I often hear that the proper response to God’s grace is gratitude. This is true, as far as it goes, but seems a bit passive. Worse, in human beings, gratitude often turns to resentment at the humiliation caused by disproportionate, un-pay-backable gift-giving. So I often wonder if we can say more.
In the Psalms, as we have already seen, the laments and hymns of praise have a close relationship to each other. The laments often end with a promise to praise God for deliverance, once it comes. And hymns often refer back to the calamity whose termination and redemption have led the singer of the psalm to praise. Psalm 30 fits the latter category. It reminds the hearer that the composer has experienced tragedy (verses 2, 7 [Hebrew 3, 8]) and has sought Yhwh’s help (verses 2-3, 11-12 [Hebrew 3-4, 12-13]). God has aided him or her in unspecified ways. Hence the hymn of praise itself.
But today I am struck by the psalm’s comment on the whole experience of redemption: “For his anger lasts a moment, his favor is lifelong. In the evening weeping takes up lodging, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” The faith of the psalmist is not simply a matter of gratitude for services rendered. It is a deep-seated, radical, existentially transformative trust in the basic character of God as one who seeks to extend mercy to all. This God rescues those who ask from death itself, allowing not even the most powerful force in the universe to defeat humanity. This God works for a culture of respect (“my foes have not rejoiced over me”). And this God forms a community who testify to their own experiences of grace. It’s not just gratitude in play here. It’s deeper than that.
In exploring the theme of grace, a theme fundamental to Christian understanding of the human relationship with the divine, we must come to know and feel the deep sense of responsibility it imposes on us. As the old hymn says, “O to grace, how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.” Constrained. Debtor. To be. But to be free of that debt is to have nothing at all. This too is something for which to be grateful, and so much more.