I learned a few years ago that a good strategy for a speaker to get the attention of his listeners is to “hook” them into the talk, into the sermon, so what I’m going to do to get your attention is tell a joke. It's a joke about relationships, so it's entirely appropriate for this occasion here today...
Here goes:
A husband and his wife were considering traveling to Alaska for a trip that the husband had long dreamed of taking. He kept talking about how great it would be to stay in a log cabin without electricity, to hunt moose, and drive a dog team instead of a car.
“If we decided to live there permanently, away from civilization, what would you miss the most?” he asked his wife.
She replied, “You.”
Apparently he didn’t get the memo: she’s not as excited about moving to Alaska as he is....
Introduction
Here goes:
A husband and his wife were considering traveling to Alaska for a trip that the husband had long dreamed of taking. He kept talking about how great it would be to stay in a log cabin without electricity, to hunt moose, and drive a dog team instead of a car.
“If we decided to live there permanently, away from civilization, what would you miss the most?” he asked his wife.
She replied, “You.”
Apparently he didn’t get the memo: she’s not as excited about moving to Alaska as he is....
Introduction
Some of you may have heard of St. Augustine. Augustine was a Christian who lived in the 5th century, and he is known for a very beautiful quote. He said the following:
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” it’s a wonderful truth: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
This is a simple yet hard truth. We go through our lives searching for meaning, searching for something, someone, to complete us and bring fulfillment. And when we don’t find it, we become restless. The culture that we live in has a couple of answers for this restlessness, but the one that we perhaps encounter most often is to keep ourselves busy. We are told to do more, to be more, to buy more, to accomplish more, and on and on the list goes. In the end, though, our hearts remain restless. Until they meet God.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
We are made to admire, we are created to adore, we are created to be in awe of something, someone bigger than us, and according to the reading that we just heard, the Lord is the answer to our quest. Look no further. “Praise God. For he is great. For he is good. Let everyone praise the Lord.”
That’s how I would summarize our reading: I will praise God! For he is great! For he is good! Let everyone praise the Lord!
There are two points I’d like to briefly highlight with you today: the greatness of God, and the goodness of God. At the end I will try to put these two into the context of God’s kingdom, because it seems to me that this is what David had in mind hen he wrote the Psalm, but let me begin by focusing on the two points of the Psalm:
God’s greatness. And God’s goodness.
The Lord is Great
God’s greatness - his grandeur - is evident in the comprehensiveness of the world that we see and experience around us. God’s glory is revealed in creation: From the vast skies to the immense ocean; from the massive mountains to the still and serene prairies, from the jungles to the desert to the arctic, all of these places reveal to us the greatness of God. And this is just planet earth.
The place we call earth is a tiny planet, a speck, inside the Milky Way galaxy. So small is the earth, it can fit into the sun 960,000 times, and the sun is only one of hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. And that’s just one galaxy, our galaxy. I understand that as of today, there are around 100 billion galaxies. So, our galaxy is but a small neighbourhood, a “cul-de-sac” in the known cosmos.
This is the God that David is talking about in Psalm 145. I hope we get an idea about the vastness of God.
Let me continue.
Have you ever noticed how reliable the world that we live in is? Everything is ordered according to the seasons of the year, according to the seasons of life, according to the needs of the day. Nothing is left unchecked, unaccounted for. We experience the world as reliable, balanced, and generous. There is a regularity to the world - the sun comes up every morning (well not here on the west coast, but in pretty much the rest of the world it does), and goes down every night - an order that we can trust, and this equilibrium, this coherence, is what our Psalm today celebrates.
I want to stop here briefly and include marriage, what we’re celebrating here today - 50 years of life together - as part of this created order. Marriage provides a stability in our society that no other institution can match.
I recently went on a long prayer walk in Spain, and I met a guy from Germany there while on the walk, and as we got to talking, he lamented his failed marriage. “I’ve already lost my wife. Now I’m afraid of losing my two daughters too. I love them both so much”, he said.
Stability. Mom and dad: we are the fruit of your love, and we are blessed to have been nurtured, raised, and cared for by you. Well, I think for the most part. I don’t know what happened to Melanie and Ted....
God reveals himself to us, he blesses us and speaks to us, through the world that he has made. And the right response to this experience of the world that we live in is one of praise and gratitude.
Something very interesting if not obvious to us who read the Psalm in English is that it was written in a very particular way in the original Hebrew. Every verse begins with a successive letter of the alphabet, in sequence, from A to Z (verse 1 begins with the letter A, verse 2 with the letter B, verse 3 with the letter C, and so on and so forth, until the last verse, which begins with the letter Z). It seems that David must have had something very particular in mind when he wrote it: What do you think David was trying to accomplish when he wrote it this way?
I think David was trying to communicate meaning, order and beauty in a praise poem. He wanted to let us know that God created the universe, and there’s nothing that he missed: from A to Z, it’s comprehensive, complete, orderly, amazing, and meaningful. The order in this Psalm is but a small reflection of the greater coherence of God’s creation. That’s why he begins with awestruck amazement: “I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever.” (145:1).
God is great.
The Lord is Good
The second point I’d like to make is that God is good. Here we are referring to God’s faithfulness and loyalty: the Lord is “gracious and merciful”, patient, and “abounding in steadfast love” (145:8).
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” it’s a wonderful truth: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
This is a simple yet hard truth. We go through our lives searching for meaning, searching for something, someone, to complete us and bring fulfillment. And when we don’t find it, we become restless. The culture that we live in has a couple of answers for this restlessness, but the one that we perhaps encounter most often is to keep ourselves busy. We are told to do more, to be more, to buy more, to accomplish more, and on and on the list goes. In the end, though, our hearts remain restless. Until they meet God.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
We are made to admire, we are created to adore, we are created to be in awe of something, someone bigger than us, and according to the reading that we just heard, the Lord is the answer to our quest. Look no further. “Praise God. For he is great. For he is good. Let everyone praise the Lord.”
That’s how I would summarize our reading: I will praise God! For he is great! For he is good! Let everyone praise the Lord!
There are two points I’d like to briefly highlight with you today: the greatness of God, and the goodness of God. At the end I will try to put these two into the context of God’s kingdom, because it seems to me that this is what David had in mind hen he wrote the Psalm, but let me begin by focusing on the two points of the Psalm:
God’s greatness. And God’s goodness.
The Lord is Great
God’s greatness - his grandeur - is evident in the comprehensiveness of the world that we see and experience around us. God’s glory is revealed in creation: From the vast skies to the immense ocean; from the massive mountains to the still and serene prairies, from the jungles to the desert to the arctic, all of these places reveal to us the greatness of God. And this is just planet earth.
The place we call earth is a tiny planet, a speck, inside the Milky Way galaxy. So small is the earth, it can fit into the sun 960,000 times, and the sun is only one of hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. And that’s just one galaxy, our galaxy. I understand that as of today, there are around 100 billion galaxies. So, our galaxy is but a small neighbourhood, a “cul-de-sac” in the known cosmos.
This is the God that David is talking about in Psalm 145. I hope we get an idea about the vastness of God.
Let me continue.
Have you ever noticed how reliable the world that we live in is? Everything is ordered according to the seasons of the year, according to the seasons of life, according to the needs of the day. Nothing is left unchecked, unaccounted for. We experience the world as reliable, balanced, and generous. There is a regularity to the world - the sun comes up every morning (well not here on the west coast, but in pretty much the rest of the world it does), and goes down every night - an order that we can trust, and this equilibrium, this coherence, is what our Psalm today celebrates.
I want to stop here briefly and include marriage, what we’re celebrating here today - 50 years of life together - as part of this created order. Marriage provides a stability in our society that no other institution can match.
I recently went on a long prayer walk in Spain, and I met a guy from Germany there while on the walk, and as we got to talking, he lamented his failed marriage. “I’ve already lost my wife. Now I’m afraid of losing my two daughters too. I love them both so much”, he said.
Stability. Mom and dad: we are the fruit of your love, and we are blessed to have been nurtured, raised, and cared for by you. Well, I think for the most part. I don’t know what happened to Melanie and Ted....
God reveals himself to us, he blesses us and speaks to us, through the world that he has made. And the right response to this experience of the world that we live in is one of praise and gratitude.
Something very interesting if not obvious to us who read the Psalm in English is that it was written in a very particular way in the original Hebrew. Every verse begins with a successive letter of the alphabet, in sequence, from A to Z (verse 1 begins with the letter A, verse 2 with the letter B, verse 3 with the letter C, and so on and so forth, until the last verse, which begins with the letter Z). It seems that David must have had something very particular in mind when he wrote it: What do you think David was trying to accomplish when he wrote it this way?
I think David was trying to communicate meaning, order and beauty in a praise poem. He wanted to let us know that God created the universe, and there’s nothing that he missed: from A to Z, it’s comprehensive, complete, orderly, amazing, and meaningful. The order in this Psalm is but a small reflection of the greater coherence of God’s creation. That’s why he begins with awestruck amazement: “I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever.” (145:1).
God is great.
The Lord is Good
The second point I’d like to make is that God is good. Here we are referring to God’s faithfulness and loyalty: the Lord is “gracious and merciful”, patient, and “abounding in steadfast love” (145:8).
God cares for all of his creation, but his attention is directed especially towards people, and even more particularly, the weak and the needy. “The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.” (145:14). The wording here is decisive and intentional: God’s heart breaks for those who are empty-handed, those who depend completely on Him.
I know that some people find this problematic: how can God love some more than others? But it’s not like that. God’s care for the vulnerable is similar to parents who pay special attention to one of their children when they are sick or when they need extra attention. They love all their children, but their hearts break for the ones who need it most. The difference is that we are flawed when we do it, but God isn’t. We don’t always see the full picture, but God always gets it right.
God cares for us, and he is near to us when we call upon him. In a world where the newspapers, tv, and the internet bombard us with messages of self-protection - fend for yourselves, look out for number one because it’s a dog-eat-dog world where only the fittest survive - God’s goodness confronts us with a radically different way of being, that of resting in him and asking him to provide for our needs.
He doesn’t promise to give us the perfect life - we’ve all experienced losses, I don’t want to take those for granted: but he does promise us a way through - not around, but through - difficulties. He asks us to trust him. He watches over us.
How blessed we have been in our family, when it comes to prayer! From a young age on, prayer has always been a part of our family life, and whenever I talk with my parents on the phone even now, they often end our conversations with “We always pray for you.” That’s a gift. And prayer is a part of our meals too: before a meal mom or dad usually says a few - sometimes many - words about what we’re celebrating, followed by a prayer... What a blessing.
If you are down and out, wondering where you fit into this world: this is for you. If you have doubts and fears about your future: this is for you. If you have a past that haunts you and wont let you move forward: this is for you. If you’ve committed terrible mistakes and can’t forgive yourself: this is for you.
If your heart is restless, then know this: God is for you, not against you. God is for me. God is for us.
The Upside Down Kingdom
I’d like to now come back to the kingdom of God and then wrap things up. David describes his relationship with God as that of an admiring, awestruck servant in God’s kingdom: “I will [praise] you, my God and King. . . Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom...” (145:1, 13a).
Many years after this Psalm was written, we read in the gospel of Luke, that the angel Gabriel appeared to the virgin Mary and announced to her that she would conceive in her womb and bear a son, Jesus, and that the throne would be his, and he would reign forever, and of his kingdom there would be no end (Luke 1:31-33).
Mary, in complete spiritual poverty replied with the words that we all know: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38). She too describes herself as his servant.
But what she said next is equally striking: “[God] has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.” (Luke 1:52-53). Compare these words with David’s words: “The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.” (145:14).
I don’t know if Mary had Psalm 145 on her lips when she responded the way she did, but her response seems to echo David here. The God of David - although he couldn’t have known it at the time - and the king that the angel Gabriel announced, converge in the person of Jesus Christ.
And the kingdom of God which David praises and looks forward to, is the same kingdom that Mary rejoices in at the annunciation. God’s everlasting kingdom is ushered in by Jesus Christ, and whenever our hearts are turned towards him, the kingdom of God is at work.
The unity of Scripture here is amazing. God’s greatness and his goodness reach their highest point in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the one who satisfies our restless hearts, because he is the one who made us, and because he is the one who now wants to renew our hearts and our minds, and in time, our bodies too. I think no one says it better than the apostle Paul.
Referring to Christ, he says, 6 “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:6-11).
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, when we remember Jesus entering Jerusalem on the way to Golgotha. He rides on a donkey, and the people, crowding along the side of the road, wanting to get a glimpse of him, they shout out loud, rejoicing and praising God for the mighty works that they had seen: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:36-38).
In the coming week we will journey through the Passion of Christ together: the Last Supper, the crucifixion, Christ’s death, and then finally, his resurrection.
My prayer is that this Easter would be a time when we can reflect on the glorious majesty, and the humble goodness of God. May our hearts find rest in him: Praise God. For he is good. For he is great. Let everyone praise the Lord.
Amen.
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This was my homily for this past weekend's 50th wedding anniversary of my parents. I hope that even in a small measure, their love for each other and God was kindled.
