Psalm 16:9-10
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
How glad are you feeling right now? Is 'rejoicing' on your
tongue? Or is your song today one of lament rather than praise? For some of us, lament is the right response to our current situation - grief, or significant suffering, or relentless exhaustion should prompt us to cry out to God and share our sorrows with him.
But however terrible our circumstances, there is one thing we CAN rejoice in today (which doesn't cancel out the sadness, but sits alongside it). We can all rejoice in the Resurrection.
David is writing hundreds of years before the first Easter.
Yet, somehow, he knows that trust in God is not only for this life. He is certain that death will not be the end for him. Looking back, we can see clearly what David only partially glimpsed - this psalm find its fulfilment in Jesus, the truly 'faithful one' who God did not abandon to the grave but who rose victorious. If we are united to Jesus, we share not only in his death - so that our sins are paid for - but in his resurrection life. We will one day all die, but we will never be abandoned to the grave. Our death will be the doorway
into resurrection life with God forever. That really is something worth rejoicing over, however difficult our circumstances. Let's thank God today for this great hope, and sing him a song of praise and rejoicing.
