ニューイングランドの母校からアドベントの便り、その18
2016 Gordon-Conwell
Advent Devotional | Day 18 | Hope
Psalm 42
Psalm 42 captures our experience as believers, our unfulfilled longing together with our hope. The unfulfilled longing is described as panting, thirsting, tears, loss, feeling downcast, feeling overwhelmed, oppression and questions like when?, where?, and why? This unfulfilled longing is contrasted with putting our hope in God and praying with the ultimate expectation of praise to God: For I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42 figures in the Advent lectionary because for centuries believers longed for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, to fulfill their hunger for God’s presence in their lives and in their world. We are also waiting, hopefully, in prayerful expectation, for King Jesus to return. We yearn, pant and thirst for his presence in the midst of our tears, losses, our feeling downcast, overwhelmed and oppressed and in the midst of our when?, where?, and why? questions. As we continue to wait, the believer’s response to this unfulfilled longing is unabashed hope in God and the brazen expectation of praise to God.
In times of waiting, some people give up on God. Some think, he’s forgotten us. He’s too distant. He doesn’t care. He’s not powerful enough. But the psalmist prompts us to remember that God will not forget us, he is not too distant, he cares and will return in power. If we long for God’s intervention in our difficult situation, we can trust God because he fulfilled the longings of his people in Jesus’ first coming. Advent is a time when we remember how excruciatingly long the wait was for the first coming of Jesus and we affirm our hope as we wait for his second coming.
Dr. Karen Mason
Associate Professor of Counseling and Psychology
