Psalm 80:14-15
Return to us, God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted, the son you have raised up for yourself.
I doubt know about you, but I'm finding this psalm quite
surprising in places. Just when I think I know what the palmist is going to say next, he says the opposite! First we had the shock of discovering that the people's suffering comes not from their enemies, but from their God. They are the ones who turned away and broke the covenant. So surely the solution is going to be for them to repent and turn back to God. I'd expect v. 14 to say something like
'Return to God Almighty, you people! Look up to heaven and cry out for help.' In fact, it says the complete
opposite. 'Return to us, God Almighty!'
Why does God need to return, since it was the people who went away from him? I don't think the psalmist is blaming God. 'This is all your fault, God, so you'd better fix it.' In fact, he doesn't dwell on whose fault it is at all. (We only know about the people's rebellion by remembering
things we read elsewhere in the Old Testament). Rather, his focus throughout the whole psalm is on what needs to happen now. His repeated prayer is for God to 'restore' them, to 'return to' them. Not because they are the innocent party, abandoned by God. But because God is their only hope for rescue. The people are at fault, but they can't put it right for themselves. In v.18 we'll see what
they must do next. But God's part comes first. If he will not return to them, they cannot be saved. If he will not
choose to continue to be their God, they can never again enjoy the blessings of being his people. They are the root he has planted. They are the son he has raised up. Apart from him, they are nothing. Unless he looks on them with favour, they have no hope.
It's the same for us. When we sin, we turn away from God.
Yet our hope of forgiveness and restoration is not in our ability to turn back. Our ability to make things right. Our ability to try harder and do better next time. Our hope of forgiveness and rescue is in God. His mercy. His grace. If he chooses not look on us with favour, no amount of repentance on our part will make any difference.
So let's praise him today that he HAS shown us favour,
sending Jesus to die in our place. And let's be humbled by the reminder that he is, and always will be, our only hope for rescue and forgiveness.
