Eastertide
May 16, 2014

Scripture Reading: Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 

You are indeed my rock and my fortress;
   for your name’s sake lead me and guide me,
take me out of the net that is hidden for me,
   for you are my refuge.
Into your hand I commit my spirit;
   you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. — Psalm 31:3-5

My Sunday school class decided to spruce up the interior courtyard garden at our church one year. While the yard crew kept it cleaned and trimmed, it had grown stark and bare over time. It was fun to watch it come alive with plants and flowers.  I kept saying that we needed a big rock in our garden space and low and behold that is exactly what they gave me as a gift. The rock is probably about two feet deep and high and three feet wide. I love what I call my rock. It is in the perfect place to sit and contemplate the beauty of nature and experience quietness from the world while sitting in the midst of a busy city with a large brick edifice blocking sound from three sides. A high wooden fence shelters the other. It, however, was no easy task to deliver the stone even though as stones go it wasn’t all that big. It was and is heavy. Stones are often associated with God as they represent permanence and strength.  God is identified thusly in our scripture today.

The next phrase is interesting when it pleads with this omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient God to take me out of the net that is hidden for me. Ever been there? It is a feeling of being caught in something that seems to be tying you more and more into knots but you cannot get a handle on exactly what it is and more importantly what to do about it. Surely that is how Jesus felt hanging on that cross and he fell back on the words of the Psalmist for rescue as he cried to his Father, Into your hand I commit my spirit. 

Jesus is our role model, our rock onto which we may cling as we commit our spirits to him.

Prayer: Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee;* help me find my way out of the nets I cannot see. Amen.

*From poem/hymn by Augustus M. Toplady

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.