In our pilot episode on Psalm 30, the poetry of its verses disclosed David’s close brush with death. Due to the infection of his affluence, his faith stumbled, and God disciplined him. From this ordeal, the psalmist learns a lesson that he wants to share with others. He was delivered from the pit, but he wants the saints to sing. He rallies the choir of the devoted: “Sing praise to the Lord; Give thanks for the memory of His Holiness.” But what is this lesson about? Well, it is that hardship is good for our faith. Total ease corrupts and poisons spiritual health. Suffering-free serenity makes us forget God and wander off down unbelieving paths. This is a truth we know to be true, but we do not want it to be so. We have plenty of sayings admitting it: No pain, no gain. Tough times make tough people; soft times yield soft people. Just as being a couch-potato is horrible for the body, so spiritual comfort fattens our faith. Anxiety, trouble, hardship, uncertainty, vulnerability—this is the gym that gives faith fitness.

Now, this lesson is not explicitly stated, but it is clearly present as the psalmist imparts encouragement to persevere through the painful moments. Why should the saints sing with the psalmist? Because “God’s anger lasts a moment, but his favor for a lifetime” (v. 5). The tears of our toil drench the night, but the joyful sunrise always comes. The Lord’s anger and our weeping identify the times of suffering and discipline. Corrective hardship that refines faith—this flows from Yahweh’s displeasure of our sins, and it unleashes many tears in us.

But what is our tendency as we toss and turn amid the weeping of insomnia? We think it will last forever. The pain drags on endlessly. We despair that the hardship will never end, and we forget about the many blessings we have. The fifteen minutes of agony erase the six months of good times, which dissipates our gratitude. We get lost in the tears and lose all appreciation for the piles of God’s gifts. We perceive the hard times as enduring endlessly, while the joyful ones shrink to a few seconds. Thus, the psalmist corrects us; it is the other way around. In truth, the Lord’s favor extends for a lifetime, while his displeasure is brief. Favor measures at one hundred years, pain at ten minutes.

Furthermore, the image of a happy sunrise is a regular metaphor for resurrection. The psalmist’s sickness struck him like the night of death, so the morning joy smells of resurrection. David, then, is correcting our sense of timing in order to set it to God’s clock. We experience time in one way and God in another, and the Lord’s timing is right. Like a broken clock, we are accurate once a day, but the Lord’s clock never misses a second. Yes, the Lord’s hard providences hurt, but they are brief compared to his loving favor.

And when God does bring the sunrise, it is glorious (v. 11). Yahweh changed the psalmist’s lamentation into dancing; he took off the sackcloth of discomfort and girded him with robes of gladness. When you are working outside, the dirtier you get, the better getting clean feels. After an arduous hike, the can of beans that you normally do not care for tastes like fine dining. Thus, the bitter night of tears makes the morning mercy of God all the sweeter. The torturous camel hair shirt is exchanged for soft velvet. The deeper David fell into the pit of death, the greater was his restoration to life. So, the Lord’s rescue of him has made the psalmist dance. The gladness puts music in his feet; it gives him the rhythm.

And as it is with pure joy, it ought to be shared. The psalmist invites us to join his dance. He will sing and not be silent, so we are to harmonize with him. Our thankful voices ought to accompany his, and our following the happy lead of the psalmist impresses upon us the truth of his lesson—namely, the painful seasons of God’s displeasure are tiny compared to ages of his gracious favor. The toil of discipline feels endless, but in reality, it is brief in light of the Lord’s loving gifts of joy. And with this invaluable truth set before our hearts, clarity is offered for how this psalm is suitable for temple dedication.

In the Old Testament, the general understanding was that life during the week was toilsome and tearful. But you came to the temple as an oasis of joy with God. Temple-time registered as blessed security, but outside, death prowled like a hungry predator. And obviously, the week was long and the Sabbath brief; six beats one all day long. So also for us; we sweat with anxiety for 144 hours and get one to two hours of worship. The big numbers favor hardship, and math is not wrong. In the temple, however, we step into the realm of God, and he dwells within eternity. The temple is a foretaste of heaven, an appetizer of resurrection. The value of one hour of worship is infinite. And the infinite trumps all other numbers. As a temple dedication song, this psalm teaches that the temple embodies the truth that God’s wrath is for a moment, but his favor is for a lifetime, even eternal life.

And this same dynamic finds its deepest expression in the work of our Savior. For, how long was our Lord’s suffering? This can be counted in a few different ways. In terms of his humiliation, this commenced with his birth until his death. We do not know how old Jesus was, but he was in his thirties. A thirty-year-plus life span is not long. Then, there was his ministry when he was actively opposed and ridiculed—that clocked in somewhere between three to five years, shorter than a one-term president. Jesus endured three days in the grave, having literally died. And Christ was tormented for three hours on the cross. A thirty-year miserable life, three years of agonizing ministry, three days of being dead, and three hours of intense wrath. No matter how you count it, this is not very long. Our Lord’s abject humiliation and suffering were brief.

What did his pilgrimage of pain gain, however? By his death, Jesus won the resurrection. He died, but now, Jesus holds the keys of death, as the First and the Last, as the One alive forevermore. The God-forsaken curse extended between noon and three, but the value of that wrath was infinite. By the moments of his suffering, Jesus performed an endless redemption. Christ was one, but he justified many. His tribulation was short, but it paid for the countless sins of the innumerable host of God’s elect. We sin over and over again. For the rebellion of our sins, we deserve an eternity of wrath. But, by the one act of Christ, by the short agony of Jesus, he performed your perfect atonement, finished and forever.

By coming to the temple in the Old Testament, and by attending worship in the New Testament, we enter the work of Christ by faith, who made God’s wrath brief and his gracious favor everlasting. After a week of stressful tears, Jesus turns our sadness into dancing. In worship, we rejoice that Christ has made our happy salvation endless and our trials brief. Our earthly pilgrimage is but a moment; the nights of weeping do not last. Sure, the hardship is real, and it is for our good. By difficult toils of life, we are protected from the dangers of ease. The Lord exercises our faith to make it fit by his stressful providence. The Father disciplines those he loves for our blessing.

These refining hardships, though, are comparatively brief. Life has much evil to mourn, but it contains much good to be thankful for. The span of life’s toil is momentary compared to the glory that Christ’s salvation grants us. The scary hour of death will come, but these are minutes of angst that give way to the sunrise of the resurrection. Thus, Psalm 30 teaches us an invaluable lesson. Christ’s cross was brief for our everlasting redemption. The toils of life are good for our spiritual health, but these refining pains are not long-lasting. Rather, every Lord’s Day, he turns our mourning into dancing. And in death, Jesus ushers us into the eternal sunrise of his joy. Therefore, may we not stumble in the seasons of ease, and may we have teachable spirits amid troubles. And having the joy of Christ, let us sing praise to our God and not be silent.

©Zach Keele. All Rights Reserved.

You can find the whole series here.

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Post authored by:

• Zach Keele

  

  Rev. Zachary Keele grew up on a ranch in a small town named Crawford, Colorado. He attended Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and received his Master of Divinity from Westminster Seminary California. He has served as the pastor of Escondido OPC since 2006.

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