimistic attitude!” “Look on the bright side of things.”
Ever hear someone say something like this to you? Ever feel like answering, “Why don’t you take your head out of the sand!”
Yes, God is sovereign. Yes, the world was designed to be a harmonious reflection of His righteous character. But anyone who cares to really look must see that this arena is tragically broken—and it doesn’t appear to be on the mend. Furthermore, any real personal examination is likely to end with words like David’s. “I’ve spent my life in sorrow and sighing because I know I deserve all the consequences of my sins.” There’s no point in visiting Priestess Pollyanna. It’s too late for that.
David employs two Hebrew words that emphasize his grief. The first is yāgôn. It is translated as sorrow or grief, but in Hebrew it distinguishes this mental torment from physical pain or loss of personal status. This is emotional trauma, brought about my mistakes and undisciplined choices. That’s why David adds another word, ‘ănāḥâ, a word that means mourning and wailing, as though one were at a funeral. In fact, funeral imagery is precisely what’s required here. After years of struggle with emotions and disobedience, David faces the inevitable consequence—death. He is attending his own funeral. He sees himself as a corpse, wasted away. In this divine drama, the description of a burial heightens the injustice of his circumstances. This isn’t supposed to be! David is God’s anointed. He is the king. His enemies are not supposed to succeed. The world isn’t right—and God, the God he serves—needs to do something about it.
Isn’t that the way we feel when we see the broken world all around us? Isn’t that our experience when we review our lives of wasted effort, futile attempts at obedience and emotional distress for good and bad reasons? Don’t we stand beside David on the stage crying out to our God, “Why don’t You do something?” We know He can. We know His character. We hear His promises. We feel His care. But life still sucks. We are wasting away, standing with the mourners at our own gravesite, wondering what happened to that innocent boy or girl who is being lowered into the ground after so many battering years. The title of “suffering servant” doesn’t seem to be so exclusive.
Topical Index: yāgôn, sorrow, ‘ănāḥâ, mourning, funeral, Psalm 31:10
Skip interesting to note how your duscussions of David’s personal reflections seem to parralel with Job’s in so many ways.
Will we ever reach that point where we come face to face or rather heart to heart with the Creator…
Maybe one should read the whole of Psalm 31.
David was a “man after God’s own heart”, as we are also called to be. How, then, does that heart of longing view this world? I venture that this psalm is not even necessarily about his ‘own’ ‘private’ sin. David was not only a flawed person: he was king of Israel and had also subjected a big chunk the world around him, too (not sure at what point in his life this psalm was written, but he knew his whole life that he was destined for the throne). Now, I have not been king, but I am a parent; a sister; a daughter; a friend. These people are part of me! My sins have affected their lives and our relationships, as have theirs mine. Twined with all around me, I mourn for the earth, too, as I mourn for myself while looking for a place in it where there is still a tiny bit of the glory of creation left that is not “groaning under the curse”. I am not finding it, y’all. At this point in my life I can see no difference between mourning for myself and mourning for all other. We are all sliding off the edge together even as we are failing to love and hold on to each other. I find no difference between sin and the effects of sin, and all that sin is about those fractures of those relationships so essential to happiness. This sucks! I think David was feeling God’s heart, too, as He surveys His creation.
Skip, you have written over and over about the idea that salvation is not just a ‘personal’ matter, as we are not just singular. David, then, would not have been viewing only himself in this righteous psalm, would he? I think only the sin of narcissism calls for an ‘exclusive’ view of an isolated self: righteousness keeps us in the middle of the great web of life. David would had to have been reflecting on the fact that his choices had affected his relationships with not only God and himself, but with family, country, and also with all the known world at that time, for he had reportedly subjected that surrounding world (through battle and politics); therefore making it subject to his choices, too. He was a very prominent figure, so when he sinned, surely everybody knew about it because it affected them too! Wow. I do not envy David.
It is written of Yeshua that he was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”.
There it is! Our lot is like his. His lot is like ours. We are like him. He is like us. He knows how we feel. We know how he feels. We’re not alone. He’s not alone. Yeshua, the Son of God, and us. We are one. We are echad.
But wait, our sorrows and our acquaintance with grief isn’t just about injustices against us or those we love. Unlike Yeshua, but like David, it’s also about our injustices against others and against God. And maybe this makes our sorrow and our grief different than Yeshua’s. And maybe this is why we struggle with being sure he understands us, that he will be merciful with us, that he will have compassion on us, and forgive us of our sins.
Then, despite all this, it is also written of Yeshua that “God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your companions”. How is that possible? I don’t know, but I wonder this…..do we ever have his kind of joy…..is it possible for us to be so anointed? If we can…..what more could you want?
It is written that Yeshua said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
Though there seems to be this important, albeit seemingly impossible to achieve, precondition to have such joy, at least there’s hope in keeping with his promise that he will complete the good work he has begun in us.
Though for now we are people of sorrow, and acquainted with grief all our days, one day, there will be joy unspeakable and full of glory! Keep pressing on to the mark of the high calling of God in Messiah Yeshua.
Jerry & Lisa, Thanks again for the reminder of our Creator’s great ability to bring us out of utter hopelessness! This 85 year old lady could regularly each day choose to live in total despair! And I am not even in earthly poverty. Authors like you two, & with Skip allowing each of them to write, & reminding us of what Yahweh has provided for us, brings “the oil of great gladness” regularly to us. With the Love already bestowed on you, I add “thanks be to our Heavenly Father-for the Oil of Gladness given out with His great love! LaVaye Billings
Thanks so much. That’s very kind of you.
Well Skip I guess I’m one of those guy’s that you would (like) to say “Why don’t you take your head out of the sand”, and I’ve got a whole bunch of reasons to keep it there. Why do we keep expecting God to intervene, when I find in Genesis He gave us “dominion over the earth”.And if you think it’s bad now Revelation tell me it’s going to get a whole lot worse. I looked out the window of my apartment to the small park across the street, in downtown Tacoma and there were 10 tents of street people. I find when I’m all gloom and doom, so is everything around me. Then I look at Paul who tells me to “Count it all joy” when the world around me is against me. Yes I’m “sad” about things and people and where our country is going. But Jerry and Lisa’s quote, “God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions”.”How is it possible?” —I don;t know, but without it I would have never got to 94+. Shalom
PS–Happiness goes up and down, but the “joy of the Lord” keeps going up. That is, at least what I have found working with the ‘homeless’ and others. The more I’m involved in their lives the more joy the Lord gives. As I find in the scriptures,life is not about me but all about others. Shalom –The rocking chair just does not fit well.
We are too drink of the cup of sorrows with others. It helps to empty it. We can also drink to much from the cup of sorrows and go beyond our allotted share and it becomes a cup of despair for us and others.
Yes it can be unmartyring to take on more than God created each of us to bear. His purpose for each of us is not as easily discerned as breathing and sometimes we over reach and go above His desire and fall to earth with a crash and a thud taking others with us when our “imagined fairy wings” give way to be waiting stunned on the heavy hard ground to be lifted by truth,when our Rescuer passes by our humbled hearts. Shalom Pam..
Grief. Despair. Suffering. Very real for many people including me. I never thought in a million years that I would have learned so much the hard way. I want to do what I can so that others won’t suffer or at least recognize the fact that maybe it wasn’t their fault or that it was much more complicated than just saying that it’s a fallen world or that we are all sinners. Things happen for a reason, like we have been LIED to in so many ways.
Three people I know personally have buried their young children. Go ahead and blindly trust those in any field, including the medical field, but they aren’t coming back to life. One was healthy for only the first six months of his life but the poison injected into him changed everything. Lived for about 16 years more years being taken care of. One was healthy for 3 years until the poison that was injected into his body caused his body to go haywire and lived for only 2 more years until chemotherapy killed him. There’s no end to the suffering. It seems like the ones who are high on the psychopathy spectrum (no or little conscience) are the only ones not suffering. They don’t care. Caring about others is a good sign that there is still a conscience. We ALL need to take our heads out of the sand or at least warn others or share the truth regardless of the cost.
Chiune Sugihara has been on my mind recently. He wrote visas to help Jewish people escape. He went against the orders of the Japanese government which cost him his job later. He couldn’t go against his conscience. A person with an intact conscience! A rare individual indeed and would be maybe close to impossible to find these days. The fruits of mass poisoning causing mental damage as well as indoctrination has created ruthless psychopaths.
I don’t know very much about Skip’s experiences but there is nothing pessimistic about seeing life as it is. Not being deceived is our biggest struggle!
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” Romans 12:15
Rejoicing and weeping with others will bring us to our deepest and fullest humanity and will cause us to be conformed to the image of the Son! Rejoicing with others is mentioned first, and therefore, should take up first place in our journey with others. Maybe if we learn to rejoice with others more, we would more readily and surely walk together through the times of weeping. As I heard years ago, sorrow and grief are not part of the Spirit fruit mentioned in Galatians 5!