Psalm Reflection: The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle B)

“I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.” - Psalm 30

Have you ever had a near-death experience?

By the time I was in my late teens I had started to keep track of the moments I considered to be near-death experiences, and my tally marks were already in the high sixties. I admit some of them were probably cases of teen exaggeration. However, I also lived a rather careless and reckless life when I was younger, and it seemed like I had accrued a lot more narrow misses than most people my own age. As a result, I learned to appreciate life and live in the present moment, to not worry about the things I could not change in the past, and the things I could not yet know or control in the future. Nothing is promised but the present moment. Some days I live by those words better than other days, but I am grateful for that perspective.

The reality for all of us is that the moment we are born, we are dealing with the near-death experience of sin.

Romans 3:23 says that, “all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God,” and Romans 6:23 says that, “the wages of sin is death…”

We are all born in a compromised state, a state in need of redemption and salvation.

We need to be rescued.

The beauty of a life in pursuit of Jesus is that we recognize our rescuer has already come and saved us. Romans 6:23 goes on to confirm, “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We are separated from God by our sin, devoid of the gift of who He created us to be, because of the fallen nature of our world and of the human race. It is a separation humanity needed to reconcile, but could not because of sin. That is why God became man, to do what we could not do for ourselves, but what we needed in order to be brought back into right relationship with Him. He paid a debt He did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay.

The bad news of sin is very bad, but the Good News is really, incredibly and amazingly GOOD! That is why we should exclaim the words of the Psalmist daily and sing them with boldness: “I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.”

If we know and believe that, then we also have a responsibility to share that message of hope with those who do not yet recognize that they need to be rescued, as well as those who do recognize it but are searching for their salvation in the wrong places.

This week, tell someone who needs to hear it the story of how Jesus rescued you. Pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal that person to you, and to give you the boldness to share boldly and honestly. I am praying for you, please pray for me, and I will see you in the Eucharist.

Matt