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Alleluia Songs of Advent -Thursday December 21

Alleluia Songs of Advent

A Meditation on Psalm 50

"Wait until your father gets home!" was the threat we often heard from mom growing up. In that threat was the promise that whatever I had done would be revisited when my dad got home from work. Often we were instructed to wait in our room and think about what we had done. Mom always said that dad was a "heavy walker." I remember the sound of his slow deliberate steps. You could hear the heaviness from a long day and heaviness from the need to have “the talk” with his favorite child. For me, waiting in my room and thinking about what I had done was bad enough, but contemplating how I might have disappointed my dad was too much to bear. Usually I was in tears before he made it to my door. The “talk” began with a discussion of my awareness and understanding of the wrong I had committed. Depending on the wrong, there was an instruction to apologize or accept some kind punishment. But, at the end of this ritual, without fail, dad shared his and my mom's love for me.

Psalm 50, the Psalm appointed for today, reminds us that even the "faithful ones" that Yahweh gathers can get caught up in sacrificing the wrong things and forget God and all the wonderful things God has done. There is heaviness in this psalm, yet, there is also the promise of health and wholeness that comes from life with God. As we draw closer to the arrival of the Holy Child, may we remember that, even with the heaviness of the world, God is walking straight toward us ready to love us and be loved by us.

 

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