The Heavens Are Telling the Glory of God
Psalm 19 and Luke 24:36b-48
Rev. Patricia Barth
April 30, 2006
"The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims God's handiwork."
C.S. Lewis proclaims "the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world," and I have to agree with him. Isn't the language beautiful? is special not only because of its lyric rhythms, but mainly because of the astonishing truth at its heart-that love, God's love, is the fundamental reality of the universe. Love literally "does make the world go round." In fourteen short verses, we learn three ways to see and experience God's love. God is revealed in God's beautiful creation; in God's spoken word, and in our redemptive relationship with God.
"The heavens are telling the glory of God." begins with a glorious hymn of praise to God. A hymn sung, not by humans, but by the work of God's hands-the stars and the skies. St. Francis also believed that creation continually praises God-the sun and moon; the flowers in the field; birds chirping in trees; even the barking of dogs-all is praise to the One who created them.
"Day to day pours forth speech." This is truly prayer without ceasing, because it goes on day after day, world without end. The apostle Paul taught us to pray without ceasing- isn't it wonderful to think that creation is praying with us, and long after we stop, the stars and moon and everything else will still be praying, in a silent voice that "goes out through all the earth."
"Night to night declares knowledge." The creation praises God because it knows God in the very depths of its being. The created world is a manifestation of God's love; intimately connected to God and to us. Nature is a part of humanity; and we are part of nature; held together in the web of life, God's loving embrace. The ancient Hebrews knew this: the Hebrew word for human is A-dam'; and the word for earth or ground is a-da-ma' and the second creation story in the Bible describes God making humanity from the soil.
Nature isn't something separate from us, an object for us to manipulate and control like a machine! We technological humans keep forgetting that!
Before we became so adept at tinkering with the elements of life, humanity understood the glory of nature more. In fact, humans used to get God and nature mixed up. Look at the description of the sun in verses 5 and 6 ( ). The sun is set in a tent by God, from which the sun bursts forth every day like a strong man running a race, or a bridegroom eager to be wed. This is directly borrowed from an ancient pagan myth that the sun rests in the sea in the arms of his beloved, and at dawn "emerges from his bridal chamber with radiant splendor." Unlike their Canaanite or Egyptian neighbors, Israel didn't really see the sun or the rain as God. Like us, they celebrated the wonders of nature, all the more so because their lives depended on subsistence crops and animals that needed water and grazing. But more importantly, they saw God revealed in nature: in the beauty of the firmament and in the sun's daily cycle. I've always wondered: are people who claim they worship best on the golf course really appreciating God in the outdoors? Or are they worshipping at the altar of competition? Hmmm.
The second half of moves from describing the order of the natural world to the order of God's law. Interestingly, in Egyptian myth the Sun God also gave law to his subjects. We learn that God's law is more to be desired than fine gold, and sweeter than the drippings of honey from the honeycomb. I've heard that Israelite children were actually taught to read and write with letters made of flour and honeycomb-each letter they learned, they got to eat! What a wonderfully physical way to learn, using their sense of taste instead of just their minds!
God's law, says the psalmist, is perfect, sure, right, clear, true and righteous- which sounds like the attributes of God, don't they? Just as God is revealed in the wonders of nature, so God is disclosed in God's law. teaches us that while we may see God's glory in the heavens, that vision of God is incomplete. Nature is intimately connected to God, and bears the spark of God's creative touch, but it is still not God. It is the work of God's hand. This is why worshipping on the golf course really doesn't work. It's insufficient. We must look to how God has interacted with humanity to get the full picture.
Isaac Watts wrote in an old hymn:
The heavens declare thy glory, Lord
In every star thy wisdom shines;
But when our eyes behold thy Word,
We read thy name in fairer lines.
The God that created the wonders of the heavens also created us, man and woman in God's own image. God gave us law to show us his nature and to teach us how to interact with him and get along with each other. Throughout history, God has loved us and been actively involved in our story. The ancient Hebrews believed that everything comes from God for a reason, whether it is a headache, a traffic jam, a broken leg or an unexpected windfall. Some today believe that everything either results from chance or from scientific or mechanical causes. I think life is infinitely more mysterious than either philosophy. I know that God continues to act in the world today, although sometimes God's actions are hidden and hard to discern. God often chooses to act through people. Sometimes an event may be long past before we discern God's loving touch and active presence.
God is very close to us: in nature and in the law and in personal experience. The last line which refers to God as the psalmist's rock and redeemer shows that he considers God to be his source of strength: a foundation that bears him up; and his comfort, like the shady relief a tall rock gives in the burning desert. The word "redeemer" shows that the psalmist experiences God as his strength and comfort intimately. This is because the Hebrew word for redeemer is go'el - the close relative who looked out for the honor of the family; the one who married the widow of his brother to save her from the shame of barrenness; the one who sought the blood price when a family member was killed.
We may not relate to these ancient customs of blood price and Levirate marriage, but we do very much relate to the concept of go'el - for it's none other than a next-of-kin. Your closest relative! Your mother or father; spouse or sibling. God is the psalmist's next-of-kin! How joyous to be able to say, yes, God is my comfort like my spouse or my mother is my comfort! God gives me strength and stability like my family or my best friend do! It's a whole new level of relationship with God.
And finally, as Christians we can add another level of meaning for the word Redeemer. Jesus Christ is our redeemer. He is God's own son, and in him "we read God's name in fairer lines." God loved us so much that Jesus took on our human body, became incarnate in our flesh, and lived among us. He came to fulfill the law of Moses, of the prophets and of the psalms, not to abolish it. He taught us through his life and then death on the cross the meaning of justice and mercy that we had stubbornly refused to learn from the law. In Jesus' resurrection and ascension to heaven the cycle of God's amazing love is complete.
I heard a story about a pastor and his wife who were watching a beautiful sunset together, from a spot on top of a hill in Wales. As they were marveling at the beauty, they saw an old beat-up car pull off the road. There was an elderly couple in the front seat, who got out and reached in the back to touch their son, a severely disabled young man. He couldn't sit up by himself, but little by little they tugged and pulled him to a sitting position. And as the sunset grew brighter, they put their fingers under his chin and tilted his head just right, so he could see the glowing colors. At that moment, says the pastor, he knew that "God can dazzle us with all the magnificence of his universe, but that the secret of the universe, the heart of the universe, was revealing its glory not in the sunset, but in that compassion and grace and love which comes to us when we need it most, whatever our condition, and says, 'You are my own child, my beloved, and you matter..'"
This is God's glory that the heavens are telling - the compassion and grace and love that God shares with us. With the sun, stars and moon; with all God's creation, let us praise the God who shows us such love: our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
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