{"id":9816,"date":"2024-03-11T16:11:54","date_gmt":"2024-03-11T23:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=9816"},"modified":"2024-03-11T16:14:52","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T23:14:52","slug":"psalm-104","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=9816","title":{"rendered":"
Psalm 104<\/div>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Click here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sermon for the Season of Lent<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psalm 104 is a creation Psalm about the glory of nature and the whole of creation. This Psalm, like other creation Psalms, is the basis for hymns such as \u201cAll creatures of our God and King,\u201d \u201cLet all things now living,\u201d and \u201cAll things bright and beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you likely know, in 1965 the British veterinarian, Alf Wight, took the title of the hymn \u201cAll things bright and beautiful\u201d and under the pen name James Herriot, wrote a series of poignant stories about the animals he treated and their owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have hesitated to read the whole of Psalm 104; it\u2019s thirty-five verses long. But we really need to have it before us. I ask only that while I\u2019m reading it, you have in mind the first two chapters of Genesis. There you have two creation stories. Here in Psalm 104 is also a story of creation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s important is that there are basically three ways we look at nature and creation, and we don\u2019t really have them sorted out in our minds. The first way is that nature and the world about us is like a perpetual clock. It was set going and follows a cycle. The cycle keeps going, but it never goes anywhere. It\u2019s the circle of nature. Time is not going forward. We find this in the common thinking today in those who worship nature. For them, God is Gaia. There is that which is perpetual, governed by laws we call the cosmos. This view really goes back to the Greek Stoics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second understanding, which is a little bit different, comes out when somebody says: \u201cIt\u2019s just natural.\u201d What do we mean by that? In 1970 one of the most important Catholic moral thinkers of the Twentieth Century, Charles Curran, was addressing a conference of priests, and he said: \u201cI\u2019m all for \u2018natural law,\u2019 as long as you can tell me: What is nature? and: What is law?\u201d He went on from there for two days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have this idea that there\u2019s \u201cnature,\u201d but what exactly is that? This is not just a Twenty-First Century question. Back in the Eighteenth Century, one book described fourteen different meanings of the word \u201cnature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today when someone says: \u201cIt\u2019s natural,\u201d it is commonly assumed that nature is like an organism that is alive and follows certain laws. This viewpoint, which goes back to Isaac Newton\u2019s thinking in the Seventeenth Century, holds that there is this process, governed by certain laws of space and time, and we know them, and they can make certain things understood. There are laws, and yet there is also change. That\u2019s the second way of thinking and it is still common today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Twentieth Century the whole problem of quantum mechanics arose, complicating our understanding of nature. Here are three points about that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, people are taught that there are natural laws, but if you get into the really tough thinking about it, what physicists say is that rather than natural laws, there are simply probabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, we may think that when we have all these results in physics, we really know something. However, what physicists do is best described by imagining them going into a totally dark room and by feeling around, trying to figure out what\u2019s there. They take some sort of instrument and see if they touch anything. Then they test that and touch something else and try to figure out a connection, and after a while, they have certain things they think that are there, but what all is there is really not well known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, about one hundred years ago (1927), Werner Heisenberg, one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics, summed up the significance of what scientists were discovering about nature. He said: \u201cNot only is the universe stranger than we imagine; it\u2019s stranger than we can imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brings us to the third way of understanding nature. Here is where Psalm 104 helps us. We are familiar with Genesis 1 and John 1 that God creates by his word. That is found in Psalm 104 in a secondary way. There is a hint in verse 7 about creation by the word: \u201cAt thy rebuke they fled.\u201d There is that word of rebuke. And Psalm 104:30 says: \u201cWhen you sent forth your Spirit (your breath), they are created.\u201d That may echo Genesis 1:2: \u201cAnd the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is really important in this Psalm is evident when we contrast the word \u201ccontinual\u201d with the word \u201ccontinuous.\u201d We use the word \u201ccontinual\u201d to mean every so often, as in: \u201cMy sister continually bugs me.\u201d But the word \u201ccontinuous\u201d means all the time, 24\/7, 365 days a year, always. In Psalm 104 creation is continuous. God is sustaining creation 24\/7, 365 days a year. It\u2019s not that God gives creation a kick-start. It\u2019s not a clock, not even an organism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather, creation is continuous. This comes out in a couple of places. Psalm 104:16: \u201cThe trees of the Lord are watered abundantly.\u201d That is in the present tense. And 104:21: \u201cThe young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God.\u201d It is a continuous process. Most of all in 104:32, in the present tense, it says the Lord is he \u201c. . . who looks on the earth and it trembles, and touches the mountains and they smoke!\u201d That is, earthquakes and volcanoes. In this way God is working. Not continually, meaning every so often. Rather, he is creating through history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the key to this? For the ancient Hebrews the start of it all is not in Genesis 1. Rather, it starts with the Exodus. In the Exodus those who were slaves, who were nothing, God chose, God delivered, and with them God made a covenant. And because the Lord is God and he is that kind of a God, therefore he is that way at the beginning, and he is that way in the future. That\u2019s God working in history. History is also what creation is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Psalm 136 every half verse is the same refrain: \u201cThe steadfast love of the Lord continues forever.\u201d That\u2019s basic. It is his love which is based on his name. As Psalm 8:1 proclaims: \u201cO Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!\u201d That\u2019s what it\u2019s about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will then ask: What about evil? When we think of continuous creation, where does that come in? We have seen that Psalm 104 talks not only about earthquakes and volcanoes, but also about the young lions seeking their food from God. And in the last verse: \u201cLet sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we sort that out? That\u2019s sorted out by the Psalmist, not here but in Psalm 50:21, in which the Lord says: \u201cThese things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you.\u201d Holiness cannot abide unholiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yahweh is not only the one who is (\u201cI am\u201d), but also it means \u201che acts.\u201d But it\u2019s above us. Evil is a mystery we cannot solve. The Lord is hidden, as it says, especially in Second Isaiah, so that one cannot know God through the creation. We fall into that trap of thinking we can.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is spelled out in Psalm 19:1 and 3. It\u2019s starts out: \u201cThe heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork . . . [then verse 3] there is no speech and nor are there words; their voice is not heard.\u201d The things of creation declare his glory, but they don\u2019t tell us who he is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only the Son does that. John 1:14: \u201cThe Word became flesh and dwelt among us.\u201d John 1:18: \u201cNo one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.\u201d He is the one who acts; he is the one who takes care of the terrible problem of evil. \u201cWe beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father\u201d (John 1:14). The glory of the Lord is what he has done by dying and rising for us in Jesus Christ. \u201cBehold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!\u201d (John 1:29).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A sermon for the Season of Lent<\/p>\n

Psalm 104 is a creation Psalm about the glory of nature and the whole of creation. This Psalm, like other creation Psalms, is the basis for hymns such as \u201cAll creatures of our God and King,\u201d \u201cLet all things now living,\u201d and \u201cAll things bright and beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

As you likely know, in 1965 the British veterinarian, Alf Wight, took the title of the hymn \u201cAll things bright and beautiful\u201d and under the pen name James Herriot, wrote a series of poignant stories about the animals he treated and their owners.<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9816"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9825,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9816\/revisions\/9825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}