My Thoughts on Rescue

I used to be a faithful listener to the national news.  But in the last year or so with so much bad news, I've become more of a sporadic listener.  Of course, I recognize that most news has rarely, if ever, been uplifting.  The events deemed "newsworthy" are generally traumatic or catastrophic events.  The collapse of marital fidelity in politicians, along with down right evil, seemingly lies, obfuscation, accusations; national, religious and personal security, unemployment, economic downturn, the worldwide debt crisis, the health care system, energy catastrophe, flooding and wild fires across our country, and the military involvement of conflicts in Afghanistan, Egypt, and now I Syria, all serve as recent examples.

These "bad news" stories are even more difficult to deal with because they are not simply news stories affecting someone else, far, far, away; they are real stories of the everyday realities of me and people all around me. Every Sunday, at church, I am reminded of friends who have loved ones in impending danger in Afghanistan and other places in the world. Others, who’s grandchildren are at death’s door due to drugs, abusive situations, or HIV. Friday evening my brother and sister -in - law shared how a young mother of four had suffered for a year prior to her recent death attributed to cancer. Now, how the deep difficult turmoils seem to be ravaging the husband and children. The next morning, an email came from a long time client and dear friend which  said, "  my dear husband is dying.  His aorta started leaking 2 wks ago and we have been to three hospitals and nothing can be done.  We have hospice and all 4 children are here and helping me.  Actually, the decline started about a month ago and is progressing." Then there are precious colleagues who have spent 30, 40, 50 years in sacrifical ministry with meager funds then and minimual retirement funds now, struggling to make ends meet, and wonder how they can continue to keep up with the rising costs associated with gas, food, medications, or health care. Necessities become negotiable and disappear altogether. For many, these are extraordinarily dark times.

While these particular circumstances are specific to my surroundings, extraordinarily dark times are sadly nothing new.  Even the greatest of leaders in the ancient world were not immune to trouble and despair.  David, the great king of Israel, experienced many difficulties throughout his life.  And when he experienced trouble, he turned to poetry.  Psalm 18, as one example, appears to have been a poem written after the experience of deliverance from national enemies and the current king of Israel, King Saul. 

These poems express the grief and distress David experienced in his trials.  The imagery he uses is of a near death experience: "The waves of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me; the cords of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord" (2 Samuel 22:5-7a). His distress is as palpable as being engulfed by the mighty waves of the sea.

Yet, somehow David continually hopes in God's deliverance. Even though confronted by powerful forces at work against him, David affirms that "The Lord was my stay. He brought me forth also into a broad place; he rescued me, because he delighted in me" (Psalm 18:19).

It is tempting to understand the Lord's rescue operation as one that restores the equilibrium or status quo to David.  Bernard W. Anderson, in “Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak for Us Today” notes, “the psalmists' chief concern to give thanks to God are not chiefly found in regaining physical health, or adding more years to life, or by enhancing the life they now enjoy with greater comfort or security.  That is a modern conception of life, whose emptiness is eventually disclosed.  According to Israel's way of thinking, life is missed when people do not choose it: 'See, I have set before you life and death....Therefore, choose life.'

God's rescue is not simply a return to the "way things were" or always a salve of comfort and ease.  If I read the poem this way I miss its main image of the God whose rescue shakes the deepest foundations. "The earth shook and quaked the foundations of the mountains were trembling."  God's rescue often involves the overturning and upending all the things in which we place our hope apart from God.  For the poet David testified: The Lord was his stay.  Ultimately, salvation does not come from the things God does for David, or me.  God's rescue opens up new worlds in which I can find a way to trust. Sometimes, God's rescue involves the deliverance from all the things I think make up true life.  As Christoph Barth observes in the same book, "[W]hat the psalmists pray for in laments, or thank God for in thanksgiving is the restoration of life that they have lost, or its radical renewal through true life—that is the life that is given through
relationship to God."

At the time I make God my stay I acknowledge that all other ground is like sinking sand—even those things that appear as a strong foundation.  My notion of rescue is turned upside down. Yes, my days can often be filled with bad news, but if God is my stay then I can want more than being rescued and instead become the means of rescue. 

I am learning that active hands and feet that swiftly move to help others in times of need, and in times of abundance, just as God rescued David.  Even as I find myself toward the later years of life, living at times in want and in times of bad news, I can renew and restore the lives of others in remarkable ways, set them in a broad place as I find my sustainer is God.