Psalm 19, a Psalm of Praise
The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the sky proclaims its Maker’s handiwork.
One day tells its tale to another,
and one night imparts knowledge to another.
Although they have no words or language,
and their voices are not heard,
their sound has gone out into all lands,
and their message to the ends of the world,
where God has pitched a tent for the sun.
It comes forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber;
it rejoices like a champion to run its course.
It goes forth from the uttermost edge of the heavens
and runs about to the end of it again;
nothing is hidden from its burning heat.
The teaching of the Lord is perfect and revives the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
and gives wisdom to the simple.
The statutes of the Lord are just and rejoice the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is clear,
and gives light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, and endures forever;
the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold;
sweeter far than honey, than honey in the comb.
By them also is your servant enlightened;
and in keeping them there is great reward.
Who can detect one’s own offenses?
Cleanse me from my secret faults.
Above all, keep your servant from presumptuous sins;
let them not get dominion over me;
then I shall be whole and sound, and innocent of a great offense.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Meditation
I offer this psalm of praise to the God of Creation to all who are weary of the snow falling outside their windows, who are tired of the weight of coats and scarves and hats and boots. Tonight’s psalm is reveling in the amazing act of creation that is the sun.
I saw the sun recently. Those of you who live in and around the Binghamton area know what a big deal that is. We are famously—or maybe infamously—among the top ten cloudiest cities the continental United States, with an average of a whopping 212 days of cloud cover each year. So, when I say I saw the sun recently, in the midst of the snowiest winter in memory, that’s a big deal. And, honestly, I turned my face to the sun like a newly sprouted crocus. All day long, I looked for it, watched it cross the sky, and got excited when it warmed my face for a few minutes in my car.
“One day tells its tale to another,” the psalm reads, and it’s true. The day I saw the sun told my heart a tale of hope, even in the midst of this snowy winter: The sun is here. Warmth will come again. See how beautiful it is!
The psalmist sees a wedding story in the stately procession of the sun across the sky, and then, the story of a champion running a race. The sun rejoices… which feels odd, until you’ve experienced that warmth in a way that makes you feel that the sun must clearly be enjoying it as much as you are.
The writers of the psalms read the natural world through the lens of the spiritual one. They could feel the sun’s warmth, or see the beauty of its light glittering on a lake or a river, and understand that the warmth and the beauty were gifts of the Creator. Not only that, the warmth and the beauty actually revealed the Creator. Ours is a God who loves beauty. Ours is a God who designs things for our care, for things like warmth and growth, for the crocus, and the strawberry, and the tomato.
Maybe it seems like a leap that the psalmist goes from the sun to the law, but there is method in the madness. Law, like the natural world, is a gift. Law, like the sun, is the gift of a God who loves beauty, and who designs things for our care. And the law is given in love, as sweet as honey… another gift of the Creator.
Which brings us back to the sun, which the ancient writer and singer did not worship as a god, as did so many of their contemporaries. Instead, like an icon, the psalmist saw the One who fashioned it gleaming, shining, warming. I’ll leave you this night with a poem for tomorrow, Morning Poem, by Mary Oliver.
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
Thanks be to God. Amen.