By Keith Krebs
Psalm 74:
9 We do not see our emblems;
there is no longer any prophet,
and there is no one among us who knows how long.
10 How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
11 Why do you hold back your hand;
why do you keep your hand in your bosom?
12 Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the earth.
I write this devotion for when the lights of faith have gone dim. Enough of the day has been experienced to know that it is now night. And you cry out, “How long, O God?”
For we can no longer find you in the familiar, routine places where we have always found you. We go to church and you are not there. It feels like someone has hacked into pieces (v. 5) all the memories and symbols of our faith. There is no longer a word spoken (v. 9), at least that we can now hear and understand. The church used to be filled with worship and Word and sacrament. Now it is filled with the inner emptiness of our hearts.
Yet, yours also is night. God is with us in this dark valley. The psalmist reminds us, “You have fixed all the bounds of the earth” (v. 17). You know how this spiritual darkness descended and how long it will endure. You promise, as in times of old, you will be working salvation into our situation (v. 12). So we pray:
Prayer: Lord God, in this Lenten season, we turn to you. Yours is the day; yours also is the night. When shadows cover our hearts, come alongside us. Increase your intervention and chase the shadows of doubt away. We ask this in Jesus’s name. Amen.