Read Psalm 89:46-52. 46How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? 47Remember how short my time is! For what vanity you have created all the children of man! 48What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? 49Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David? 50Remember, O Lord, how your servants are mocked, and how I bear in my heart the insults of all the many nations, 51with which your enemies mock, O Lord, with which they mock the footsteps of your anointed. 52Blessed be the Lord forever! Amen and Amen.
Our psalm ends sounding like something that would be more likely found in Ecclesiastes. Vanity? Death? Sheol? These are the questions that the Bible is not afraid to ask, and for which only the gospel of our union with Christ has an answer. Without Christ there is no sufficient answer to how long? There is no reminding God of the frailty of our lives. What difference does any of this make without Jesus and his eternal life? His glorious purpose?
The psalmist, God’s servant and God’s anointed is cruelly mocked as his footsteps pointed to his death. Where is the Davidic Covenant with its steadfast love and faithfulness? Where is the promise of an eternal son-ship and kingdom protected by God? Again, apart from their fulfillment in Christ these questions have no answers.
But in Christ every unanswerable question finds an answer.
How long? Not forever.
How long will your wrath burn like fire? In Christ you have escaped God’s wrath.
What man can live and not see death? Anyone who trusts in Christ.
Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? The same God who delivered Christ from the grave with resurrection power.
Where is your steadfast love and faithfulness? Living in us forever as the person of the Holy Spirit.
To live is Christ provides the answer to the biggest questions in life. These answers are our hope. The rest is just the details.
You: What big questions do you wrestle with?
You in Christ: How does union with Christ answer your biggest questions?
Christ in you: What smaller questions can you simply trust God with today?
Pray: Father, life provides the questions and you provide the answers in Christ. Help me to trust you in what you have revealed so that I can trust you in what you haven’t revealed. Amen.
To Live is Christ 