Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-093 Sunday 11 May 2003

Psalms on Sundays Reading: Psalm 8 – HYMN OF CREATION AND PRAISE

Take a moment to look outside, whatever your view, and wonder.

The universe is astonishing. As the psalmist admits, words are hardly adequate to express it, and yet, phrases from this psalm echo still – ‘a little lower than the angels’ or ‘what is man that you are mindful of him’. Awed silence is good. Christianity can be too talkative and here am I, covering God’s words with more. But it is not good to remain silent without explicit thanks to God and witness to the world. The ones who are to remain silent in this psalm are ‘the foe and the avenger'(v 2). The true praise of God operates as a rebuke to wrongdoing and wrong thinking as well as an encouragement to God’s people.

Consider the positioning words and phrases within the psalm – ‘all the earth’ (v 1), ‘above the heavens’ (v 1), ‘from the lips of children’ (v 2), ‘your heavens … which you have set in place’ (v 3), ‘a little lower’ (v 5), ‘under his feet’ (v 6) and then all the animals in their places in verses 7 and 8. Now ask yourself what this visual and conceptual rhythm might mean.

I think it relates to a wider biblical pattern of revelation, humility and vocation. God shows himself to Moses in the burning bush or to Isaiah in the Temple, and their immediate response is fear and a sense of unworthiness. Then out of that encounter comes a call – here, a recall to the Genesis mandate for humanity to look after creation. Calvin’s commentary is particularly good at linking the psalm’s picture of mankind, God’s grace and the perspective that the coming of Christ gives: ‘What was bestowed upon Christ’s human nature was a free gift; nay, more the fact that a mortal man and the son of Adam, is the only Son of God, and the Lord of glory, and the head of angels affords a bright illustration of the mercy of God.’ (19th Century translation)

In what ways is God’s creation like his gift of Jesus Christ?

– Roger Pooley

Copyright Scripture Union, 2003, Encounter with God

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