Nothing can escape the heat of God's Love

 “But who can detect his own failings?”

--Psalm 19:12

 

The thing that continues to catch my attention in this psalm is the epic simile of the sun coming forth from a tent like a bridegroom from a chamber to run like a champion his course.  That image always catches my eye. It is so visual and so fascinating to me.  The sun comes forth from a tent, like a bridegroom coming from a chamber who is like a champion delighting in a course to be run. This is an epic simile involving another simile…  And those images: the sun having a tent, the bridegroom having a special chamber, and the champion eager to run.  So simple and so clear and so memorable. Plus, it makes me think about the ancient people who wrote the psalms.   What kind of champions did they have back then? Did the Hebrew people have their own kind of Olympics? And what kind of chamber or pavilion or secret room did the bridegroom come out of… I think we know why he was filled with delight… but, it is an image our modern culture associates more with the bride than the groom.  For me, it is just a very memorable image; it feels almost Homeric.  One can imagine Odysseus or Hector being described like this, perhaps Apollo, or Athena.  So, despite the fact that I have read this psalm 19 or 20 times now, I still pause and ponder this little 2 stanza section (19:4-6).  Perhaps it is the last line of these 2 stanzas that really stops me in my tracks. The psalmist circles back to the original image of the sun and writes:

 

“…And nothing can escape its heat.” (19:6)

 

Psalm 19 is a psalm of God’s glory, a song of how that glory is revealed.  It starts by reminding us that the glory of God is revealed in all of creation, through all of creation. And that God’s creation declares His glory, even in the silence of a moonless night, or the stillness of an empty street, the quiet stirrings of mist rising from a field at dawn or the migration of clouds on a summer afternoon. God’s glory is present, is always being declared, by the grass, by the mist, by the clouds, by the shadows crossing your lawn, by the birds singing in the trees and by the silences, the stillness, even the darkness.  This declaration is followed by the epic simile and that terrifyingly powerful statement against ignorance: “Nothing can escape its heat…”

 

That statement implies that God’s glory is inescapable, like the heat of the sun.  We might hide in the shade, we might run inside and turn on the AC, but we haven’t escaped, we cannot escape it.  We know the heat is out there, and we know that it is why we are inside sipping ice-tea and snuggled on the couch under a blanket while the air-conditioning blasts a nice chilly 64 degrees.  Yet, as the psalmist says: Just like there is no escape from the truth that it is hot out there, there is no escape from the truth of God’s glory.  Of course, to the psalmist, this is a good thing.  He is assuring us that it is true and we just have to open our eyes and our hearts to see it, to know it, to have creation itself affirm it for us.

 

But there are two more things attached to this idea, of God’s inescapable glory.  First there is that simile—comparing the declaration of God’s glory to the sun’s heat; asserting that both are inescapable.  That is a truth we can run away from all we want, but our denial or our running away doesn’t change the fact that it is true. At least that is what the psalmist says, and I agree.  But then that image of the sun’s heat, that also catches my eye.  And I ask myself: what is God’s glory? It is His very being. And what is God’s being? Well, scripture tells us: God is love.  And so, what I hear in this is: the glory of God is God’s Love. And nothing can escape from that. 

 

And I believe that is true, too.  And so I push a little harder against the text, the Word of God, and ask God to open my eyes that I can read it more clearly, to open my ears that I can hear His message more completely, and to open my heart that I will be filled with His glory—His love—the love that is always found in His word.  And I ask myself: what does this image of God’s inescapable love tell me about God? About our relationship to God?  I think one thing I am hearing is this:  we cannot escape from God’s love.  No matter who we are, no matter what we do; we cannot escape from God’s love.  That seems to me a powerful clue to the truth of sin and the importance of God’s law (cf. 19: 7-14).  What I hear is this: if God’s love is inescapable, then that tells us something surprisingly clear about Heaven and Hell.  They are both within God’s love, manifestations of God’s burning love.  And it is our choice what we make of God’s love.  If we seek God, if we shape our souls to long for the warmth of God’s love, then to enter into that love will be heaven. It will be everything we ever wanted and so much more.  If we train our souls to turn away from God’s love, if we seek to hide from it, then entering into the fullness of God’s love will feel like the flames of Hell.  It is our soul's desire that makes of it Heaven or Hell.  BUT… think about how hard it is sometimes to get yourself off the couch and go outside on a particularly hot afternoon; sometimes we need to prepare ourselves, get ourselves ready for the brightness of the sun, the heat of the day.  Sometimes just stepping out into the light can be blinding and feel oppressive.  I wonder if that is what God’s laws are for. Are they recommendations and practices, kind of an exercise regime, to help us prepare our souls for grace? Stretching our spiritual muscles and opening our sometimes hardened hearts, stirring within us a desire for God's love?  The psalmist tells us that the law of the Lord refreshes the soul, brings joy to the heart, and light to our eyes. It is sweeter than honey and more valuable than gold.  Okay… what if we take God at His word and let ourselves be formed by the Love of God, sweeter than honey, light for our eyes, joy for our hearts.  What if we opened that door by taking just one of God’s laws and saying—this is one I will be shaped by.  Any of them. You could start with the 10 commandments, or perhaps you want to start somewhere a little more familiar to some of us: the sermon on the mount.  Me, I’m thinking about one of Jesus’s more humbling statements:  Judge not, lest ye be judged…  I think that is a place where my prideful heart might need a little reforming.  And yet, as the psalmist also says: Who among us can detect his own failings?       

Certainly not me...  But that doesn't mean I should stop trying.

Walking in the darkness, listening for the silence --some thoughts on Psalm 19

“…not a sound to be heard…”

--Psalm 19:3b

 

 

Walking this morning in the hour before sunrise, I was struck by the depth of the darkness still visible; the depth of the shadows cast across the lawns and into the bushes. Looking up, part of Orion’s belt still lingered high above the treetops.  I was reminded of the night before when my daughter and I had been out walking sometime between nine and ten. As we walked, I commented to her on what seemed to be a difference between the darkness of morning and the darkness of night. And it was not the one I had expected.  In fact, quite the opposite; it seemed to my eye that the darkness of night was more bearable and even somewhat brighter, and that the darkness before dawn was somehow deeper and more impenetrable; perhaps even a little more unsettling.  It was as if nature herself were confirming that old adage: it is always darkest before the dawn.

 

But another aspect of this is the silence.  Before dawn, walking the streets, I am often alone.  Not a soul out, except for the occasional possum slinking off to a day’s rest after a night of foraging. But at night, as Lucia and I walked, there were still sounds of life all around us.  Cars coming and going, people closing up garages, or pulling trash cans to the curb, neighbors out walking their dogs or riding their bikes.  There was activity, signs of life.  And, Lucia pointed out, there were porch lights and driveway security lights to dim the darkness just a bit.

 

But back to this morning’s walk. This morning, on my walk, I was stirred by the stillness and the silence. Pausing in the middle of the street to look up into the lingering remnants of the night, I felt the wonder of the silence and the intensity of the darkness. And for a moment, a deep and impenetrable sense of my own incompleteness and isolation swept over me.  For a brief moment, I felt utterly alone. Yet I was not afraid.

 

I don’t know how long I stood there, before I noticed the headlights of a car stopped some 20 feet away, the driver patiently waiting for me to get out of her way.  I smiled and moved toward the curb and let her pass.  There could only be one reason to get in your car before dawn: a doughnut emergency. And I certainly didn’t want to stand between a driver and her Shipley’s.

 

Her car crept past cautiously, and she nodded, then drove on. Watching her taillights disappear around the far corner, I figured it was time to head home, so I turned around and started back.  And this was when I noticed something else.  The world around me was stirring, scattered birds had begun calling to the dawn, the shadow of a squirrel crept down into the damp grass, testing the cold, and in the distance I could see another person out for their morning walk. Clearly, I had never been quite as alone as I felt in that moment.

 

Walking home, I was heading east and I could see the first rosy glow of dawn blossoming on the horizon. The darkness above it fading into a soft bruise of blue and red. It was beautiful and comforting.  Curiosity made me stop and turn and look back the other direction. And with a kind of strange elation, I realized that behind me I could still see the night.  At one end of the street, the sky was filled with darkness, the moon smiled, and a single star still glistened. And at the other end, the day was breaking.  And in the middle was me… getting positively silly with wonder.

 

Psalm 19 begins with this thrilling image of God’s glory being proclaimed by creation, the day speaks of it to the day and the night to the night.  Not a word is spoken, the psalmist says, but the message is clear, and it reaches the whole world.  Just look around, and even in the darkness of night you will see it –the glory of God’s love is luminous.  It lights the darkest of nights and even the darkness before the dawn is filled with it.  But, to see it, to sense it, to hear it, to know it, we have to pause and look and really listen. We have to listen to the stillness.

 

“…no utterance at all, no speech,

not a sound to be heard,

but from the entire earth it arises,

a message reaching the entire world…” (cf. 19: 3-4)

 

And that message, sung by all of creation, that is our Light.