Sermon for
March 04th, 2010

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WHY BE DOWNCAST?

Psalm 42 February 28, 2010
“We should never be discouraged.” That’s a line from a favorite hymn of ours, “What a friend we have in Jesus.” Do you agree with the statement? That we should never be discouraged? The fact is that discouragement happens. It happened to the writer of Psalm 42, it happened to our Savior, and it happens to you. But on the other hand it is also true that when we look to our living God and remember his promises of faithful love, we need not ever stay discouraged. We can look forward to lifting up our voices in praise.
Psalm 42 is about the dual emotions of the soul that we all go through - the lows of despair and the highs of praise. It’s also a talking-to-your-soul psalm. The author asks his soul a question and then answers. Let’s do the same. “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Put your hope in God.”
Discouragement is what the write of Psalm 42 was dealing with. He pictured himself this way: “As the deer pants for streams of water so my soul thirsts for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Picture a deer that is worn out, possibly from being chased by hunters, or just from the heat of the day. It is thirsty and not yet had a drink. It longs for streams of water. In a similar way the writer of our psalm longed to be revived in spirit by the waters of the living God. He was depressed. “My tears have been my food day and night,” he writes. Apparently he had been living in the mountains distant from his hometown of Jerusalem. He had experienced misfortune without relief for such a long time that people were asking, “Where is your God?” What made this even harder to swallow was that he could remember the days when he was with crowds of worshipers in the temple singing happily to the Lord. But not now. The ripples of streams and the roar of waterfalls increased his despair, his sense that God had left him to die. “I say to my God, ‘Why have you forgotten me?’” “My bones suffer mortal agony.” He is discouraged and says, “My soul is downcast within me.”
Perhaps you can relate to him. You feel down in spirit, overrun by worries and troubles. What is causing it? Just the frenzied pace of life that has you scrambling all over the place so that you have become not only physically worn out, but spiritually, too. You’ve lost your job or have been unemployed now for several months. That is depressing, especially for men. Has a friendship crashed against the rocks? Has a child you gave your heart to in parenting responded with crass neglect? Are you down in spirit because at school classmates and even some teachers are taking shots at what you believe? Has misfortune struck your business? Illness touched a loved one? Are you grieving loss? Is your marriage a source of frustration? No help seems to be coming from God. Some are pointing that out to you, kind of rubbing it in and saying, “Where is your God?” Has the decline in Christian faith and activity and the mountainous incline in immorality taken the wind out of your sails?
Then there is the awareness of our sins…For some people, getting drunk or telling filthy jokes is a laughing matter; humiliating a classmate or being dishonest with the boss is something that passes over like water on a duck’s back. But not for you and me. How heavily sin weighs on us, “Against you O God have I sinned and done what is evil,” we cry. The guilt of our sins troubles our consciences, saps our strength, and causes us to sense God’s anger penetrating deeply into our bones like beads of water and threatening us with death eternal.
How deflating to have to admit that our sinful flesh daily gets the upper hand on our spirit so that “the evil I don’t want to do that I do. What a wretched man I am!”
So much of life wears us down and brings on discouragement. The writer of Psalm 42 can relate to you. And so can someone, else: it is the one who knelt in the garden of Gethsemane and said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” Jesus Christ, our Savior. On the cross, he said, “I thirst.” He heard the crowd mock him. He said to his Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus knows what it is like to be troubled in spirit, to face misfortune and feel like dying.
He is more than one who can relate to you. He is the one who uplifts your spirit, for he has saved you from your sins and lives to refresh you with his faithful love.
He has saved you from your sins. He resolutely walked to Jerusalem, despite the opposition from Herod and the rejection from the people of Jerusalem. His will to save won out over his disappointment. His love led him to the cross. He knows how heavy are your sins, for he carried them to the cross. They crushed him. He was forsaken by his Father – he died as the Savior who suffered for our sins, suffered in his body and soul the separation from God that we deserved. He thirsted because he was paying the full penalty of our sins, even the fiery torment of hell. Through it all Jesus remained full of trust in his heavenly Father, looking forward to that day when he would again give praise to his Father. That day came, when Jesus rose from the dead. On the day of his resurrection he gave praise to his Father for the victory he had achieved. He has set us free from our sins, destroyed the power of death and hell, and brought us life with God.
Jesus is your Savior and living God who has refreshment for you in every time of discouragement. Are you weary with guilt? “There is a fountain filled with blood and sinners who are washed therein lose every guilty stain.” Are you worn out with worry? He calls out to you, “Come, to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Are you burdened by grief and loss? He says, “Let not your heart be troubled. Trust in God, trust in me.” Are you dragging your feet? His apostle Peter writes, “In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade – kept in heaven for you.”
The renewing power and grace of Christ come to you in his Word and Sacrament. They are streams that refresh because they are Christ’s streams. His Word is like rain that showers the soil of your heart and causes good things to bud and bloom, faith, endurance, praise, joy, and love.
With the living Savior for you, there is no need to stay discouraged. You may speak to your soul as did the writer of our Psalm, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” Indeed you will. The Lord Jesus meets you as you are – downcast – and lifts your hands to praise Him. He is the Good shepherd who restores your soul. By his Holy Spirit he renews you as on eagle’s wings to soar in your heart with praise and thanksgiving to God. For he has washed away your sins in the blood of his righteous life and death. He has living waters to quench your every desire. His resurrection means heaven is your home. He is the reason you praise him and go about your daily life with confidence and a will and determination to go forward and carry out all the works of faith he has assigned you to do. He is the reason you sing, “When every earthly prop gives way, He then is all my hope and stay. On Christ, the solid rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.”
“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why do disturbed within? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Amen.

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