Saturated in Scorn Text: Psalm 123:3-4
Introduction: The Weight of Worldly Contempt
We live in an age that is drunk on pride. Our culture has thrown a party for itself, and the invitations specify that no outside authorities are to be acknowledged, especially not the God of Heaven. Those who are "at ease" in this Zion of self-regard believe they have ascended to the pinnacle of human progress. They are comfortable, they are sophisticated, and they look down upon the people of God with a unique and potent form of contempt. It is the scorn of the self-satisfied, the mockery of those who believe they have graduated from the need for God.
This is not a new phenomenon. The world has always hated the church, just as it hated her Lord. But the particular flavor of this contempt changes from age to age. In our time, it is the cool, detached sneer of the enlightened. It is the patronizing smirk of those who consider faith to be a crutch for the weak-minded, a relic of a superstitious past. They are not foaming at the mouth with rage; they are simply "at ease," confident in their own wisdom and their own autonomy. And from this perch of counterfeit authority, they pour out scorn on the faithful.
The psalmist here gives voice to a people who are drowning in this very thing. They are, as the text says, "greatly saturated" with it. This is not a light drizzle of disapproval. It is a deluge. It soaks you to the bone. It is a heavy, wet blanket of mockery that seeks to suffocate your faith. The question this psalm forces us to confront is this: when you are saturated with the world's contempt, to whom do you turn? Where do you fix your eyes? This psalm is a master class in how to handle the heavy burden of being despised by a proud and complacent world.
The Text
Be gracious to us, O Yahweh, be gracious to us,
For we are greatly saturated with contempt.
Our soul is greatly saturated
With the mockery of those who are at ease,
And with the contempt of the proud.
(Psalm 123:3-4)
A Double Plea for Grace (v. 3)
We begin with the desperate, repeated cry in verse 3:
"Be gracious to us, O Yahweh, be gracious to us, For we are greatly saturated with contempt." (Psalm 123:3)
The prayer is not for justice, not in the first instance. It is not a cry for vindication, or for fire from heaven. It is a plea for grace, repeated for emphasis. "Be gracious to us... be gracious to us." When the soul is waterlogged with the world's scorn, the first and most necessary thing is a fresh infusion of God's unmerited favor. Why? Because the natural human response to being treated with contempt is to become contemptuous in return. The temptation is to answer mockery with mockery, pride with pride.
But the psalmist knows this is a spiritual dead end. To fight the world on its own terms is to become the very thing you are opposing. So the prayer is for grace. Grace is the divine antidote to the poison of bitterness. It is the supernatural ability to absorb the hatred of the world without letting it curdle your own soul. The psalmist is essentially praying, "Lord, they are pouring out contempt, and I am full of it. Before I do anything else, pour out Your grace, and fill me with that instead."
Notice the reason given. "For we are greatly saturated with contempt." The word "saturated" is potent. It means to be filled to overflowing, to have had more than enough. This is not a minor irritation. This is a soul that has been steeped in scorn, like a tea bag left in hot water for far too long. It describes a condition of being utterly surrounded and overwhelmed by disrespect. This is the state of the church in a post-Christian culture. We are looked upon as fools, as bigots, as simpletons. And the psalmist teaches us that the first move in this situation is not to lash out, but to look up and plead for grace.
The Source of the Scorn (v. 4)
Verse 4 identifies the two groups from which this torrent of contempt flows.
"Our soul is greatly saturated With the mockery of those who are at ease, And with the contempt of the proud." (Psalm 123:4)
First, we have "the mockery of those who are at ease." These are the comfortable ones. They are the secularists whose lives are, for the moment, running smoothly. Their portfolios are healthy, their careers are advancing, and their worldview has not yet crashed into the hard wall of reality. From their perspective, they have no need for God. Religion is for those who need a cosmic security blanket. Because they are "at ease," they feel superior. Their ease is the proof, in their own minds, of their enlightenment. Their mockery is not the hot-blooded anger of a persecutor, but the cool, condescending chuckle of someone who believes they know better. It is the scorn of the intellectual elite, the media personality, the tenured professor who dismisses millennia of Christian thought with a wave of his hand.
Second, we have "the contempt of the proud." This is a more general category, but it gets to the root of the issue. Pride is the fundamental sin. It is the assertion of self against God. The proud man is his own god, his own lawgiver, and his own judge. Consequently, he holds in contempt anyone who bows the knee to the one true God. The very existence of a righteous man is an intolerable rebuke to the proud. Your humility is an affront to his arrogance. Your submission to God's law is a judgment upon his rebellion. And so he despises you for it.
These two groups, the "at ease" and the "proud," are really two sides of the same coin. Insolent unbelief is the chain that anchors the ungodly soul to this earth. Their pride blinds them, and their comfort confirms them in their blindness. They heap abuse on the faithful because the faithful, by their very existence, challenge the central lie upon which their entire world is built: that man can be his own god and get away with it.
Our Response to Saturation
So what is the takeaway for us, who are likewise saturated with the contempt of our age? The psalm provides the only workable answer. Before we formulate a response, before we write a blog post, before we engage in the debate, we must first fix our eyes on our Master in Heaven and plead for grace. Our help does not come from winning the argument in the comments section. Our help comes from the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
We must learn to pray this way, but we must also learn, by God's grace, not to become the kind of people the psalmist is praying about. When we are filled with contempt, the natural reaction is to get irritated and to start slinging mud back. But we are called to a different standard. We are called to bless those who curse us. This is impossible without the grace we see the psalmist pleading for. We need God to keep our hearts soft when the world is trying to harden them.
Think of the Lord Jesus. He was born into a race of moral idiots. He was the wisdom that spoke the galaxies into existence, and yet He was harangued by Pharisees who called Him a glutton, a drunkard, and demon-possessed. He was saturated with contempt far more than we ever will be. And what did He do? He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. He fixed His eyes on the Father. He looked for mercy, and He looked for the moment of His vindication.
Conclusion: Until He Has Mercy
The psalm does not end with a record of God's immediate deliverance. It ends with the saints waiting, with their eyes fixed on the Lord, "until He has mercy on us." This is the posture of faith. We cry out for grace, we identify the source of our affliction, and then we wait with expectant obedience, like a servant watching his master's hand.
We live in a world that is at ease and proud. We should expect its mockery. We should not be surprised when we are saturated with its contempt. But we must not despair, and we must not grow bitter. Our task is to keep our eyes lifted up to the one who dwells in the heavens. He sees the scorn of the proud. He knows the mockery of those at ease. And in His time, He will act. He will throw down the mighty from their seats and will lift up the humble. Until that day, our prayer must be the prayer of this psalm: "Be gracious to us, O Yahweh, be gracious to us." For His grace is sufficient for us, and His power is made perfect in our weakness.