Advent Week 4 - Psalm 130 - Hope-filled Penance

The Venerable Dan Hardin / December 17, 2025

Advent, in its final week, brings us to the threshold of hope… a hope forged in repentance and waiting. Psalm 130 gives us the voice of a soul standing in that place. It begins: “Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O LORD.” The psalmist does not pretend that all is well; he does not mask his condition behind piety. He speaks from the deep places, the places where sin, sorrow, and limitation press hard. Yet this cry from the deep is not despair — it is penitence shaped by hope. He cries because he believes God hears.

This psalm teaches us an essential truth for Advent: repentance is not a grim exercise but an act born of faith. The penitent heart does not wallow in shame; it reaches toward the cross. It reaches toward the God who forgives, the God who restores, and the God whose mercy is more certain than the dawn. The psalmist knows if God should mark iniquities, no one could stand. Yet he anchors himself in the character of God: “But there is forgiveness with thee.” That single line is the root of all hope-filled penitence. We face our sin because we trust His mercy. We bow low because we are certain He will lift up.

As Advent draws to its close, the world grows louder, but Scripture grows quieter, more deliberate. Psalm 130 calls us to that quiet: a stillness that waits. “I wait for the LORD; my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope.” Waiting, in this biblical sense, is not passive. It is the posture of the soul poised toward God. The psalmist waits the way a watchman stands through the last brittle hours of night, scanning the horizon for the first trace of morning. He knows the dawn will come — he simply does not know the moment. This is how the Church waits for Christ: confident, patient, steadfast.

And here Advent speaks most clearly. We are not waiting for an idea or a memory. We are waiting for the LORD Himself — the One who entered our night by taking flesh and who will come again in glory. But to receive the light, the eyes of the heart must adjust. Hope-filled penitence is how that adjustment begins. Repentance clears away the shadows we have grown accustomed to. Hope fixes our gaze on the promise of God, not on our own efforts. Together, they prepare us for the brightness of Christ’s appearing.

So the psalmist’s pattern becomes our own: cry out, confess, wait, hope. This is not the preparation of self-improvement; it is the preparation of faith. The Lord does not ask us to manufacture our own light; He asks us to wait for His. And the waiting is not empty. It shapes us. It teaches us to trust Him more than we trust our fears. It teaches us that the mercy of God is not a theoretical comfort, but the only foundation strong enough to bear the weight of our lives.

As we approach the manger and the coming of the Christ Child, let this be the posture of our hearts: repentant, yet confident; humbled, yet hopeful; waiting, yet certain. For with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. The night is far spent, and the dawn draws near. Those who wait upon the Lord shall not be put to shame.