How quickly can good things go bad? And when they turn, how quickly can our confidence fail with them? It might be in the smallest moment when something that seemed okay suddenly changes, and with that change, our entire mood, energy, and motivation for the steps ahead. Just a few days ago I was flying form Cincinnati to Washington DC via Chicago airport; I had managed to even score an upgrade to buisness class for the two flights (even though they where an hour each); and I remember how chuffed I felt with myself as I was able to board the plane first; sit down in my comfy chair and then watch as everyone else filled past me to get to the rest of their seats and fight over bags. I felt on top of the world with one of those weird feelings as if I had somehow made it, even though I had done nothing. Yet, how quickly that feeling slowly began to fade, as the plane sat on the runway and I found myself worrying about making my connecting flight – the type of seat you sit on does nothing to affect the many factors at play, making sure planes run on time. Yet, we sat on the runway and then ended up back at the airbridge to get more fuel to be able to avoid bad weather – that feeling of triumph soon disappeared. Eventually, we ended up in the air, flying over the city that I had just left in 30-degree weather, heading towards Chicago airport.

How quickly can things go bad? How quickly can the triumph of something fade to agony – in the blink of a text message? There as I charged off the plane to head straight to the gate that the airline had just sent me a message I was to fly from I was meet wiht another message almost immediately that I had missed my connection but not to worry because I had been booked onto a different route to get me there – the problem was it was the next morning, 9 hours away. I had no idea what to do about my bags, accommodation, or who to talk to. Let’s say what started as a triumph in a first class experience ended up in the misery of me sitting through the night in an airport terminal that felt like -2 degrees waiting for security to open again, to queue for an hour, to get onto a flight back to the city I had just left, to catch a connection there to DC, and eventually arrive at 1400 the next day; nearly 18 hours later than I had hoped! What had begun to feel like a triumph soon became agony, as I just wanted it to be over so I could be where I was meant to be.

I felt agony fall from triumph at the mere inconvenience of travel, and my mood that night, sitting there, was not one of thankfulness as I pondered what I was suffering, and yet God has a way of often humbling us. As I was sitting there, a rather dishevelled man came alongside me and asked if he could use the seat. I nodded in agreement without paying much attention, and then, after a few minutes, he asked me whether I knew where he would have to go when all the desks opened. As the conversation went further, I found out he was flying for the first time since 1985 and was heading down to Florida to bury his father. Suddenly, the shallowness of my own discomfort faded as I pondered what he must have felt in that moment. And that is the point here, because what we see from this passage is that David’s trouble is much deeper than inconvenience or loss; and Christ’s road in the week ahead will be much deeper still. My triumph led me to the agony of inconvenience, but David’s words here help us feel the reality of the Cross, as Christ moves from the joy of a shallow Crowd into suffering, rejection, and agony at the cross.

Context: Palm Sunday and the road into suffering (Psalm 31:9–16)

Palm Sunday is, for me, one of the strangest days in the Christian year, as we begin to process the complexity of Easter by remembering the shallowness of the Crowds and their praise as Christ enters Jerusalem. Yet, complexity is exactly what Easter is all about – this is a moment of Joy and celebration as Christ comes to the pinnacle of his earthly mission and call, the problem is the crowd, and the disciples don’t yet understand that the ultimate triumph will come through Christ’s agony upon the Cross as the Praise, Palms, and processions move swiftly towards betrayal, mockery, brutality and the Cross. This is a day to hold in tension the complexity of the triumph of Easter, and not to allow ourselves to get lost in the niceness of our traditions, whether it’s Palm crosses or nice traditions that have developed in our churches. Psalm 31 helps us hold together the tension of the triumph that is to come, and invites us, in the week ahead, to bring all that weighs us down with us upon the Road of the Cross and to know the Joy of Hope that comes from the cross in every situation.

More beautifully still, in the words of David in this Psalm, and all he feels and begins to process, we are being given the very language and imagery to both understand all that Christ must have felt as he entered the city on the colt. What many of us feel as we exist in the complexity of our faith and try to process the chaos of the world we live in through our confidence in Christ. Psalm 31 here helps us not just to understand Jesus as the King who enters, but as the man of Sorrow who remains steadfast on his course towards rejection and death, so that we might reject death by faith and live.

This section of Psalm 31 gives us three stages to help us understand the agony of triumph that Palm Sunday begins, and to think seriously about Easter and our own faith as we stand before God with the cross before us. David shows us the honesty of real trouble, the beauty of stubborn trust, and the hope of a future held in God’s hands. But more than that, these words carry us to Christ. On Palm Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem as the King, yes, but also as the Man of Sorrows, walking straight towards rejection, agony, and the cross. In him we see the fullest meaning of this Psalm, because he enters into trouble more deeply than David ever could, and yet entrusts himself perfectly to the Father. And because the road of Palm Sunday leads through Good Friday to Easter morning, sorrow and suffering are not the end of the story. The cross is real, the agony is real, but so too is the victory, and so too is the hope.

1. The pain of the faithful is real before God (Psalm 31:9–13)

Trouble touches the whole person (Psalm 31:9–10)

Sometimes, one of the most dangerous ideas in the Christian faith is how we think we have to present ourselves and our relationship with God. It is like when we watch a TV interview with someone successful in business, and they describe how at every point they made the right decision about what they were facing and had complete confidence in themselves, their abilities and their choices – we think our faith has to be like that. Then when we read through the bible and meet the men and women that God used we somehow convince ourselves that they are a level above us, their faith deeper, their commitment greater, and their ability to stumble and sin less – we think their life of faith and the faith that gives them life is somehow higher or more perfect; we put ourselves down so much because we build up the characters in the bible, and then we are meet with their honestly before God.

I often wonder what it must have been like to meet King David, how he must have appeared in both his majesty, wisdom, and depth of faith – he would have been one of those men’s who faith and love of God just oozed out of him, someone who left us wanting to be be better in our own walk and at the same time thinking – I could never have faith like that. Yet, we would never have known the struggle that went on underneath the surface as David moved from deeply faithful to deeply faithful; as he moved from the man who wrote “ The Lord is my Shepherd – and meant it, to arranging the murder of Uriah. In the people of the Bible, we are never given the picture of a faith that is beyond us without the help of God the Holy Spirit, nor do we ever see the reality of the world we live in, and its effects on God’s people – here with King David is no different. He is not speaking in some vague spiritual way that is abstract from the reality he is in: he speaks from the heart in a way that is honest about life and before God. As he asks God for Mercy, he does so with complete honesty before God and us, and in doing so, he invites us to the same honesty with ourselves, one another, and, more importantly, God. Do you feel the reality of what David is feeling as he describes how it affects every part of him: “tears blur my eyes, my body and soul are withering away;”

David is describing embodied Anguish in a brutally honest way. Why? because that is life, and the bible will never be dishonest with us about it. Relationship with God does not promise an easy life, but it does offer promises that help us make sense of life. David, as a believer here, might be at the end of his rope with all that he is facing and feeling; his spirit may be empty, and his resources drained as his body and mind feel the weight of worry – something we can all relate to! He feels it, yet – he is still turning to God! Why? Because by faith he knows there is nowhere else to turn, that when all else fails, there is always one who is faithful. It might not be easy to turn, but to turn is faith nonetheless, faith that invites us to bring to God the same worries and wonders of our lives, the prayers we don’t have the words to say, the doubts we wrestle with. Palm Sunday is joyful in how we mark it and in the scenes we see. Still, it’s just that it is underpinned by anguish – to celebrate by acknowledging that in a few moments Jesus would be in the Garden praying through drops of Blood, would be to ignore that he enters Jerusalem and the Suffering servant who knows the weight of what lies ahead. Yet, it is faithful to it so that we might be able to bring the weight of our suffering, feeling, worry and doubt – and to do so knowing that amid them we can know the Joy of Christ.

Trouble isolates and unmasks the world (Psalm 31:11–13)

David is in a season of distress as he tries to respond to the plots and conspiracies of an enemy he is unsure of, and this next section of verses shows us how lonely he feels. The NLT puts it beautifully: “I am ignored as if I were dead, like a broken pot” (12). As in he feels like someone who has no use to anyone, and no support from anyone – we might not have ever felt like “a corpse in the grace” or as as someone whom people want to “discard like a broken dish in the trash” – but we have felt alone, we have been in crowds and felt as if there was no one else there, found ourselves looking outwards and facing the thought that if the people around us knew, they would not want us to be there. That is what worry does, and I think sometimes we come to Palm Sunday and forget the reality of what Christ was carrying; to him, how empty the praise of the crowd must have felt, as empty and heavy as David’s words here. How lonely Christ has felt, as he alone knew the road that was ahead, because suffering is never just inward; it’s not something that we can carry alone and hide from those around us. What we feel and experience inwardly will affect how we interact with the world, and how the world interacts with us; when the weight of the world weighs us down, it affects not just our joy, but our relationships as they are placed under strain, and perhaps even our reputation; as people keep their distance from us for fear of us. That is often what happens when we try to carry things on our own strength.

Verse 13 sharpens the picture here as David describes all the voices that speak around him and about him, yet never to him – “the street-talk gossip” that is driving him insane. We know in the Kingdom of God that weakness is strength and dependence on one another and God is a fruit of love and the work of the Spirit in us. Yet, we often forget that our world, our culture, our moment does not know what to do with weakness. We ignore death and talk about people being unalived, and we often avoid those who we think might be facing something, even when they have not told us, because we don’t know how to process it, or we don’t want the discomfort to affect our lives. Thus, we become people who describe everything as fine and do community without depth because we have allowed the world to shape how we view weakness, and being honest about it. I love the words of Darren Mulligan:

“If I didn’t know what it feels like to be broken
, then how would I know what it feels like to be whole
? If I didn’t know what it feels like to be rejected
, then I wouldn’t know the joy of coming home
. Maybe it’s okay if I’m not okay”

This Psalm is a shocking contrast to the moment we are in, as the city roars praises to God and thanks to Jesus, who enters on the colt. It feels shocking to think of the silence that will soon come. Yet, imagine you were entering the narrative of Holy Week for the first time – would you ever expect to go from a chorus of Praise – “Hosanna” – to the whispers of gossip against Christ, the political manoeuvring, the sudden fear of him, his abandonment and public disgrace? How quickly things can change in a moment, and yet how beautiful the picture of love and Salvation is that Jesus would willingly choose this path and walk it for our salvation. Easter invites us to trust in a God who knows the reality of whatever we find ourselves feeling and facing, and a trust in a God who can turn the sorrow of Christ’s suffering into the joy of Easter, where the silence of whispers and the agony of triumph is replaced with the hope and beauty of the silent vindication of the empty tomb.

2. Faith speaks its “but” in the middle of the storm (Psalm 31:14)

Can you relate to what David describes and feels? Can you understand how Christ must have felt? Maybe right now you are sitting, taking this in, and it feels as if God has put the words in your mouth that your heart has struggled to comprehend. Yet, the weight of worry and the suffering of sorrow this Psalm so honestly describes before God soon meets its match in God. As all that David feels and suffers through meets its match in the one he brings it to.

2.1 The hinge of the Psalm is not explanation but trust (Psalm 31:14)

To all that he has been feeling and going through, David has been honest with us and before God, yet now he is also honest about God. It is almost like a realisation that the truth about who God is, a truth that has sustained him by quiet waters and through Dark valleys, and before the face of enemies, is now the truth that comforts him in grief, loneliness, and amid threats. A truth that grows out of the hinge of a most beautiful and glorious word – But. After all the fear and pain of verses 9-13, everything now turns on the beauty and majesty of a but. Despite it all, David declares: “But I trust in you, Lord; I say you are my God.”. There is no denial of pain here, no minimising of what he is facing and going through, and how it is making him feel and affecting his health – yet, in the middle of it all as he weights is up and brings it to God, something simple seems to happen, something beautiful: he remembers the God who has called him and carried him. What does he remember? That it is the same God who saved him amid the loneliness of Saul’s pursuit, the same God who would forgive him amid the mess he had made with Bathsheba, is the same God who has placed him on his throne and promised him that he would establish his line. The problems might be great for David, but the God who is with him and over him is greater still.

What do we see in this passage so far? The reality of life and a gospel pattern of faith – that simple reminder that Gospel trust in God is not about pretending that all is well in our life and world. Our faith gives us the framework to understand the world we are in, and the foundation to endure it – all in the person of Jesus Christ. David is honest about what it is he is carrying, and then honest about where to turn as he lifts his head Godward! Now he invites us to make the same movement, whether for the first time, or again and again – in Christ and by the Cross we are those who have a “but” to whatever it is we are carrying and feeling. Psalm 31 invites us to let go of what we are trying to carry alone and, with free hands, cling to God. Let’s be clear: this is not a denial of what is, nor is it false positivity – it is the act of Trust in God by laying hold to him and his promises in the middle of what is real for us. Why? Because we remember that Good Friday will become Easter morn! Palm Sunday to Good Friday grounds our faith in the reality and confusion of the world we live in and then reminds us of the God of the Cross, the God who loves us and is faithful to us amid every trial and tribulation of our lives. Faith rooted in the paradox of the Cross speaks loudest not by erasing or ignoring it but by locating it under the Lordship of God. More beautifully still, on this Sunday, when we think of Palm Sunday and glimpse what is to come, we see how Christ is the fulfilment of verse 14. How? Because in Jesus we see that our God does not avoid anguish, he moves towards it. Even at its pinnacle when he cried out” My God My God…” he never stopped trusting the Father – it is the duality and truth that gives weight to Psalm Sunday, and hope to our faith because our hope is in the one who not only moves towards suffering for us, but in deep trust and unwavering obedience for the good of all those who love him.

2.2 Trust is personal, covenantal, and defiant (Psalm 31:14)

Yet, do you notice how deeper still it is and appears to be: David is not declaring something that is true but far off and inconsequential to his life and living. He is speaking about something real and deeply personal. It is simple and profound: he does not say “You are God He declares from a deep relationship – “You are MY God.” It is a truth spoken from relationship, and lived experience; and it is the language of the covenant. From the moment God said to a nation, I am your God. You will be my people (Exodus 9). He meant the relationships he had established in both the Meta sense with all people and with his individual Children; it is the depth and beauty of that individual relationship we see here with David as he walks. David is not clinging to some philosophical notion of God, but to the living God who walked with his people in the Exodus, who has been faithful to David in the Valleys and on the mountaintops, and who brings himself to his children in mercy and faithfulness, and displays it supremely on the Cross.

The theological term for this relationship between man and God by faith is “covenant,” and this is where our assurance truly lies. Why? Because Christ serves not only as our example here but our foundation, our representative, and our example. Covenant depends on the character of God; he alone is good and trustworthy, so when he makes the covenant with the Israelites, he takes upon himself its burden. Thus, no matter how far off we feel, how much we have stumbled, we can trust that he hears our prayers and is faithful when we are faithless and frayed at every edge. In the life and ministry of Jesus, we see this most summarily and clearly as he walked the road to the Cross. A journey that’s end begins on this Palm Sunday, and as he slowly walks a road where our step would stumble, his trust remains whole. As he listens to the cheers and cries of the Crowd, to where our minds would be swayed, his eyes remain focused on the Cross that comes, a destination that has not even come into sight for those who have followed. He is the steadfast one who enters Jerusalem to secure for all by faith what David could only hope for.

3. The believer’s times are held in God’s hand (Psalm 31:15–16)

David does not know what is going on, and that is something we can all relate to: the feeling of hopelessness as every day seems more difficult and we wonder where the light will come from, especially when things come out of the blue. Think about the week of all weeks, what began with Joy and seemingly celebration became the horror of the Cross, something Jesus knew what was coming, but those around him had to process and try to discern all the Chaos that unfolded before them as the joy of the procession gave way to the Agony of the Cross. What do those who watch Jesus walk this Road faithfully learn? God is sovereign and over all things, including the timing by which things unfold – that includes whatever you are going through.

3.1 Providence does not remove suffering, but it means suffering is not ultimate (Psalm 31:15)

There is something that feels both simple and comforting in David’s words here: “My times are in your hand.” In all the peril that David is facing and all the things he has been honest about in terms of his feeling and carrying – he does not give more power to the enemy than what they have: He dose not place himself at the mercy of his enemies, or give them more control or power than they deserve in this Psalm, it is not they who control him, nor other political forces, or simple chance. He Declares: ” My times are in your hand.” Words spoken from a heart that trusts the one who is over all things. David still does not know how all of this will unfold as the pressures mount and the weight bears down on him, along with the fear, gossip, and danger swirling around him. Yet, his faith is secure enough, and deep enough to know that no matter what is unfolding before him, it does not define him, nor does it control him – God is still sovereign. To say that again: The Lord is over it, and the Lord is not absent from it! That is what providence means in the life of faith: knowing that God is working even amidst the realness of suffering, grief, and trouble that follows us. As David speaks of knowing that time is in God’s hand, he is simply declaring the truth of life with God: Even hard times are held times.

Every hard time is a time we are being held as we walk with God; no matter how absent God may feel, no matter how bad we have stumbled, we can be sure of this because the bible tells us so – You are with me declares Psalm 23, and here it is the knowledge that our future is in the hand of God. This is true in every season of life, yet this week of Holy Week it speaks perhaps that little bit more: because if ever there was a moment that looked like chaos and. World falling apart, it was every step of the Road from the Gate of Jerusalem to the foot of the Cross.. To the disciples, it must have looked like their whole world, and the cause they had given their existence to was collapsing in real time: as the cheers of the crowd faded, and the whispers around Jesus became plots against him, summed up in the kiss of Judas the Betrayer. How must they have felt in those moments? As Pilot pivoted between following the crowd and what was right, the world collapsed before them. Yet, through all of it, the times of Jesus are still in the Father’s hand, and the world is still his, as he was acting to rescue his servant from those who hunt him. We can know with Joy that the Cross is not some accident of History; it is the triumph of the God who holds our time, is over time, and working all time to his cause and Glory. Thus, what looks like the triumph of darkness is in fact the outworking of God’s redeeming purpose, which will turn the darkness to light. That means for you and me that whenever life feels unclear, and the worry great, that if we join David in lifting our head Godward, then the hope of the Cross will be that bit more hopeful still. Because of the Cross, we can say: “ My future is in your hands, and I am confident in it!

3.2 The deepest hope is not merely escape, but the shining face of God (Psalm 31:16)

Yet, it goes deeper still for David; he does not just want to know God’s goodness in his mind; he wants to see it in his life:“Make your face shine on your servant; save me because of your faithful love.” The phrasing here tells us everything – do you see it? It is more about what David does not ask for in this moment – He does not pray for God to end the trouble, nor lift the pressure, or shut the mouths of those who speak against him. He could ask for those things, but he does not; rather, his heart desires the greater thing – for God himself to draw near in mercy. That is such an important difference and challenge for us as we consider what we face and are going through, or find ourselves facing something difficult. Let’s face it, when times get tough, our prayers can become simple and selfish, and we can lose sight of the gift of God in our lives. Our prayers become: Lord, change this, fix this, remove this, get me out of this, and deal with that. Not that there is anything wrong with honest prayers before a loving God; indeed, in this Psalm, David has already prayed for Deliverance.

Yet, here his prayer goes deeper than escape – it goes to God, and to all of God: David is praying for every aspect of the father heart of God: God’s favour, God’s Mercy, God’s presence, and the face of God turned toward him in love – David wants it all! Why? Because he knows the greatest thing God can give us, not circumstantial but Himself! There is nothing in this life that can compare to the presence of God in a moment for a lifetime. Is this not the very heart of the Easter story? That in Christ, the one who walks this road of sorrow for us, the face of God shines upon sinners in mercy and grace, not because we have done something to earn it, but because of what he had done on the Cross! By it, we who should have been far off are brought near, as we receive Mercy, not Judgement!

This is why the Christian hope is never merely escape, but covenantal communion with God by love and the Cross – this is our salvation. That the God who holds our times in his hand is not distant, nor indifferent to us, but full of Steadfast love gives us reason to be hopeful in every season of life. A truth in every season, but a truth that this season reminds us of all the more, as the Mercy and power of God that seemed absent in the Chaos of the Cross find their silent revelation in the empty tomb – and the enemy can whisper and scheme no more! This week, the risen Christ will prove that he holds our future and will bring us God’s blessing if we trust in him, as we once again remember that the greatest weapon of the enemy, death, has lost its sting.

4. So Walk With honesty, Trust, and Hope (Conclusion)

What, then, do we do with all of this as we stand on the edge of the week each week? Simple: we follow the example of David and stop pretending. We stop acting as if faith means perfection and community means pretending we are the polished-finished-thing; that we don’t feel the difficulties of the world we are in. Following the way of David means simply bringing it honestly before God. That means all of it! The uncertainty that keeps us awake, the things we do not understand and cannot control – we bring them to Him in prayer by faith in the Son. Why? Because the God of Psalm 31 is not frightened by our weakness, and Christ is not embarrassed by people who have been wearied by life, he calls us to hope in him as he tells us his burden is easy and his yoke is light. He entered Jerusalem knowing exactly what lay ahead, and by love he still chose to walk the road that we could not walk, so that we could live the life with God we could never reach – the road of rejection, agony, and the cross.

Then, having brought it all to God, we do once more as David did, and as Jesus would do in the Garden: We lift our heads towards God and declare with confident faith: “But I trust in you, Lord… you are my God… my times are in your hand.” Never simply because life is easy; nor because the road is clear; and not only when the difficult has stopped, and darkness lifted – but because in Christ and by the Cross that God can be trusted in every situation and circumstance; and by faith God is shining his face upon his servants in Mercy and love. The Cross tells us he has not abandoned us, and this week of all weeks shows us how we might make plans, but it is God who holds and controls all things. So, as we walk into this week, let us walk with honesty, trust, and hope: For the one who held David and the one who held Christ through Good Friday and raised him on Easter mornin is the same God who holds us still. Then let us put into practice the honesty we see in this Psalm before God and one another, and let us seek to shine out the light of Christ to a world that desperately needs it in how we live, serve, and love one another.