Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 2-250 Sunday 22 Dec 2002

Reading: Psalm 139 – THE GOD WHO KNOWS US

‘Lord draw me into your presence, to know as I am known, to love as I am loved.’

In this profoundly personal psalm, David confesses his wonder at the all-knowing, all-powerful and ever-present God. Beware of trying to shape it into a neat, precise theological statement! It depicts a pure faith in the living God on the part of a frail human being, pursuing and being pursued by the God of infinite patience and love.

Here is an invitation to intimacy, as the God of all being comes to dwell in us; to be near; to hear us breathing; to feel our pulse; to stand alongside our loneliness. This is not some spiritual ‘cosiness’ that shelters us from reality, but a hint of the miracle of a God ‘out there’ whose greatest desire is to be ‘in here’.

So, the psalmist portrays his longing for intimacy (vs 23-24), his recognition of the intimate God (vs 1,5) coming to embrace and empower us, again and again. This week we celebrate God’s coming in human flesh. Jesus, who searches and ‘hems in’ his creatures, knows them intimately,(John 2:25) which brought astonishment to the Samaritan woman (John 4:29) and the Emmaus-road disciples (Luke 24:13-32).

We may attempt to live as if we could banish God from our unworthy thoughts, our prized bank-balances, our tangled relationships. How do we feel about someone who has said that ‘God being the gentleman he is, has calmly backed out of our lives’? Did Jesus not come into the world, into the dark places, into the human scene with its hypocrisies and false values, its dirt and confusion? So let us acknowledge him in all the dark corners of our lives today.

‘Seven whole days, not one in seven, I will praise you’ (George Herbert, 1593-1633). Praise God for his power not only to create, but also to transform!

– David Blair

Copyright Scripture Union, 2002

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