Refuge and Satisfaction (or why we sing "On Eagles Wings" at funerals)

Psalm 91

“And he will raise you up on Eagle’s wings… and hold you in the palm of his hand.”

            So many of the familiar passages of scripture are familiar because of our communal songs. We’re going to sing “On Eagles Wing” today following the sermon. It’s part of our collective worship hymnody, and we sing it especially at funerals. In fact, I think we’ve sang it more often at funerals since I’ve started here than at any other time. But, as with much scripture made into song, I wonder if we use it in the way we should. Just like the more famous 23^rd Psalm, these songs seem out of place at funerals. They offer words of courage and refuge from trouble filled with promises for life. That seems odd when faced with death.

            So, let’s take a closer look at Psalm 91.

 “You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
   who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
 will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress;
   my God, in whom I trust.’
 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
   and from the deadly pestilence;
 he will cover you with his pinions,
   and under his wings you will find refuge.

            I guess the obvious question is “Refuge from what?”

            There are many possibilities: Refuge from oppression—from poverty and abuse and hate. Refuge from angst—from pain and sorrow and loss. Refuge from death—from shootings and cancer and heart disease and car crashes. Refuge can mean a lot of things.

            If you are oppressed; if you are suffering; if you are dying, there is refuge. In all things, God provides, God lifts up, BUT (and this is a big BUT) we are promised not that life will be a smooth road; instead, we are promised that God will hold us, guard us, and shepherd us, to more life. The refuge that matters is a promise of abundant life—today and forever. Life. Life. Life. Always life. Even—perhaps especially—when life is taken away from us.

            To proclaim in the words of Psalm 91 that God is our refuge and our fortress is a confession that God is a God of life; that Jesus died on a cross because God saw that life was not enough—that we are people in desperate need of better lives, of long life in the way that God views longevity. God is a god of life, who protects, who guards, who raises from the dead. But God, being bigger and wiser than the rest of us, also seems to understand that the normal rules don’t really work at the end of the day. Protecting and guarding human beings is a thankless and, ultimately, pointless job without something more permanent. Even Lazarus, raised from the dead, was raised only to die again. God needed to do something different; the rules needed to be changed. God’s refuge does not ignore death but plunges headlong through it.

            That’s right. That’s the asylum for which you are praying. You are praying, “God, take my life that I may be consecrated Lord to thee.” Another hymn for funerals; another song, along with Psalm 91, that seems so comforting for times that are difficult, but it’s more than that. Ultimately I can tell you very little in your troubles that will make things better if refuge means to you a good life with good things. For those who read these words from Psalm 91 as words of comfort when life is difficult I’d say you’re on the right track but only halfway there. These are words of comfort that point somewhere darker first. You have to run headlong through the darkness in order to find light. There’s no other way.

            …Which means that Psalm 91 probably isn’t much comfort to a worrier.

You will not fear the terror of the night,
   or the arrow that flies by day,
or the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
   or the destruction that wastes at noonday.

            Doesn’t that sound great?

            I know worriers and I know one thing for certain: To a worrier, none of that sounds great, because every word of supposed comfort only worsens the uncertainty of what may come. Worriers will worry about what will come; worriers will worry because of what didn’t happen; worriers will even worry because they don’t know what to worry about.

We are fearful people. I see expert masons, erecting walls between themselves and their perceived enemies, between people who make us feel good and people who scare us. We still fear the terror of the night. I see people preparing for the apocalypse, people buying weapon after weapon in the name of self-defense, ever-more-expensive and extensive home and auto-defense systems. We still fear of the arrow that flies by day. I see those who store away more and more in case of famine. We still have a fear of pestilence. And then there is destruction, which we author ourselves more often than not. We fear destruction more than anything.

            Either Psalm 91 is lying, or there are a lot of unfaithful people out there, or maybe something else…

            For that, we had better turn to the very end:

Those who love me, I will deliver;
   I will protect those who know my name.
When they call to me, I will answer them;
   I will be with them in trouble,
   I will rescue them and honor them.
With long life I will satisfy them,
   and show them my salvation.

            “With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.”

            Well, isn’t that the crux of the matter? Isn’t that the core question: What is long life? What will satisfy? 50 years or 60, 70 or 80? Perhaps 100?

            For everything that we have in the world today, I see less and less satisfaction. I see a lot of people selling things packaged as satisfying. I see sex marketed as a commodity in the assumption that if sex with one person is great then sex with many people must be better. I see technology that attempts to offer more and more positive feedback quicker and quicker, even if it seems like people are unhappier for it. All of it is designed to make life longer and pack more into it, but all it really seems to do is feed a beast that gets hungrier and hungrier. The key is not a life that is relatively long; the key is a life that persists through death, a life that is a product of love, because the only love-led-life is a life in Jesus. Jesus is the only one to cross that border, to put death to death, and offer something better.

            So, this is why we sing “On Eagles Wings” at funerals. God doesn’t raise us up to good lives of satisfaction; God raises us up through death into life. God is our refuge, providing not the safety and security we want, but the satisfaction we actually need. These are promises that seem like they don’t matter very much in the mess of our lives, but, ultimately, they are the only promises that matter, because, when all else is gone, there is nowhere else to turn. And God promises us something still. Refuge. Real refuge. Life into death into new life.