584_A forgiving, merciful redeemer (Psalm 130)

Psalm 130 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.

A few years ago a well-known author told a story about accidentally sending an email to the wrong person. It was a short note—nothing dramatic—but within minutes he felt a strange dread. He had addressed a private message to an acquaintance he barely knew, and it contained a frustrated remark about a colleague they both had in common. “I wanted to unsend it,” he said later, “but life has no ‘undo’ button.” That night he hardly slept. The next morning he wrote a long apology. He admitted his fault, asked for forgiveness, and waited—embarrassed, exposed, and completely uncertain about what would happen. He had nothing to bargain with except an honest plea for mercy.

That feeling of wishing there were a universal “undo” button touches something deep in the human experience. We all know what it means to say the wrong thing, make the wrong choice, hurt someone, or simply fall short of who we know we ought to be. Sometimes it is a private shame; other times it is a heavy, public failure. But the question is always the same: where do we turn when we’ve gone too far and we know it?

Psalm 130 begins exactly there—at the bottom of the valley, where words choke out of a burdened heart. “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” It is not a polished prayer, not a speech prepared for a religious ceremony. It is a plea from someone who has run out of excuses. The psalmist is not trying to impress God or negotiate with Him. He is simply asking to be heard: “Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!”

The psalmist knows what we prefer to deny—that if God were to mark our iniquities, if He kept a strict record of every wrong thought, every wrong motive, every selfish act, no one could stand. We couldn’t argue our case. We couldn’t present our good deeds as payment. We could never demand blessings as if we had earned them. If we truly received wages for our sins, Scripture says the wage would be death, separation from God, and a life cut off from His presence.

Jesus illustrated this perfectly in His parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. One man stood in the temple boasting about his goodness, recounting his spiritual résumé: “I fast… I tithe… I am not like other men.” The tax collector, on the other hand, stood far off and could not even lift his eyes to heaven. He beat his chest in grief and whispered one line that has echoed across centuries: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Jesus said only one of them went home justified, and it wasn’t the religious success story—it was the desperate man who knew he had nothing to offer but a cry for mercy. Our so-called righteous acts are, in the presence of a holy God, like filthy rags. God does not save the proud who parade their goodness; He forgives the humble who plead for grace.

Psalm 130 declares one of the most beautiful and freeing truths in all of Scripture: “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” Forgiveness is not God’s reluctant concession; it is His character. He delights to show mercy. David understood this joy in Psalm 32: “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity.” That blessedness is not cheap, casual, or automatic. Forgiveness cost something. It was bought, not with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, sacrificed on the cross. Every time we read that “with Him is forgiveness,” we should also remember that forgiveness was accomplished by Christ’s suffering. Mercy is free to us, but it was infinitely costly to God.

That is why forgiveness leads not to carelessness, but to reverent fear. Paul warns in Romans 2 not to take advantage of God’s kindness or treat His patience like a safety net to keep jumping into sin. God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance, not to dull our conscience. When we receive forgiveness rightly, it humbles us. It awakens gratitude. It calls forth obedience and worship. Mercy invites transformation.

The middle of the psalm turns to one of the hardest disciplines of the spiritual life: waiting. The psalmist repeats the phrase, “I wait for the Lord,” almost like a heartbeat. He is not waiting anxiously for punishment, nor waiting passively for his situation to change. He is waiting with hope—hope rooted in God’s word. “In His word I hope.” That means he is filling the silence with Scripture. He is reminding himself of God’s promises, God’s faithfulness, God’s character.

Then comes the image: “My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.” A watchman does not wonder whether morning will arrive. He is not waiting for something uncertain, but for something inevitable. The only question is when. The darkness may feel long, but dawn is sure. He scans the horizon because light always follows night.

Waiting on God is not wasting time. It is learning to lean on His promises when every other foundation shakes. It is learning to trust that He hears the cry from the depths even before the morning breaks. The waiting soul is not hopeless; it is watchful.

The psalm ends not whispering from the pit, but proclaiming from a place of confidence: “O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with Him is plentiful redemption. And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” The psalmist who began alone now invites a whole nation to hope. The forgiveness he experienced personally he now holds out publicly. With God there is not just mercy, but steadfast love—love that does not evaporate when we fail. There is not just redemption, but plentiful redemption—more grace than guilt, more cleansing than stain, more adoption than rejection.

To redeem means to buy back—to restore, to recover what was lost by paying a price. Our sins are many, but God’s redemption satisfies them completely. Christ is not a partial Savior. He does not offer probation, second chances, or spiritual loans. He offers full purchase. The psalmist’s final line is a promise, not a possibility: “He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”

That is good news for every broken heart listening today. No one is beyond grace. No one is too stained to be cleansed. No one has fallen beyond the reach of plentiful redemption.

The author who mistakenly sent that email eventually got a reply. The acquaintance wrote back, “Thank you for your honesty. I forgive you. We’ve all said things we regret. Let’s move forward.” If the forgiveness of a flawed human being can lift the weight of shame, how much more can the forgiveness of a holy and merciful redeemer restore the soul?

So what does this mean for us today—right now, not in theory, but in practice?

It means we stop running, hiding, and managing appearances before God. We come honestly, not as the Pharisee with his spiritual résumé, but as the tax collector with his hand on his chest. We confess, not excuse. We surrender, not negotiate. We acknowledge that with God there is forgiveness, steadfast love, and plentiful redemption.

It means we learn to wait. When answers are slow, we keep hoping in His word. When darkness feels long, we watch for dawn. We do not fill the waiting with anxiety or distraction, but with Scripture and trust.

It means we live in grateful obedience. Forgiveness is not permission to return to sin; it is power to walk in reverent fear. God’s kindness leads to repentance, a change of mind and direction, a new way of living.

And finally, it means we extend to others what God has extended to us. If we have received plentiful redemption, we offer plentiful grace. If we have been forgiven much, we learn to forgive much.

There is a throne of grace, and every wretched sinner is invited to approach it—not with demands, but with hope. With this God there is everything we need: forgiveness for our guilt, steadfast love for our loneliness, and redemption for our ruin. He is indeed a forgiving, merciful Redeemer. Today, let every soul that hears this run to Him in sincerity and truth.