Read Psalm 130.
Have you ever been in the ocean and tried to get someone’s attention on the beach? If we were outside of my house in Elizabethtown and I was 30 yards away from you, it would be no problem, yet at the beach 30 yards might as well be 30 miles. It is easy to forget how loud the wind and the waves can be and add to that the general distractions of the beach and it is impossible to communicate with someone in the water without jumping up and down and flailing your arms like a goofball.
I imagine this must be how the author feels when crying out to the Lord from the “depths.” A distance that is all too familiar when I think of how I feel when the truth of my sin is juxtaposed with the holiness of God (v 1-2). It is a cry that would fall on deaf ears were it not for the mercy and grace that Lord so graciously provides (v 3-4).
In the second half of the psalm we see the author describing how he would wait for the Lord, who is his hope and the hope of Israel. He compares this waiting to a watchman waiting for morning (v 5-6). A watchman would be out in the dark of night keeping an eye out for invaders or anything amiss. A night watch is hard because our internal clocks want to sleep. In the long, still night I’m sure a watchman was waiting for the morning as it meant he could rest. I know when I worked third shift there was nothing more I wanted than to see the sun rise so I could go home.
The author knows that while the night might be dark and full of terrors, the light of day washes all that away. In the same way, God’s people might be dark and full of sin, the Lord, through the blood of the Lamb, will come and wash all that away.
VC Devotionals 