God promises blessing and renewal. So where is all that? How do we live in the tension between the promise and the reality? New Sermon on Psalm 130 below!
Songs For When Things Don't Change
God promises that, though we have abandoned him, he will not abandon us. That he will not leave us. That he will be faithful to us, and that through his presence among us, his kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. And even though in Jesus Christ this kingdom has already come, it is at the same time not yet here. The darkness is (still) passing away. The songs we will sing this week reflect the tension of life as humans in a time when Jesus' kingdom is both already and not yet here.
Bifrost Arts' "How Long" is a meditation on Psalm 13. The Psalmist uses the absence of the kingdom not as a reason to doubt the existence of God, but instead to throw himself deeper into relationship with God. So he repeats the title phrase as a longing question to God: How long will you turn your face away?
As Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing suggests, Jesus is already the source of every blessing, and we put up monuments ("Ebenezer") to that goodness.
Because sometimes, in this life, it is hard to remember.