A reflection based on Psalm 19.
I didn’t know this when I moved to Ohio: Cleveland is almost as wet as Seattle. Really, you say? Yes. I think it rained every day for the first month I was here. I was glad I bought cute rain boots because I wear them. A lot. And although I’ve always appreciated a sunshiny day, I think I appreciate them more here. The way the sunshine comes into my office or fills up the living room with light. Kids here aren’t afraid of a little rain, but their laughter and playing sounds a lot louder when it’s bright and sunny outside. I feel like there’s a little extra bounce in my step when the sunshines and I find it a lot easier to watch for God moments when the sky is blue than when it is gray.
But what gets me even more is the night sky. On the rare occasion when we have a clear night sky, the stars here are incredible. When Venus, Jupiter, and the moon formed a tight triangle in the sky, we were literally stopped in our tracks walking to a friend’s house to watch the Oscars. And some of my favorite Boundary Waters memories are of star gazing. The first time I saw the Aurora Borealis in the Boundary Waters, I was terrified. What was that strange light in the sky? Once my dad explained what it was, though, I was mesmerized. Sometimes I just stand under that vast night sky, look up, and simply say “wow.”
The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. In verses 4b-6, the psalmist primarily writes of the sun. But I think the wonder of the whole sky--both day and night--appears in this psalm. The belief that, somehow, all of creation is indebted to the Creator. That all of creation is capable, in its own way, of pointing us back to the one who made us, the one to whom it all belongs. The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the psalmist writes in Psalm 24.
But Psalm 19 isn’t simply a psalm expressing wonder at creation. In verse 7, it moves into psalm that praises the law, the torah. In praising this gift of God, the psalmist realizes that while the heavens can proclaim God’s glory, we need more than that. We need to know God’s great capacity for forgiveness. That humans, while created in God’s image, are quite capable of sin and desperately in need of forgiveness. That we need instruction and help when it comes to living a life that reflects that image. We can praise the glory, but we’re also in need of redemption.
As Christians, we see that redemption coming in not so glorious ways. We see it coming through the Word made flesh who lives among us. We see it in flesh and blood in Christ. We see it in the cross. When we’re at our best (which, ironically, sometimes feels like our worst), we recognize our own need for Christ and the needs of the whole world. We see stories of war and needless deaths and diseases that could so easily be prevented. We realize that, while the heavens tell of the glory, the news sometimes tells of the realities of sin and death that still have a grasp on this world.
And yet, there is hope. As the sunshine reminds us of the hope of spring, there is hope that the world is not forever stuck in the cycle of disease and death and famine and fear. At the end of Psalm 19, as he does throughout the psalms, the psalmist refers God as “my rock.” Strong, sure, certain. A firm foundation. And on that rock, we can lay our hope, our trust, our burdens. We trust that in the midst of the confusion and anger and sadness, that God is working, through us, around us, and in us, to bring about change in the world. To bring about the change that, with the heavens, proclaims God’s glory. We trust that God is the one who redeems us and sustains us. That God is the one who has created us and will never leave us. And we believe that God’s glory doesn’t show up only in the heavens, but sometimes in the most unexpected of places. Like dirty feet and around a table. And on a cross. And in a rock, rolled away to reveal an empty tomb.
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