Wow

Psalm 19:1-6

August 12, 2018 • Mount Pleasant UMC

This is my friend, Mike Tahaan. He’s been my group’s guide on two of my Israel expeditions, and on another, we connected at one of the lunch stops. When you travel Israel with Mike, you learn several things about him pretty quickly. He is very enthusiastic about the land, and so whatever he says comes out with lots of energy. He loves to laugh. He knows how to drive a big tour bus but prefers to be the guide. And he has several English phrases he returns to often. “Are you with me?” is one of his favorite, as is, “I’m gonna give you a prize.” The other thing he does a lot is to point out something particularly interesting, tell you the history behind it, then say, “Wow!” In 2012, when Rachel went with me for the first time, she started helping Mike. Whenever he would point something out, Rachel would yell out, “Wow!” And Mike would respond with, “I’m gonna give you a prize.” It became their own Israel liturgy for most of the trip.

This morning, that’s going to become our liturgy as well—not for the service, necessarily, but for life. This morning, we’re (finally) plunging into the bigger story itself. We’ve spent the last three weeks remembering the foundation of the story. Specifically, we’ve been remembering the God without whom there is no story. Today, we turn to the story itself which really can be summed up in a few words, words and ideas that we are going to play with over the next few weeks: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Let’s say those together: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. Hopefully, you’re going to become real familiar with those words over the next few weeks, because those four words sum up the story God is telling in the world, in your life and in my life. So let’s say them again: creation, fall, redemption and restoration. Great, and today we begin with creation.

Many if not most of us know the story of creation and how it’s told in the book of Genesis. Sometimes we want to get bogged down in the details and argue over whether or not Genesis is describing a literal seven 24-hour days, or what order different things were created in, and if no one was there how do we know exactly what God said. We worry over creation versus evolution and some spend a lot of time debunking one or the other. We try to synchronize the two creation stories in Genesis—yes, there are two creation stories. One is written as an epic poem (Genesis 1) and the other is written as a folk story you might tell around a campfire (most of Genesis 2). They’re a bit different in their details, so we try to harmonize them. But they’re different, and for some reason, the author (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) believed we needed to have both of them. And more than that, we need to remember this one thing: Genesis is not trying to be a science book. Genesis is seeking to do one thing: affirm that God is the creator, that everything you see was not created by any of the mythical gods Israel’s neighbors believed in, the world was not created by a war between god-like beings. The world, Genesis says, was created by a loving God for good purposes. While we worry about the how and the why, Genesis is concerned only with the who (cf. Smith, The Magnificent Story, pg. 60). While we try to comprehend the mechanics, Genesis asserts this one truth: God created. No doubt about it. If you can see it, God made it. As to the how, I’m content to let God keep those details to himself.

We get all messed up when we forget that the Bible was not written for those of us who have grown up in the Western, Greek mindset. It was not written for those who like hard and fast details. The Bible was written for an Eastern (specifically middle-eastern) audience, and in that culture, they think more in stories, pictures, poetry and beauty. The details aren’t as important as the message the story is meant to convey. The intricacies pale in comparison to the truth. When I say “story,” I don’t mean to imply it’s not true; it’s just that the eastern mind is more likely to tell a story than spell out an equation. So the story of creation is told, and we’re not meant to ask, “Well, how did the platypus get its name?” We’re supposed to say, “Isn’t that platypus beautiful? Isn’t that a marvelous creation from our good God?” That’s the way the psalmist responds. Over and over again, when God’s people looked at creation, their minds and hearts were not drawn to scientific curiosity. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just that it’s supposed to be secondary to another reaction. The psalmist wants us to be drawn first to praise. The psalms over and over again resound with praise to God for making such a beautiful creation. We read part of one such psalm this morning: the first half of Psalm 19.

The psalmist begins this hymn by declaring this truth about creation: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (19:1). Hebrew poetry is marked very often by parallelism, meaning two lines of the poem are simply different ways of saying the same thing. It’s a literary device that we find a lot in the Psalms and other places where there is poetry in the Bible, like among the prophets. When you read this verse, you can almost hear the words of Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But this verse is not just referring to a past act, something God did long ago. The way this verse is written, it would be better to translate it as “the heavens continually declare…” and “the skies always proclaim…” It’s not something that just happened in the past, either in the distant past or even in the psalmist’s time. The psalmist wants whomever is listening, whomever encounters creation, to know that the creation itself continuously praises God, from the beginning of time until the end, and that we should, too. Day after day, night after night, God is to be praised in, though and because of the creation (19:2; Williams, Communicator’s Commentary: Psalms 1-72, pg. 150). Always. Continuously.

I don’t know about you, but there are far too many days when I don’t even notice creation. I hurry through the day and I fail to notice what is all around me. Some of that comes from living in a city, where the lights block out the stars and the concrete covers over the grass. Those of you who live out in the country, outside the glare of the streetlights, may have an easier time seeing creation. But sometimes it’s not just the physical surroundings that block out creation; sometimes it’s our own circumstances. I remember a day, several years ago, where I was sitting at my desk, brooding over a situation I was in the middle of—well, worrying, really, because I am a first-class worrier—and it was afternoon before I happened to look out the window that was right by my desk. It was at that moment that this amazing revelation hit me: it was sunny out. Yeah, I know, it is most days, but on that day all I had been able to see was the darkness that surrounded my soul. But in the simple act of noticing the sunshine, God began to speak some hope to my soul. Creation reminds us of God’s presence all around us.

You know, God did not have to make creation beautiful. There is nothing in the beauty of this world that is essential to our existence. There is no requirement that there be thousands and millions of shades of color in the sky and the trees and the butterflies. God could have made this world monochromatic, black and white, flat. He could have made a purely functional world. We don’t need beauty to live. But God is an artist. God made the world beautiful in order to speak to our souls, and to tell us something about himself. You know, we can talk very scientifically about a sunset, and how the colors that surround a sunset are there because of the sun’s angle. We can talk about how that angle means light passes through more air at that time of day, which means a thicker atmosphere scatters more violet and blue light away from your eyes. We can even talk scientifically about how it’s not really a sunset, because it’s really that this side of the earth is rotating away from the sun and not the other way around. But none of that accounts for why people watch them. When we lived in Portage, we were just about five minutes away from the beach on Lake Michigan, so there were many evenings we would go and take an evening walk on the beach, and just at sunset, we would join others who would gather on the dune looking out toward Chicago, where the sun was setting. There would be this holy hush that settled over everyone as we watched the sun slip behind the horizon. God didn’t have to make it beautiful. But he did, to remind us of who he is. He is an artist. And the creation continues to remind us of that truth.

Now, I don’t want to run ahead of the story too much, but I’ve already told you the outline: creation, fall, redemption and restoration. We’ll focus more on the fall next week, but I’ve been thinking this week about a question I heard in a podcast: what, do you suppose, creation looked like before the Fall? I’m not talking about autumn, but the time when humanity sinned and “fell” from the life God intended us to have. Again, we’ll talk more about that next week, but the Bible says the Fall affected all of creation, not just human beings. Paul says creation was “subjected to frustration” and is waiting the time when it will be liberated from decay and sin. Creation “groans,” Paul says, the way we might “groan” as we wait for healing to take place. I know that last fall when I was recovering from surgery, there were times when all I could do was groan. I was tired of complaining about the pain, sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I was just longing and waiting for the “something better” to come that I was promised. That’s what Paul says creation is doing; it’s waiting in “eager expectation” for the renewal or restoration of all things (cf. Romans 8:18-24). And we’ll talk more about that next week, but here’s my point: if creation is this beautiful now, and if we know it was damaged by the fall, can you imagine how beautiful it was before sin entered the world? If it’s this good now, how good was it then? And is that why we’re told that the new creation will be better than we can imagine? God is preparing something, we’re told, no eye has seen and no ear has heard and no mind has conceived (1 Corinthians 2:9). I don’t have an answer; these are just things I wonder about when I think about how beautiful creation is now, when it didn’t have to be.

The psalmist goes on to say that there is no place in creation that does not declare God’s glory. He says of the heavens, “They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (19:3-4). There is a translation problem here; the word the NIV has translated as “voice” in verse 4 is uncertain. We’re not really sure what the original word means. Some have suggested there is a missing letter, which would make the word “voice,” and so that’s how a lot of people choose to translate it. But there’s also the possibility that the writer is indicating a musical chord here, so that you could translate it this way: “Their song goes out into all the earth” (cf. Williams 151). I like that; it brings to mind the way C. S. Lewis envisions creation in his children’s book The Magician’s Nephew. In creating Narnia, Lewis says, Aslan (the Christ-figure in the “Chronicles of Narnia”) sings it into existence. The different melodies create different things, and together the music creates the beauty of the world. Everything in the land of Narnia reflects the music of Aslan, and just so, everything in our world reflects the music of God, the word of God, the presence of God. There is no place or person who goes without some knowledge of God (cf. Williams 151). Every thing, every person, every place reflects his glory.

But what does that mean, “glory”? When I think of that word, something bright and shiny comes to mind, sort of like looking into the sun—glowing, bright, nearly blinding. And, in fact, God is described in that way in the Bible. In Habakkuk, a book we don’t read very often, the prophet describes God this way: “[God’s] splendor was like the sunrise; rays flashed from his hand, where his power was hidden” (3:4). When Jesus took his disciples up on the mountain and was transfigured so that some of his glory leaked out, we’re told it was experienced by the disciples as a blinding light (cf. Mark 9:2-4). And, in the end, in the book of Revelation, we’re told that the glory of God will be what lights the city of the New Jerusalem, and it will be so bright that there will be no more need for sun or moon (cf. Revelation 21:23). That glory of God, that brightness and purity and light, is reflected by creation. It’s everywhere, if we will look for it. One author defined it this way: glory is beauty plus truth plus goodness plus power. Beauty, truth, goodness and power. Anywhere you see beauty, or truth, or goodness, or power, you see a God’s glory. God’s character, God’s nature, God’s glory is seen everywhere. And that leads us to one other observation about this psalm.

God speaks to us through creation. Over and over again in this psalm, the imagery is used of God speaking through the skies, the heavens, the sun and so on. That’s a theme that is present in other psalms as well as elsewhere throughout Scripture. In fact, Paul even goes so far as to say that creation itself takes away any excuse we might try to use for not knowing anything about God. In his letter to the Romans, Paul makes the argument this way: “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). I like the way Eugene Peterson paraphrased this verse in The Message: “The basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.” And the great thing is that this witness transcends geographical and linguistic barriers! Everyone speaks the language of creation, to the ends of the earth as the psalmist says. Everyone can understand the voice of creation (cf. VanGemeren, “Psalms,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 5, pg. 180). We Wesleyans call that prevenient grace, the fact that God has left traces of his presence everywhere so that we can see it. The voice of God speaking through creation keeps whispering to us, preventing us from going so far away that we can’t find our way back to God. Even before we are aware of God’s presence, he speaks to us through creation.

Now, that is not to say we worship creation. We don’t. In fact, one of Paul’s concerns in that letter to the Romans is that people were worshipping the creation rather than the creator. We don’t worship creation, but we do exercise stewardship over it. We are caretakers of creation, partly because God told us to (cf. Genesis 1:27-30) and partly because creation points us back to God. Why would we not take care of it? For us, today, that means using good judgment in the way we treat creation, doing things like recycling and cutting back on the way we waste our resources. It means using reusable containers when possible and composting rather than burning, seeking clean ways to heat and cool our homes and taking care of the land around us. It’s not our world, after all. It’s God’s. It’s meant to reflect his glory; it’s meant to tell the first chapter of his story. Creation’s first purpose is to point to God. As one author puts it, when it comes to creation, “God uses beauty to draw us, goodness to hold us, and truth to convince us” (Smith 59).

Creation is meant to move us to doxology. Now, for those of us who grew up in the church, “doxology” was what you used to sing after the offering. Right? “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…” It’s the song we opened the service with last week, in the video. But the word means more than a simple chorus. “Doxology” means, literally, “glory saying.” It’s something we do to speak of the glory of God, of being overwhelmed by who God is and what God is up to. Doxology is praise, it’s pointing to God, it’s crying out, “Wow!” And if there has ever been a time when we needed to be able to be “wow’d” by creation, but the God who created it all, it’s now. The world is in a pretty dark place right now, or at least it seems that way. We get so tied to our screens, to the news, to the depressing political maneuverings. In a darkened world, have we forgotten that the world was made beautiful, that creation was made for praise? Have we lost the ability to appreciate the beauty of creation when we are surrounded by so much strife and things that seem to demand our attention? We seem to have forgotten. As people of faith, we’ve often even been guilty of ignoring things like beauty, of relegating beautiful things to “not very spiritual.” No one has time for that! But the psalmist would disagree. The psalmists spend a lot of time celebrating God’s creation, and so does the rest of Scripture. The psalmists spend a lot of time saying, “Wow!” Perhaps it would be good for our soul if we learn or re-learn to do the same.

This week, I want to challenge you to reconnect with the first part of our story: God created. And to do that, we’ll need to spend some time in the creation, getting back in touch with the voice of God that is speaking in the beautiful world around us. I know, school has started and suddenly, life has gotten busy again. But this is medicine for your spirit, training for your soul. If your doctor gave you a prescription and said, “If you don’t do this, you’ll shrivel up and die,” you’d do it, right? To the best of your ability, you’d do it. Well, this is the same thing—a prescription for your spirit. One reason we don’t know our story well is that we’ve forgotten that in the beginning, God. In the beginning—God! We’ve forgotten how to say “WOW” when we hear that. In the beginning, God spoke and creation came to be. WOW! In the beginning, God sang and the beautiful world sprang into existence. WOW! So find a way this week to spend some time soaking up this good story. Take an evening and enjoy watching the sunset. Watching it set over the Wabash is not quite the same as watching it set over Lake Michigan or the ocean, but it’s a start! Don’t do anything else; just watch the sun set. Leave all of your screens at home! Or take a walk in a park. We have a lot of great parks here in Terre Haute and in Vigo County, and we also have several outstanding state parks within a short drive. Turkey Run and Shakamak are both fairly close, and just a bit further is McCormick’s Creek, with Brown County just a little further. There are lots of opportunities! But don’t just walk; don’t do what most of us do, and that’s look at your feet the whole time. Yes, the dirt is interesting and God made that, too, but it doesn’t tend to inspire awe. So look around, search out glimpses of the creator in the midst of the creation. Live out the truth of this psalm, that the creation speaks of God, even when we’re not aware of it. Learn to say, “Wow,” to see the beauty God has put all around us, even though he didn’t have to.

As we head into prayer this morning, I want us to spend some time basking in and celebrating God’s creation. I have put together a video of some of the most beautiful places on earth I have been to, places that inspire my own creativity and lift my spirit. We’re going to put that up on the screen, and as these images and music go past, listen to the words, but even more than that, allow the beauty of creation to usher you into God’s presence. After the music, we’ll go right into spoken prayer, but let’s allow our spirits to draw near to God in these moments. Let’s be in a spirit of prayer.

VIDEO: Wow