Canon Rob's Reflections

St Alban was Britain’s first martyr, executed in 250 AD for refusing to renounce his Christian faith, which he had only recently come to having sheltered the priest Amphibalus. When soldiers came to his house to arrest the Amphibalus, Alban put on the priest’s cloak and died in his place. A church was soon built where Alban was executed, and the cathedral stands on that same site where, for centuries, pilgrims have prayed at the shrine of St. Alban, shown on the right. Today their successors still come in great numbers and they can also pray at the newly restored shrine of Amphibalus located nearby. Like Jerusalem, when Psalm 42 was written, St Albans Abbey is a place where God feels very close.

Today’s psalm is a cry from the heart to be near to God. It may have been written at a time when the Jewish people were in exile, miles away from their homeland and their Holy City. The author uses the analogy of a thirsty deer to describe what wanting to be in God’s presence feels like. “Like as the deer longs for the water brooks, so longs my soul for you, O God.” [Verse 1.] We believe that God is everywhere, but human beings have always sought so-called “thin places” where God seems especially close. C.S. Lewis, in his book, ‘Reflections of the Psalms’, wrote of the authors of the psalms: “These poets knew far less reason than we for loving God. They did not know that He offered them eternal joy; still less that He would die to win it for them. Yet they express a longing for Him, for His mere presence…” He describes this longing as a “physical thirst” and this is the image we find in Psalm 42. Just how great is the desire is found in verses 2 and 3: “…when shall I come before the presence of God? My tears have been my bread day and night….” Such a sense of God’s absence, or of feeling forgotten by God, are common themes in the Old Testament. See, for example, Isaiah 49.13-16, where the people of Jerusalem say, “The Lord has abandoned us! He has forgotten us.” The Lord’s answer was to bring reassurance, “Jerusalem! I can never forget you! I have written your name on the palm of my hands.” For the author of the psalm though, the pain doesn’t go away because, in verses 4 and 5, he remembers when he joined the “multitude and led the procession to the house of God.” That is in the past and knowing that he is heart broken. “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul….” [verse 6 and repeated in verse 13.]

This self-examination in both verses is followed by the same response: “O put your trust in God, for I will yet give him thanks, who is the help of my countenance and my God.” [Verses 7 and 14.] As you reflect upon this psalm, imagine the author struggling, trying to make sense of what is happening. He is desperate to be back home, to be near the place where God is present, but is chastising himself for his lack of faith. Yet his desperation seems to come to a head in verses 11 and 12, where he asks why God has forgotten him as his enemies mock him, saying, “Where is now your God?” Years later Jesus faced similar mocking from Roman soldiers and religious leaders when he was being executed. In St Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 27, we read that Pilate’s soldiers, “…knelt before him [Jesus] and mocked him…They spat on him…and hit him over the head…” [Matthew 27.27-31.] Then, a little later in the Gospel, as he hung on the cross, Jesus experienced an overwhelming sense of isolation, quoting from Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me…? [Matthew 27.46] The psalmist’s experience may not have been as extreme as that which Jesus went through, but his deep sense of being lost without God felt just as real.

Psalm 42 doesn’t make easy reading and, as you reflect upon it, you may find yourself recalling a time when you felt God’s absence. When that happens, all we can do is wait, hope and remember that, through Jesus’ death and resurrection we can, like the psalmist, put our trust in God and then “..give him thanks..” when we know that He has been with us, even when we didn’t realise it.