Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

It’s might seem a bit out of place to be receiving an injunction to repent during the Easter season, but alas, that is what we have in today’s psalm.

Read Psalm 38 here.

This is a tough psalm to digest, and much of it sounds familiar to us. We all know instinctively how our sins separate us from God’s love, making us ill and isolated.

But there is another way to read this psalm: namely, a rich account of Christ’s own love for humanity, and of the suffering and death he endured so that we might have life. We are reminded that although Jesus was sinless, he allowed himself to be ‘numbered with the transgressors’. This psalm is, in a sense, indicative of the anguish Christ assumed for us, although no sin was found in him.

By way of commentary, I would like to include a meditation for our consideration: William Byrd’s most well-known double motet, Ne Irascaris Domine, with text from Isaiah 64:9. Byrd's motet embodies both repentance and a sense of loss (in this case, for Catholicism in England), yet without losing warmth or optimism, or a kind of intangible faith that everything will be right in the end. It is a good encapsulation of what we are discussing here.

Yours in Christ,
Justin

Ne irascaris, Domine, satis
et ne ultra memineris iniquitatis nostrae.
Ecce, respice, populus tuus omnes nos.
Civitas sancti tui facta est deserta.
Sion deserta facta est, Jerusalem desolata est.

Be not angry, O Lord, still,
neither remember our iniquity for ever.
Behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.
The holy cities are a wilderness.
Sion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.