Baptismal meditation

Psalm 42:5: Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.

Psalm 42 is a lament. The Psalmist is a deer in the wilderness panting for God. He is separated from God and wonders if he will ever be in God’s presence again. His soul is thirsty and he longs for the God who alone can refresh him. He doesn’t celebrate any feasts, offers no morning and evening sacrifice, but instead feeds day and night on tears, his only sacrifice. God seems to have forgotten him and left him a heap of broken bones. He is attacked by an ungodly nation and assaulted by deceitful and unjust men, mockers who ask “Where is your God?”

Twice in the Psalm, this refrain appears: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?” And the lament continues into the following Psalm, which ends on the same note: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?”

It is a lament in a time of darkness and near despair. It is also a pep talk.

The Psalmist remembers, and then remembers some other things, and then remembers some more. He reminds himself of the Lord and His work. He remembers that the Lord is a Rock. He reminds himself that the Lord is with him day and night in the midst of his tears. He says to his downcast, disquieted soul, “Hope in God.” And again, “Hope in God.” Yet again, “Hope in God.”

He is renewed in the hope that God will transform the threats that make him fearful and desperate into yet another occasion for worship: “Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.” Someday, when other enemies surround him, he will remember this deliverance and hope in God.

We might say that the Psalmist reminds himself of his baptism. Baptism is the seal of the God who is a water brook, the God who slakes our thirst, the Rock of Israel who gave water in the wilderness. Baptism is a promise in water that God will never leave us to dry up in the desert. Baptism is the currency of the marketplace where God offers waters to everyone who thirsts. Hope in baptism is hope in God, the God whose life bursts out always and again like a flower springing from dry ground.