Psalm 40:1-2 I waited patiently upon the Lord; he stooped to me and
heard my cry. He lifted me out of the desolate pit, out of the mire and
clay; he set my feet upon a high cliff and made my footing sure.
Every summer we’d sing this particular psalm in chapel at summer camp.
It was U2’s version of this psalm, also called “40,” that the camp
counselors played on their acoustic guitars. We’d sing the words with
our arms around each other’s shoulders
surrounded by the mesquite and live oak trees native to central Texas.
The chorus, which is not part of the psalm, asks, “How long to sing this
song?”
Listening to that
chorus now, I hear both expectation and apprehension in those words:
“How long? How long to sing this song?” Long after the psalms were
written, and long after the stone was rolled away from the tomb, we
still live with that expectation and apprehension, with that sense that
the work of God has begun, but appears to be far from over. That sense
of being in-between is a part of faith. It’s what drives us to work for a
better world and also what leads us back to prayer and song on Sunday
morning.
