Previously, we beheld David crushed by the gravity of what his sin deserved—namely, death. Yet because of the purity of the Lord, he will not protest or complain; the psalmist will not raise a hand against heaven or clamor against the Holy Lord, for it is right. He is a sinner like the rest of mankind. His lifespan amounts to a vanishing mist because of his sin. And God is just in rebuking sin. With his knee bowed before the Lord, the psalmist quietly admits his depravity and submits to the just punishment. His muzzled repentance, though, does not mean he cannot cry out for help. He will not scorn God’s justice, but he can appeal to God’s mercy, and so he prays to be heard: “Hear my cry; don’t ignore my tears” (Ps. 39:12).1 “I am a sinner, so please rescue me from my transgressions.” David’s voice reaches out and his hands extend for the merciful salvation of the Lord.
The only option left to him as a fleeting sinner consigned to die is deliverance from sin, which God alone can execute. In this way, the psalmist displays the ideal of repentance unto life. He vowed to be righteous; death exposed his depravity so that obedience was beyond him, so he cried out to be saved by the mercy of God. This is the law driving one to the gospel. What we cannot do, the Lord must do for us.
In his plea for pardon, though, he flashes his driver’s license. He shows his identity card, and it is green. “I am a sojourner, a foreign alien with you, just like my fathers” (v. 12). David admits that he is not a citizen, neither native born nor naturalized. Instead, he is a resident alien, an immigrant in a foreign land. And by law, sojourning pilgrims had no inherent rights or privileges. Aliens had zero rights to be in the land and to live in it. They could not enter the realm, own property, vote, work, or do any business, except by the will of the king. The good pleasure of the king alone granted them any access and privileges. Thus, David admits that he has no right to life save by the permission of God, which the Lord can grant or renege as he pleases.
But there is more, as the psalmist is a sojourner like his fathers were, which is a reference to Abraham in Genesis 23 when he bought a tomb for Sarah. Abraham was in the promised land, but he was a foreigner without rights. To be a sojourner in the land means it is not your home. And what was true for Abraham is still the case for David, which is a profound insight, for times changed considerably from Abraham to David. By the time of David, Israel did own the land. They were at home in the promised land. David possessed holy real estate. Jerusalem was called the city of David because it was his. Now David confesses he is not at home, but, like father Abraham, he is stranger in a foreign land. What does this mean? To be an immigrant in the earthly promised land signifies that you are looking for a better land, a heavenly one, whose builder is God.
The psalmist mourns the brevity of his life as a sinner, and he confesses to being a stranger on planet earth who survives at the pleasure of the King. This spells nothing less than a hope in heaven. Thus, at the heart of his psalm, he professes his hope: “O Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you” (v. 7). His depravity is certain; he cannot be righteous. Mortality is closing in on him quickly, and he is not at home on earth. Therefore, his hope falls on the only anchor, the Lord and his mercy to save from the wages of sin. His believing hope looks to a life beyond this crumbling and mortal age. He hopes for life with God in the undying lands above that are untouched by sin. The only cure for the psalmist in this sin-cursed world of death is resurrection in the age to come. And so the psalmist’s faith beholds in hope the heavenly land of the Lord won by the grace of God.
Before he dies, though, he lodges one more request in verse 13: “Look away from me, so I may smile before I depart.” At first, this strikes us as despair. To ask God to leave him alone, to go away, so that he can have some cheer before death sounds depressing. Yet this line is not so sullen. Rather, this looking away refers to the judicial, condemning gaze of holiness. It is the Lord peering into your naked soul to lay bare all your depravity and unworthiness. To turn away the heat of holiness is a simple plea for mercy. It asks for grace so that life is not so miserable before death.
Basically, he closes this psalm by requesting some of the simple pleasures of life. “Let me see some happy times before the grave. May I smile some during this brief life until I pass on and am no more on earth.” His hope is in God; he waits for the Lord to bring him home through death. But until he vanishes, may the grace of the Lord grant him some cheer along the way.
And this is a beautiful pilgrim prayer. “In you, Lord, I hope in heaven, but as long as you have me here, please give me a little happiness.” This heavenly minded psalm though, also impresses on us the burden of mortality. All flesh is a breath. Human life is fleeting and ephemeral. Death is the great veil over all the children of Adam and Eve. We know that we will perish, and even though we attempt to suppress it, we understand that our brevity is the curse for sin. We die because we are sinners. And one of the reasons mortality bothers us so is because we also sense our value. Life is precious. God fashioned us in His pricey image. We will go to extremes to save a life; we recoil at putting a monetary price on a human life. How can God create us with so much value, and then we die in the blink of an eye like a mayfly?
As Ecclesiastes says, God put eternity in our hearts, but we perish as an insect. Our created value and ephemeral existence clash within us. Our need for righteousness but complete inability to do it burns in our minds. And amid this toxic tension, there is only one right thing to do—to cry out for mercy, to reach out toward Christ. For how does our sinful paradox find resolution? How can we obtain the infinite destiny for which we were created? By the death of Christ to earn for us everlasting life. If we are foreigners on earth, how do we reach a heavenly home? The righteousness of Jesus that merits for us citizenship in glory. Like the psalmist, our only hope lies in God, and our hope is a living one because Christ died, rose again, and is alive forevermore.
To confess that we are sojourners in this world is to call Jesus Christ your home, now and forevermore. His blood saved us from our sins, and his life delivers from death unto resurrection. Thus, may our faith be in Christ and his salvation, all of mercy. Let us put our hope in Jesus in life, in death, and forever. And may the pilgrim spirit of this psalm always be ours. Life is fleeting because death entered the world through sin. We perish because we are felons. Yet Jesus obtained for us what the first Adam forfeited, everlasting life. And when you put your faith and hope in Christ, Jesus never disappoints. He will surely do in you and for you all that he has promised, all that he earned on the cross.
Finally, as we hope in Christ, as we wait on the Lord, may God grant us the mercy to cheer us along the way. The scowl of God’s justice has been transformed into the smile of his love in Christ. Thus, may the Lord smile upon us during the harsh pilgrimage of this fallen world. We need not riches or fame but just a few happy days sprinkled through life. Indeed, when the Lord does give us cheerful moments, let us not take them for granted. Praise the Lord for common blessings of life, for food, family, and friends, as these little gifts make our waiting for the resurrection easier, more grateful, and more Christlike. So let us give thanks to the Father for the mercy of Christ unto eternal life. May we hope in Christ with joy and let us serve him until he brings us home, into the very bosom of Christ.
Note
- All translations mine.
©Zach Keele. All Rights Reserved.
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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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