ADVENT: WAITING IN HOPE
A Devotional on Psalm 130
“Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!
Lord, hear my voice!” —Psalm 130:1–2
Advent begins where Psalm 130 begins—in the dark and in the depths.
Long before candles are lit, long before angels sing or shepherds kneel, Scripture places us in the depths. This is where hope is born. As Fleming Rutledge writes in her famous Advent sermon, “Advent begins in the dark. It is the season that refuses to sanitize the human condition.” She explains that Advent faces “the fact that the world is full of darkness and danger” and insists that Christian hope does not deny the darkness but waits for God to pierce it.
Psalm 130 refuses to look away from the shadows and the depths.
It gives us language for the place we often work hard to avoid—the place where we are not in control, where we cannot fix ourselves, where we cannot climb out on our own.
The Cry from the Depths
The Hebrew word for “depths” (מַעֲמַקִּים, ma’amaqqim) evokes the image of being pulled under by deep waters—chaos, fear, danger.
But the Psalmist’s cry is not only about hard circumstances.
It is also the cry of a sinner who has come to the end of himself.
“If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, who could stand?” (v. 3)
The depths are the result of his own sin & failure. They are the sorrows we cannot escape and the sins we cannot undo.
Advent begins here—with a people who cannot save themselves.
A world that cannot heal itself.
A heart that cannot redeem itself.
And into that honest darkness, the cry rises: “Lord, hear my voice!”
This is not a cry of despair.
This is the beginning of hope.
Where Sinners Find Mercy
The miracle of Psalm 130 is what happens next:
“But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.” (v. 4)
The holy God who sees everything also forgives everything placed into His hands.
The One who knows the worst speaks the word that restores.
This is the heart of Advent:
God comes not because we are good, but because He is.
Hope does not come from our striving.
Hope is born from the character of God—
His mercy, His compassion, His covenant love.
In the sermon material, you wrote that this Psalm shows us a God who does not leave us in the depths but descends into them.
Advent proclaims exactly that:
The God who hears our cry enters the world through a manger, walks into our suffering, bears our sins, and raises us into life.
Waiting That Looks Like Hoping
Psalm 130 shifts from crying out to waiting in hope:
“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.” (v. 5)
Nobody likes to wait for anyting in our contmeporary culture. For the Christain, the season of Advent is a season marked by waiting.
Biblical waiting is not passive. It is not resignation. It is not wasting or “killing time.”
It is an act of radical faith & trust in the Word of God.
The psalmist says his waiting is like a watchman scanning the horizon for the morning: “More than watchmen wait for the morning…” (v. 6)
What does a watchman know?
That morning will come. Even if the night feels endless, the watchman knows that the dawn will eventually break. How does he know this? Because he has seen it time & time again. The watchman knows what we sometimes forget.
Advent is the Church standing on the wall, peering into the dark—not wondering if God will come, but knowing He has come and He will come again!
Waiting is worship.
Waiting is obedience.
Waiting is hope in motion.
A Hope Big Enough for the World
Psalm 130 ends by turning outward:
“O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.” (v. 7)
The Psalm begins with one person crying from the depths and it ends with an entire nation invited to hope in the redemption of God. This is a hope that moves outward and extends from the few to the many. What God begins in the heart of one He intends for the healing of many.
“Plentiful redemption” means more than forgiveness of personal sin—it means restoration, renewal, the undoing of all darkness. As the Puritan pastor Richard Sibbes famously wrote, "There is more mercy in Christ than ther is sin in us."
Advent lifts our eyes from our own need to the longing of the whole world.
Christ has come. Christ will come again.
And in the meantime, we wait—not as those in despair, but as those standing on tiptoe, watching for the dawn.
Reflection Questions
- Where are the “depths” for you right now?
Are they circumstances, sins, disappointments, or fears? - What would it look like to bring your deepest places into the presence of God instead of hiding them?
- How is God inviting you to wait—not passively, but hopefully—during this Advent season?
- Where might God be inviting you to extend hope to others, the way the psalmist calls Israel to hope?
Prayer
Lord, out of my depths I cry to You.
Let Your mercy meet me in the places I cannot fix.
Teach me to wait with hope—
not because I feel strong,
but because You are faithful.
As watchmen wait for the morning,
help me to watch for You.
Fill my heart with the hope of Christ’s coming,
and make me a witness of Your plentiful redemption
to a world still waiting in the dark.
Amen.