7-13-2023

Good Morning All,

         Psalm 77:1; “I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.”

    When I was in college, I took a class on Medieval History.  I know it sounds bad, but I have always been interested in knights and chivalry.  We spent quite a bit of time looking at the court of the king and/or queen.  The first thing that struck all of us in the class (all 6) was the incredibly mercurial nature of the court.  Sometimes it read worse than a group of junior high girls.  One day you were at the top of the court, the next day you were in prison.  This had a tendency to keep every lord and lady on his or her toes.

    But there was one character that was often immune to the king’s anger, and this was the court jester.  The jester served two purposes.  First, he would, carefully, poke fun at the king.  His second function was far more important.  He would often serve as the king’s confessor.  This was the person who the king would speak to honestly.  The king would tell his confessor his fears, his concerns, who he trusted and who he didn’t, and so on and so forth.  There were times and kings who trusted no one but the court jester. 

    All of us need someone in our life to be our confessor, our court jester.  We need someone who we can talk to.  We need to voice our fears, our hopes, and dreams.  We need someone who we can turn to.  When we face the struggles of this life, when we experience the pain that a sinful world causes; we need someone to cry to, to vent, and to cry out “why?” We may have friends or family that we can go to but the Psalmist in our verse today tells us who will hear our cry and actually be capable to do something about it and that is God.

    This is something that many of us are uncomfortable with doing.  We somehow thing that crying to God in lament is wrong.  We somehow feel that God will be angry or reject our pleas.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  This is part of the promise that he makes to us.  He is OUR GOD; he is there to hear us.  We can come to him freely with our cries.  We don’t need any form of sacrifice or payment that has already been made.  God wants us to cry to him, to lament, to complain if you want.  God has big shoulders and a big heart.  He wants to comfort and console us; he wants to bring us the compassion we need.

    Every time we face problems, we don’t have to experience them by ourselves.  We don’t have to live through the pain and the fear in a solitary fashion.  We can cry to God.  We can cry out, “Father help me, comfort me bring me solace for the day.”  God wants to hear our cry even if that cry only comes out as sighs or moans or just as sobs.  Cry unto the Lord let him hear your cries of pain for he will comfort you.

Dearest Father, we cry to you with our pain and sorrow.  You do not turn us away but listen and then comfort us with your grace.  Bring into our lives those who can comfort us with your mercy.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret