Itโs the pits. The worst, most depressing situation you can imagine. We use it playfully today, exaggerating our circumstances. The saying has lost its luster.
But it was not always so.
Out of the 150 chapters in Psalms, perhaps as many as 65 to 67 of them are laments or what we can call โcomplaint psalms.โ These are songs in which the writer is disoriented because of sin, affliction, sickness, attack, or some other result of the brokenness of the world.
One of the dominant motifs of these kinds of psalms is โthe pit.โ No, itโs not a reference to a stinky armpit. Itโs much worse. The poets of the Psalms probably took this image from the passage in Genesis when Josephโs brothers threw him down a literal pit as they sought to get rid of him. In Psalms, itโs a metaphor describing Godโs lack of presence or the feeling that his hesedย (steadfast love, lovingkindness, etc.) has failed.
Hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit. (Ps. 143:7)
I am counted among those who go down to the pit. (Ps. 88:4)
Be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. (Ps. 28:1).
The biblical vision of โthe pitโ can be a powerful tool for our prayers in the midst of true despair. When your child dies. When your spouse leaves. When you are wrongfully accused. When you are marginalized. When you are mocked for your faith. When you get the news you have cancer.
The word we use at Christian Heritage to describe “the pits” is trauma. Traumaย is an emotional response to a distressing event that makes it difficult to cope or function in a healthy way. Trauma impacts your physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being. For the psalmist, the issue is rarelyย whatย happened. It’sย howย the event was experienced.
Truly, the pits. If weโre honest, most of life in this world is like this. Trauma–the pit–is all around is.
In the Psalms, itโs interesting that the remedy is almost never a reversal of the dire situation. That is sometimes true. But often the situation cannot change. Most often, however, there is a radical gift given by God: a reorientation to the reality that God is actually withย us despite appearances. Circumstances remain unchanged. But the psalmistsโandย weย with themโโcan now say, โWhom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside youโ (Ps. 73:25).
In these moments of reorientation back to God, itโs as if we read about and experience ourselves that God–though he doesnโt always bring us out–actually joins us in our pain.
Isnโt that what Christmas is all about? Christmas means that God came.ย Heย joins us in the pit. Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, took on weak, frail, death-bound flesh. He exposed himself to the harsh realities of a broken world.
But Christmas means even more than that. Jesus did not merely come to sit in the pit with us by becoming a human being. He came to enter the ultimate pitย forย us on the cross. It was there that heโwho is himself the Presence of Godโactually lost of the presence of God his Fatherย for you and me. Imagine the horror of this eternal, loving relationship being broken! And for what purpose? So that we might eternally live in the smiling, loving presence of God. Jesusโ resurrection from the pit of death is Godโs stamp of guarantee it will happen.
When we experience โthe pitsโ and feel that God has abandoned us, we can quickly realize itโs just thatโaย feeling. Now, the feeling is real. Oh, it is real! Itโs raw. It hurts. It requires lament to get through it, not around it. But make no mistake. God is doing something while weโre in that pit. Heโs Immanuel, with us, right there. And heโs drawing us to depend on him alone.
God himself is the prize. ย As Michael Card has written, โYou didnโt come to fix things, did you? You came to join me.โ Jesus is betterย than the situation being fixed. Heโs taking us to resurrection, to himself. Jesus is the fix.
For many of us, Christmastime isย the pits. Our Americanized version of Christmas is laden with artificial smiles and romantic comedy solutions. So any measure of sadness in our lives seems abnormal.ย Why are you sad? Itโs Christmas! You can probably think of your own reasons why this yearโs family gathering will feel pit-like.
Maybe your family isn’t together because of divorce. Maybe a loved one has passed. Maybe you are serving children or a family who are not together. Maybe your children are living somewhere else for a time. Maybe something else.
Whatever it is, let’s remember that this is precisely the reason Jesus came. โLong lay the world in sin and error pining,โ says the Christmas carol. Not clapping and guzzling egg nog. He came because we needed it. He came to join us in the pit, endure it with us and for us, and raise us out. One day, heโll come back again to lift us out finally and forever into his loving, face-to-face presence. That’s the hope of Christmas.
For you, if this holiday season feels like the pits, what a glorious time to recallย andย hope in this most precious truth. God is with us. He is with you.
This post originally appeared here.
