1 Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.2 From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
3 For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.4 I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.
Selah
5 For you, God, have heard my vows; you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.6 Increase the days of the king’s life, his years for many generations.
7 May he be enthroned in God’s presence forever; appoint your love and faithfulness to protect him.8 Then I will ever sing in praise of your name and fulfill my vows day after day. (Psalm 61)
Feeling far away from God, nearly overcome, the psalmist cries out. “Can’t I just go home to your presence already, up to that place of refuge where you will shelter me? I cannot withstand the tempest that blows around me nor the foes that threaten: give me a place to hide, to be safe at last—a place to rest.”
All the ways that our little church community has been slammed by death and heartache within and the pressures of a world in turmoil without, I can very easily see this psalm as our own. After much weary weeping, our hearts grow faint. After much tragedy, it’s easy to feel like God is far off or that we are—to feel like we have to shout from the ends of the earth to have even a hope of crossing the divide.
Out spills the heartache and the helplessness. Out comes the admission of need—the desire to just be done with it all already. “Lead me home, Lord. Take me under your wing and care for me like my mom used to. I just haven’t got the strength today.”
The weeping, the weariness, and the wanting for home all plop out in a great exhale of exhaustion before God. And then: silence. In the Hebrew, the word “Selah.”
It’s hard to say how long the silence lasts—how long life stretches on in the in between time from the cry of dereliction and need to the response of a faithful God who loves us. Perhaps it’s supposed to last as long as Holy Saturday did. That day after the first half of our salvation on Good Friday—the exhale, but before the second half on Easter when fresh, crisp air comes rushing back in.
Holy Saturday can stretch on for ages sometimes before Easter comes—before we even know whether Easter will come. But the Gospels tell us that Easter does eventually come. God responds to the cry of dereliction. Life is made new. Jesus reaches across all the divides of time and space, even of death, to catch us up under his wings and take us home.
Finally the silence of “Selah” breaks into the heritage of those who fear the name of the Lord. It breaks into the days of the King: the days of joyfully responding to a reunion and homecoming that makes our hearts to sing in the presence of Jesus and all those we long to hold again.