The Psalm For 2020
By: Troy Hochstetler
Tags: Psalms, Advent, 2020

The house across the street is starting to feel forgotten. As I write, there are 2 picnic tables in the front yard sitting in the grass near the sidewalk. They’ve been there for several weeks. Just dumped there. Picnic tables in the front yard.

The back deck is sagging. The paint chipping. The landscaping is overgrown and unkempt — weeds everywhere.

If those walls could talk I imagine they’d like to have a word with the owner — do you see what is happening here? Are you even paying attention?

But the owner lives in Texas. So, he is not paying attention and he does not see. While the weeds grow and the paint chips and the random picnic tables sit in the front yard and the house feels abandoned he is absent. He doesn’t notice.

At least I think he must not notice because he’s not doing anything about it. Who knows if you can trust the HOA folks but sometimes they claim they say something to the owner. I guess worse than not noticing would be noticing but not caring enough to act.

2020 feels like that. It feels lost, abandoned, unnoticed. Do I even need to recount the ways?

280k (and counting) people have died in our country because of a virus — many of those 280k have died without the presence of their families — and the only physical connection with the dying at the time of their death was the hand of a nurse holding a tablet so that family could be virtually present.

A sudden and extended season of economic struggle. Record high unemployment claims, joblessness, evictions, food insecurity. In the midst of all of this loss, the richest Americans saw their wealth exponentially increase.

A late spring and summer marked by protest because people feel like their lives are valued less based upon the color of their skin and who believe that the only way to be heard is to show up en masse. Other people want to argue with the feeling those protesters are expressing so they protested the protest. Stores looted, buildings on fire.

A campaign that seemed to last forever and an election that may just last forever. While people want to argue about who won we don’t have to take it to the courts to understand the clear result: polarized and divided families, communities and country.

We can’t forget the softer side of all of this. Schools forced to close and then reopen in spurts, students’ lost seasons; the social isolation of it all, the toll on mental health, the missed Thanksgiving and the potential of the missed Christmas.

Does anyone notice? Is the owner of this whole thing an absentee landlord? Must be. Must not be able to see any of it. Worse yet — maybe He does know but He doesn’t care enough to do anything about it.

It’s in these abandoned and forsaken times that Psalm 80 really speaks:

Hear us, Shepherd of Israel,

you who lead Joseph like a flock.

You who sit enthroned between the cherubim,

shine forth 2 before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh.

Awaken your might;

come and save us. 3 Restore us, O God;

make your face shine on us,

that we may be saved. 4 How long, Lord God Almighty,

will your anger smolder

against the prayers of your people?

5 You have fed them with the bread of tears;

you have made them drink tears by the bowlful.

6 You have made us an object of derision[b] to our neighbors,

and our enemies mock us. 7 Restore us, God Almighty;

make your face shine on us,

that we may be saved. 8 You transplanted a vine from Egypt;

you drove out the nations and planted it.

9 You cleared the ground for it,

and it took root and filled the land.

10 The mountains were covered with its shade,

the mighty cedars with its branches.

11 Its branches reached as far as the Sea,[c]

its shoots as far as the River.[d] 12 Why have you broken down its walls

so that all who pass by pick its grapes?

13 Boars from the forest ravage it,

and insects from the fields feed on it.

14 Return to us, God Almighty!

Look down from heaven and see!

Watch over this vine,

15 the root your right hand has planted,

the son[e] you have raised up for yourself. 16 Your vine is cut down, it is burned with fire;

at your rebuke your people perish.

17 Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,

the son of man you have raised up for yourself.

18 Then we will not turn away from you;

revive us, and we will call on your name. 19 Restore us, Lord God Almighty;

make your face shine on us,

that we may be saved.

The Psalmist shifts from hope to lament to direct questioning to accusation to pleading and most everything in between. The Psalmist feels all of these things and says them to God. And these words — this written prayer — ended up in the bible and are now on your lips for people like you and me to pray.

The message throughout the psalm is that it’s hard, that it has gone wrong, that people are suffering, and that God isn’t doing anything about it and that makes them feel a certain way.

At one time they were like a vine. God noticed them. Had eyes on them. Saw their struggle and transplanted that vine from Egypt and planted it himself. God didn’t stop. He nurtured them — the psalmist says He cleared the ground — and made it so that vine could spread.

And it did. That vine spread so much that it was like the weeds taking over my neighbors yard. You couldn’t stop it. Not even with roundup because I’ve tried.

The vine covered the whole mountainside with its shade. That vine stretched all the way to the Red Sea and all the way to the Jordan River — which was the Psalmists way of saying it covered their whole world. It was everywhere.

It was something. What started as a little shoot struggling in Egypt had blossomed into this bountiful vine. God did it. He payed attention. He nurtured them.

Now, tragically, that same vine is picked over. It’s unprotected and exposed. Boars are rooting around in it and destroying it; insects are feasting on it. That vine is getting bloody eaten alive and nobody is doing anything about it.

So, not surprisingly, a once vibrant, strong, large and valuable vine is now cut down. Fuel for the fire.

Is that not a metaphor for this year? You remember all the way back to January 2020. First month of the first year of a new decade. Remember that? Remember how optimistic it was? How the future looked good? Remember how strong you were? Remember all that? Man, it was good.

Now, do you remember how all of that is on fire? It’s gone.

And no one notices. No one is doing anything about it.

And now you’re speaking the language of the psalms. But this guy doesn’t take his complaint and turn it into a protest for earthly authorities — would you look at the guts on this guy — he takes these words and he protests God.

Check the verbs. He’s not asking. He’s demanding. “Hear us!” — as if God is deaf. “Wake up!” — as if God is asleep. “Come back!” — because it feels like he left. “Watch over us!” — like He’s a deadbeat Dad too busy with other things to notice His kids are on fire.

These are the words of the forgotten. This is the language of the abandoned. You only say stuff like this when you feel unseen.

Maybe that’s why the verb that keeps getting mentioned — the one that the Psalmist really wants to say to God — is “restore us!” It’s the Hebrew word shub and it literally means to turn back; to re-turn. Here, in Psalm 80, it could be more literally translated “turn toward us.” Or maybe even more loosely “pay attention!” or “notice us!”

He says it three times. Restore us! Restore us! Restore us, Lord God Almighty. Make your face to shine on us and we’ll be saved.

That’s it — maybe that’s the difference — the psalmist still has the belief that if God would turn back toward us and see us — and I mean really see us — then God would save us.

That image, after all, does reverberate throughout the whole of Scripture — God heartbreakingly calling out ‘where are you’ to Adam and Eve in the Garden; God seeing and hearing the cries of His people in Egypt and on and on and on.

It’s the belief that if God gets his eyes on you — if His face shines on you — and you get your eyes on Him — in that encounter you’re saved.

I think we think of God seeing us like we all see each other these days — from a distance and through a screen. That’s not how the Psalmist was thinking about God seeing us. He was thinking more like how you see your child when they’re sad — how you see their shoulders lower and how their lip trembles. How they do that thing with their hand when they’re nervous.

You can’t see that stuff from a distance. You can only see that stuff when you turn toward them and you’re present to them and they’re present with you.

That’s restoration. It’s God’s turning toward you and you turning toward Him. And the two of you seeing each other.

I have no idea what this Advent feels like for you but I’m guessing it might feel like the paint is chipping, deck is sagging, there are freaking picnic tables in the front yard — the vine is burning and no one cares. No one notices. No one sees that pain. Nobody is doing anything about it.

And like the Psalmist says: it makes you cry so much that it’s like you’re eating and drinking tears.

Would you do me a favor? Would you take it up with God? Would you call Him out? Would you say things like “listen to me!” and “wake up!” and “come back!” Say that stuff. Say it to God.

And please say “get your eyes on me!”

And, please, please, please make sure you get your eyes on Him. As He turns toward you please turn toward God and get a good look.

You’re both present with each other now. You just might find yourself restored. Saved.