From the Depths to the Heights: The Journey of Forgiveness

There's something terrifying about the depths. Cave divers know this better than most—descending into complete darkness, navigating endless mazes of underwater tunnels with only a tether connecting them to safety. One wrong move, one moment of disorientation, and the darkness becomes overwhelming. The air supply dwindles. Fear and confusion become your only companions.

While most of us will never literally experience cave diving, we've all experienced that feeling of being in the depths. That sinking sensation when life feels dark, confusing, and overwhelming. When we can't tell which way is up anymore.

The ancient Israelites understood something profound about spiritual geography. When they journeyed to Jerusalem to worship, they always traveled upward. No matter where they started in Israel, Jerusalem sat at the top. They had to ascend.

But this physical climb represented something deeper—a spiritual reality. Many of these travelers had experienced the depths of exile, the pain of separation from God and their homeland. Now they were ascending back to worship, singing songs that connected their physical journey to their spiritual one.

Psalm 130 was one of these songs of ascent. It begins with a raw, honest cry: "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord."

The depths and the heights. Descent and ascent. This pattern runs throughout Scripture and throughout our lives. It's the pattern of Jesus himself—descending from heaven's throne to earth, further still into death and the grave, then ascending in resurrection back to the throne. Our journey is intimately tied to His.

We live in a moment when everyone can see that something is broken. Political divisions, violence, injustice, personal struggles—the evidence is everywhere. The disagreement comes when we try to assign blame.

The left blames the right. The right blames the left. We blame governmental overreach, corrupt systems, bad parenting, seed oils, or whatever convenient scapegoat fits our narrative. We're experts at pointing fingers at someone or something else.

But we rarely look in the mirror.

Any honest description of ourselves must start with this reality: we are sinners. Not just victims of a broken system. Not just products of our environment. Sinners.

The psalmist makes this connection explicit. He cries out from the depths in verse 1, then immediately addresses his iniquities in verse 3. There's a direct line between sin and the depths. Sometimes it's our own sin. Sometimes it's because we live in a sin-infested world. But sin is always the culprit.

This is uncomfortable truth. We'd rather blame the world's brokenness on external forces. And while it's true that we live in a fallen world affected by sin everywhere, if we're too quick to externalize the problem, we miss something crucial: Jesus doesn't just make the world right. He makes us right too.

The psalmist's response to his sin isn't to try harder or optimize his life. He doesn't create a self-improvement plan or promise to do better next time.

He cries out.

Like a newborn baby, completely dependent on his mother for protection and provision, the psalmist cries out to God from exactly where he is—in the depths. He doesn't work on himself first and then approach God. He comes in his weakness, his need, his desperation.

Notice something beautiful in the text. The psalmist addresses God both as "LORD" (the covenant name Yahweh) and "Lord" (master, ruler). He's appealing to God on both a personal and positional level. There's intimacy and reverence. Familiarity and awe.

It's like the difference between saying "Teaching Elder Benjamin Phillips, I request your assistance" versus "Ben, I really need you, brother." One acknowledges position; the other acknowledges relationship. The psalmist does both.

He cries out to the infinitely powerful God with whom he has a personal relationship. And he asks a rhetorical question that changes everything: "If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?"

The answer? No one. Not a single person.

Then comes the gospel in miniature, contained in one simple preposition: "But with you there is forgiveness."

One writer noted that the entirety of the gospel is contained in that one word—"with." Sin separates us from God, plunging us into the depths. But God in Christ reaches down and pulls us up to Himself.

This is the surprising part. We're quick to point out the world's sins. Slower to acknowledge our own. And even when we do recognize our sin, we're slowest of all to believe God could actually forgive us.

The text emphasizes not just the act of forgiveness, but the quality of forgiveness. In God there is "forgivingness"—the very nature of forgiving. To forgive in Christ is God simply acting according to His nature.

On May 24, 1738, John Wesley heard a choir singing this psalm at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Though he had grown up Christian and even become a priest, something shifted that day. Later that evening, while hearing Luther's preface to Romans, Wesley wrote that his heart had been "strangely warmed." He felt assurance that Christ had taken away his sins—"even mine"—and saved him from the law of sin and death.

The hotter the sauna, the more refreshing the cold plunge. The more bitter our sin tastes, the sweeter forgiveness becomes. We don't celebrate being found until we've experienced the fear of being lost.

But there's more to the story. Anyone who's been a Christian for more than a few minutes knows we're remarkably good at sinning. We keep finding ourselves back in the depths.

This is the "already but not yet" reality. Sin has already been forgiven, but death hasn't yet been defeated. We still live in a broken world. We still struggle. We still wait.

The psalmist tells us: "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits...more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning."

Think about a watchman standing guard at the city gates through the long, dark night. He's vigilant, watching for enemies. But he's also expectant. Morning always comes. The sun always rises.

This is gospel waiting—not passive resignation or idle dreaming, but confident, alert expectation that God will do what He said He will do.

Our souls were designed to wait, to long. The amount we're willing to wait is directly proportional to the value we place on what we're waiting for. The watchman waits because the sun is certain to rise and has the power to drive away darkness.

We wait on the certain, powerful promises of God. The death of Christ shows God's steadfast love. The resurrection of Christ shows God's power to offer plentiful redemption.

To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known but not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved—that's what we need more than anything.

The good news is this: you don't have to remain in the depths. With the Lord there is plentiful redemption. God will both fully know you and yet truly love you.

The darkness isn't the end of your story. There is light in forgiveness. The depths don't have the final word. The heights do.

Morning is coming. The sun will rise. And when it does, we'll see clearly that we've been ascending all along—not by our own strength, but carried upward by the One who descended to the depths to bring us home.