Land of the Living

I’m working on a sermon that I will deliver in a few weeks for a very special occasion. Since I’m not based out of a church (I’m a “free range pastor” these days), my sermons reflect my personal faith and curiosities more than the needs of a particular community. There are certainly benefits and drawbacks to this approach, but one benefit is that my sermons end up being a window into my mind during a particular moment.

As I prepare, I’ve been reflecting on Psalm 27, particularly verse 13: “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (NRSV). The King James Version translates it as:  “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” The Tanakh, however, translates it in a more literal translation from the Hebrew: “Had I not believed in seeing the good of the Lord in the land of the living!”

The vastly different translations arise because the sentence is inherently incomplete. The Hebrew cuts off without finishing the thought. Some commentators believe this is because the ending of the sentence is obvious: If I had not seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living… “what would happen to me?! How would I go on?!” The writer, thought to be King David, likely left the sentence incomplete to stress its importance. The irony of this construction is that the rest of the 27th Psalm is a cry for help that David be protected by God when enemies and evil surround. King David begs God to protect him from the evils of the world and then ends the Psalm by stressing that he will see God’s goodness in the “land of the living”–the world around him.

We inherit this tension as Christians. We’re surrounded by brokenness and suffering in the world, and yet, God’s goodness shines most brightly through these same moments. To be a Christian means that you’re willing to look at this broken messy world and choose to live in it, seeking God’s presence and goodness in the midst of it all. To me, this is the fundamental calling of Christian faith which is highlighted so clearly in the Easter story. Jesus was tortured and killed by human hands and now people all over the world wear the symbol of this torture around their necks. Why do we wear and display such a gruesome image?! The cross reminds us that God’s saving power broke through torture and death to show us that even in the most horrific moments, God is at work to bring justice, love, and new life. We can barely see God’s light shining through in truly awful experiences, but we must keep the faith that God is present in the land of the living and that Easter moments of obvious goodness and joy are on the horizon.

God is present and actively in the world with us. We can choose to look around and be cynical about the world, terrified of the dangers and evil. Or we can choose to see God’s goodness around us in the midst of the chaos. Psalm 27 is clear which path we should take: Look for the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!

Text copyright © 2023 Grace Woodward. All rights reserved.