Let's turn in our Bibles to Psalm 104. We get the word "psalm" from an old Greek word which means "song." When I was a boy, I called it the book of "palms" and knew it was in the middle of my Bible, right after the book of "job."
What was it like, the first time Psalm 104 was sung at the temple in Jerusalem? Imagine, for a moment, that you're in front of the temple. The musicians- the priests and Levites- are standing over here with their trumpets, cymbals, and stringed instruments, their harps and lyres. Standing next to them are the singers, what we would call the choir. You're in the congregation, only you'd be standing instead of sitting. Standing around you is a mighty throng of strangers, fellow Jews from every tribe in Israel who are waiting for the song to begin.
Now the choirmaster walks to the front of the choir and turns to face us. At his cue, the trumpets explode with a thunderous prelude. The choir, in full voice, joins in, "Praise the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth."
How the music must have soared in this section! If only we could hear what they heard that day, but the music has been lost to us forever. What remains are the lyrics of some anonymous poet whose words we recognize as inspired by God. He begins by exhorting himself to praise the Lord. "O Lord my God," he continues, "you are great," you are magnificent! This is a praise song, a song praising God for the magnificent achievement of creation. And this great God, maker of heaven and earth, is "my God" as the poet claims. That's one reason why we love the Psalms so much. Another man wrote these words long, long ago, and yet when we say them, they're our words as well. Our voice echoes the psalmist's voice: The Lord, the great God of all the universe, is "my God." You'll also notice the poet writes not only about God, he writes directly to God. Isn't that why we love modern praise songs so much? We're not just singing about God, we're singing to God! "God, you are magnificent!"
In these first nine verses, the poet recreates the story of creation. He shows us God, clothed with splendor and majesty, wrapped in a robe of light. God stretches out the atmosphere, and wraps it around the earth. He erects his palace on the clouds, steps into his chariot of thundercloud and rides out on the wings of the wind. Accompanying him are his obedient servants, the winds and lightning of the thundercloud. The music crescendos as God shapes the earth and covers it with water. At the sound of God's command, the waters flee, cascading over mountains as they descend to subterranean seas, to oceans, to lakes, and to rivers and streams. God fixes a boundary for them that they cannot breach.
Should we praise God at church for air to breathe, for solid earth beneath our feet, and for clean water to drink? What if the worship team announced next Sunday, "Okay, let's praise the Lord for earth, air and water!" You'd think they'd lost their minds! "Okay, all the ladies on the second verse, let's praise the Lord for air!" I know this doesn't sound very spiritual to us, but it was spiritual enough for the worship of ancient Israelites.
The second movement in the song, verses 10 through 30, is more lyrical than the first. The pace of the music may have slowed and the tone quieted. Creation is complete, but it's not a jumbled heap. God has given it form and order. Mountains, valleys, water, the seasons, day and night form an intricate system in which His creatures thrive.
Can you hear the harps and lyres as they play their introduction to the second movement? The choir begins to sing…"He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains. They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds of the air nest by the waters; they sing among the branches. He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work. He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate-- bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart. The trees of the Lord are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. There the birds make their nests; the stork has its home in the pine trees. The high mountains belong to the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the coneys. The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. You bring darkness; it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl. The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens. Then man goes out to his work, to his labor until evening. How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number-- living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth."
Do you see the stream in verse 10 meandering through the valley? Trees line it on either side and birds are hopping from branch to branch, chirping. Do you see the wild donkeys on the bank over there? No humans are in sight. These are creatures of God that don't benefit us directly, and yet they're a part of His creation; they fill a special place in His design for the earth.
In verse 13, God sends rain which makes grass grow for cattle and nourishes the plants humans cultivate. You see, though the earth is under an ancient curse of thorns and thistles and sweaty brows, God in his grace still provides for us.
But did you notice what three types of food are mentioned in verse 15? Wine, olive oil and bread. Not one of these occurs naturally. You won't find loaves of bread on stalks, no jars of olive oil on branches, no bottles of wine on vines. They're products of human imagination and ingenuity. The wheat, olives, and grapes have possibilities built into them by God that he intended for us to explore. So today I'll slurp the noodles in my bowl of pho; tomorrow I'll chew the crust of my deep dish pizza. Noodles are possibilities God built into rice; pizza dough is a possibility God built into wheat. Every time you cook, you explore the design God built into creation. Every recipe book you own pays homage to the one who designed each ingredient.
Notice also that bread and oil are essential to our diet; wine is also essential but for different reasons. Bread may strengthen our bodies and oil may give us the glow of health, but wine brings us joy. Did you know God wanted us to enjoy eating; he designed food to give us pleasure? Have you seen one of those science fiction films where it shows what meals will be like in the future? You know, the guy comes up to a machine and says something like this: "I'd like prime rib with a baked potato. And I'd like butter, sour cream, chives, you know, the works. Some corn on the side would be nice and, oh yeah, can you give me an iced tea with a little lemon and sugar?" Then a door slides open and what comes out? A white plate with a little brown pill in the middle. That little brown pill may have all the nourishment of a prime rib dinner, but none of the pleasure. God designed food to give us more than just amino acids and carbohydrates and minerals. He also designed food to bring us joy!
From the valley, the poet now leads us up to the mountains. He points to the cedars of Lebanon and the pine trees growing thousands of feet above sea level. Look closely. The branches are thick with nests, nests of little birds. Do you see the storks? They're too large to live among the branches so they construct their massive nests on the very crown of the tree. I love the way the poet puts this: "the stork has its home in the pine trees." You see, God designed the pine tree to be the stork's home, and he designed the stork to nest there.
From the trees we move to the upper reaches of the mountains, too high for human habitation. The mountains are home to wild goats and small animals about the size of chipmunks known as conies or rock badgers. Did you notice it says the high mountains belong to the wild goats? God designed them to live there. In that sense the mountains belong to the goats and the conies, echoing the thought about pine trees serving as the home for small birds and storks. If this is true, maybe we should consider how our actions affect the rest of God's creation before we impose our own designs on the "homes" God created for them.
By the way, have you ever wondered if there's alien life in the universe? There is. It's all around us. Human life is not the only life God created. God created animals first and created us to share the same world with them. Yes, we're different from them since we're created in God's image, but God cares for them and has commanded us to care for them as wise stewards of his creation. They're as much a part of his design as we are. They're as necessary to his design as we are. In modesty we should admit that we don't understand all of the different ways these intricate systems God created really work and acknowledge that we've often done real harm to the creatures and systems he originally designed.
In Genesis 2:15, after God creates the Garden of Eden and places Adam in it, he commands Adam to cultivate the Garden and to keep it. The Hebrew literally says Adam is to "cultivate it and to guard it." Biblical scholars have puzzled over those words. "Cultivate it" they understand, but "guard it?" Many Christian scholars believe Adam was to guard the Garden of Eden from Satan. The ancient rabbis were more of the opinion that Adam was to guard it from the animals. If allowed to run wild they might damage it, maybe even destroy it. No one knows precisely from what or whom Adam was to guard the Garden, but what is clear from this passage is that it needed protecting. Although it was perfect, it wasn't indestructible. Let me say that again. Although it was perfect, it wasn't indestructible and God intended for humans to protect it. I'm always puzzled by Christians who think it's unnecessary to protect the world God created. Shouldn't we be leaders in "guarding" God's creation? Don't we have greater reason than others since we accept the mandate he gave us in Genesis as human beings: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." If he's given every human this command, won't God hold us accountable for how well or how poorly we fill the earth, subdue it, and rule over it?
The poet now turns to the cycle of the seasons and day and night, other facets of God's design. When the sun goes down, it's God who makes darkness. Darkness itself isn't evil. Night is the day of the animals, especially for lions and other beasts of prey. The poet challenges us to hear the lion's roar in a new way, as a prayer for food…or maybe it's asking for God's blessing upon its meal! If our poet only pictured an idyllic valley, a stream flowing by trees laden with birds, we'd consider him a romantic. But this is no song from Disney. The same God who made the wild donkeys made lions that eat them. Take a closer look at the scene by the stream. You'll notice the wild donkeys sniffing the air for danger. The birds, while hopping and chirping, keep a sharp eye out for snakes. As Tennyson observed, "Nature (is) red in tooth and claw." Listen as I read a poem by William Blake called "The Tyger." It captures the difficulty we have of acknowledging God as creator both of the gentle lamb and of the tiger, a killing machine.
The Tyger
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes!
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of they heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Look at a tiger and what do you see? Well-muscled trunk and legs rippling beneath a striped coat; thick neck supporting a massive head complete with penetrating eyes, crushing jaws and piercing teeth. Fearful symmetry. Could this also be one of God's creations?
It is, but the prophet Isaiah answers Blake by picturing a future world that's no longer under God's curse, a world that more perfectly reflects God's original design; a world in which the food chain, as we know it, is broken. In Isaiah 11:6 it says about this more perfect world, "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Isaiah's new paradise is more than a world where men beat plows from bloody swords. It's a world where peace is so profound, the animals live in harmony. The wolf and the lamb live together.
When humans are mentioned in Isaiah 11, they're represented by a child, a child who plays with cobras and takes lions on walks. But don't give your child a pet cobra anytime soon! God's original design for how humans and animals should live together is still out of joint. In Paradise Lost, John Milton imagines how different life might have been in the garden and how much we lost because of the fall. Milton imagines that after Adam eats the forbidden fruit, he strolls through the garden, still unaware of how much his world has changed. Nearby he notices a few animals. Delighted to see his friends, he approaches them, but instead of greeting him, the animals flee in terror. Adam's confused by this. A few animals do not run, but glare at him in some new way. Adam doesn't like the look of this and quickly exits stage right. Slowly it dawns on him, before God speaks one word of judgment, that paradise has already been lost. Yes, the curse has bent and twisted creation, which makes all of it long for a better world, a world in which animals and humans can live in harmony once again, the new paradise of Isaiah.
Our poet now glances briefly at the Mediterranean Sea, vast and spacious, teeming with life. He could go on and on about the creatures of the sea, but he mentions only one-- leviathan. Probably this refers to whales which God formed to frolic there, to play there. Next time you see a whale breach, remember this verse. God made the whale, this massive and yet elegant creature, to play in the ocean!
The last part of this movement sounds a more somber note- our total dependence on God and the reality of both life and death. All of these good things we've seen so far like air, earth, water and food are all gifts from the hand of God, and they're gifts to all of us, humans and animals alike. At some point, however, God will hide his face, take back his breath and we will "return to the dust." But the movement ends with a word of hope, a promise that God will send his Spirit to renew life on the earth. Sometimes I meet people, even Christian people, who tell me something like this: "We've decided not to have children. We don't think it's right to bring them into a world with racism, poverty, crime, overpopulation, nuclear weapons, war, and famine." That's quite a list, and I can understand why people would be afraid to bring children into a world like that. But when has the world not been a perilous place to live? I think one of the best ways we can demonstrate our faith in God's renewing Spirit and our hope in his sovereign plan is by continuing to bring new life into the world.
In the third and final movement, the song expresses the poet's wishes and vows. Here I think the pace of the song accelerates and ends with a thundering crescendo. "May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works-- he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the Lord. But may sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord," the choir shouts. With the last note still ringing in its ears, the congregation drops to its knees, worshipping God. For all of us who are here, the song will linger in our memories, weaving its way into our hearts. Never will we forget this moment, the first time this psalm was sung.
Now I bet some of you are thinking something like this: "That's all well and good, but it's December the 13th and Christmas is less than two weeks away. What does all of this have to do with Christmas?" That's a good question. What does this have to do with Christmas? Let's see if I can sketch out a brief P.S. to this sermon that might answer your question. Each Christmas, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. But this was no ordinary birth. Yes, we believe that he was born of a virgin, but the key issue is not so much how he was born but who was born that night in Bethlehem. Christians believe that Jesus was not just a man; he was both God and man and yet, somehow, one person. We call this the incarnation, the most radical idea we believe and the hardest to wrap our heads around. From the earliest moments of the church, Christians have proclaimed that the Creator of the universe, at a certain point in time and space, became part of His creation. In Colossians chapter one, Paul reminds the Christians at Colossae that Jesus is the maker of heaven and earth. Beginning in verse fifteen Paul writes, "He (speaking of Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." In another letter to the Christians at Philippi, Paul encourages them to imitate Jesus' humility, the humility he showed most profoundly in his incarnation and crucifixion. To support his point, he quotes the lyrics of a song the Philippians loved to sing. In chapter two, verse five, he writes, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death-
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
So for almost 2,000 Christmases, Christians have celebrated the incarnation, that moment when God humbled himself and became… a baby!! Do you understand what that means, that the Creator of heaven and earth, the mighty Lord of the universe, became an infant? It seems easier to say God became a man, much harder to say he was a newborn, so fragile, so dependent on a carpenter and his wife. Remember that line in "Away in a Manger" that says, "the little Lord Jesus no crying he made?" Would you be surprised if Jesus was colicky and Mary and Joseph didn't get a decent night's sleep the first three months of his life, or if he had really bad dirty diapers, or if he repeatedly wacked his head on the ground while learning to walk? Do you think Jesus never dumped his bowl of matzo ball soup on his head? Was Jesus a difficult child to raise? God knows… he was a difficult man!
Do you see why the incarnation is such a radical idea, and why it's earth-shaking in its implications? That baby lying in a feeding trough, his cries and whimpers wafting through the silence of Bethlehem that night, is the same one who wraps himself in a robe of light, who stretches out the sky like a tent, who makes the clouds his chariot, and who rides on the wings of the wind.
What was it like, the first time Psalm 104 was sung at the temple in Jerusalem? Imagine, for a moment, that you're in front of the temple. The musicians- the priests and Levites- are standing over here with their trumpets, cymbals, and stringed instruments, their harps and lyres. Standing next to them are the singers, what we would call the choir. You're in the congregation, only you'd be standing instead of sitting. Standing around you is a mighty throng of strangers, fellow Jews from every tribe in Israel who are waiting for the song to begin.
Now the choirmaster walks to the front of the choir and turns to face us. At his cue, the trumpets explode with a thunderous prelude. The choir, in full voice, joins in, "Praise the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth."
How the music must have soared in this section! If only we could hear what they heard that day, but the music has been lost to us forever. What remains are the lyrics of some anonymous poet whose words we recognize as inspired by God. He begins by exhorting himself to praise the Lord. "O Lord my God," he continues, "you are great," you are magnificent! This is a praise song, a song praising God for the magnificent achievement of creation. And this great God, maker of heaven and earth, is "my God" as the poet claims. That's one reason why we love the Psalms so much. Another man wrote these words long, long ago, and yet when we say them, they're our words as well. Our voice echoes the psalmist's voice: The Lord, the great God of all the universe, is "my God." You'll also notice the poet writes not only about God, he writes directly to God. Isn't that why we love modern praise songs so much? We're not just singing about God, we're singing to God! "God, you are magnificent!"
In these first nine verses, the poet recreates the story of creation. He shows us God, clothed with splendor and majesty, wrapped in a robe of light. God stretches out the atmosphere, and wraps it around the earth. He erects his palace on the clouds, steps into his chariot of thundercloud and rides out on the wings of the wind. Accompanying him are his obedient servants, the winds and lightning of the thundercloud. The music crescendos as God shapes the earth and covers it with water. At the sound of God's command, the waters flee, cascading over mountains as they descend to subterranean seas, to oceans, to lakes, and to rivers and streams. God fixes a boundary for them that they cannot breach.
Should we praise God at church for air to breathe, for solid earth beneath our feet, and for clean water to drink? What if the worship team announced next Sunday, "Okay, let's praise the Lord for earth, air and water!" You'd think they'd lost their minds! "Okay, all the ladies on the second verse, let's praise the Lord for air!" I know this doesn't sound very spiritual to us, but it was spiritual enough for the worship of ancient Israelites.
The second movement in the song, verses 10 through 30, is more lyrical than the first. The pace of the music may have slowed and the tone quieted. Creation is complete, but it's not a jumbled heap. God has given it form and order. Mountains, valleys, water, the seasons, day and night form an intricate system in which His creatures thrive.
Can you hear the harps and lyres as they play their introduction to the second movement? The choir begins to sing…"He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains. They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds of the air nest by the waters; they sing among the branches. He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work. He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate-- bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart. The trees of the Lord are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. There the birds make their nests; the stork has its home in the pine trees. The high mountains belong to the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the coneys. The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down. You bring darkness; it becomes night, and all the beasts of the forest prowl. The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God. The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens. Then man goes out to his work, to his labor until evening. How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number-- living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth."
Do you see the stream in verse 10 meandering through the valley? Trees line it on either side and birds are hopping from branch to branch, chirping. Do you see the wild donkeys on the bank over there? No humans are in sight. These are creatures of God that don't benefit us directly, and yet they're a part of His creation; they fill a special place in His design for the earth.
In verse 13, God sends rain which makes grass grow for cattle and nourishes the plants humans cultivate. You see, though the earth is under an ancient curse of thorns and thistles and sweaty brows, God in his grace still provides for us.
But did you notice what three types of food are mentioned in verse 15? Wine, olive oil and bread. Not one of these occurs naturally. You won't find loaves of bread on stalks, no jars of olive oil on branches, no bottles of wine on vines. They're products of human imagination and ingenuity. The wheat, olives, and grapes have possibilities built into them by God that he intended for us to explore. So today I'll slurp the noodles in my bowl of pho; tomorrow I'll chew the crust of my deep dish pizza. Noodles are possibilities God built into rice; pizza dough is a possibility God built into wheat. Every time you cook, you explore the design God built into creation. Every recipe book you own pays homage to the one who designed each ingredient.
Notice also that bread and oil are essential to our diet; wine is also essential but for different reasons. Bread may strengthen our bodies and oil may give us the glow of health, but wine brings us joy. Did you know God wanted us to enjoy eating; he designed food to give us pleasure? Have you seen one of those science fiction films where it shows what meals will be like in the future? You know, the guy comes up to a machine and says something like this: "I'd like prime rib with a baked potato. And I'd like butter, sour cream, chives, you know, the works. Some corn on the side would be nice and, oh yeah, can you give me an iced tea with a little lemon and sugar?" Then a door slides open and what comes out? A white plate with a little brown pill in the middle. That little brown pill may have all the nourishment of a prime rib dinner, but none of the pleasure. God designed food to give us more than just amino acids and carbohydrates and minerals. He also designed food to bring us joy!
From the valley, the poet now leads us up to the mountains. He points to the cedars of Lebanon and the pine trees growing thousands of feet above sea level. Look closely. The branches are thick with nests, nests of little birds. Do you see the storks? They're too large to live among the branches so they construct their massive nests on the very crown of the tree. I love the way the poet puts this: "the stork has its home in the pine trees." You see, God designed the pine tree to be the stork's home, and he designed the stork to nest there.
From the trees we move to the upper reaches of the mountains, too high for human habitation. The mountains are home to wild goats and small animals about the size of chipmunks known as conies or rock badgers. Did you notice it says the high mountains belong to the wild goats? God designed them to live there. In that sense the mountains belong to the goats and the conies, echoing the thought about pine trees serving as the home for small birds and storks. If this is true, maybe we should consider how our actions affect the rest of God's creation before we impose our own designs on the "homes" God created for them.
By the way, have you ever wondered if there's alien life in the universe? There is. It's all around us. Human life is not the only life God created. God created animals first and created us to share the same world with them. Yes, we're different from them since we're created in God's image, but God cares for them and has commanded us to care for them as wise stewards of his creation. They're as much a part of his design as we are. They're as necessary to his design as we are. In modesty we should admit that we don't understand all of the different ways these intricate systems God created really work and acknowledge that we've often done real harm to the creatures and systems he originally designed.
In Genesis 2:15, after God creates the Garden of Eden and places Adam in it, he commands Adam to cultivate the Garden and to keep it. The Hebrew literally says Adam is to "cultivate it and to guard it." Biblical scholars have puzzled over those words. "Cultivate it" they understand, but "guard it?" Many Christian scholars believe Adam was to guard the Garden of Eden from Satan. The ancient rabbis were more of the opinion that Adam was to guard it from the animals. If allowed to run wild they might damage it, maybe even destroy it. No one knows precisely from what or whom Adam was to guard the Garden, but what is clear from this passage is that it needed protecting. Although it was perfect, it wasn't indestructible. Let me say that again. Although it was perfect, it wasn't indestructible and God intended for humans to protect it. I'm always puzzled by Christians who think it's unnecessary to protect the world God created. Shouldn't we be leaders in "guarding" God's creation? Don't we have greater reason than others since we accept the mandate he gave us in Genesis as human beings: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." If he's given every human this command, won't God hold us accountable for how well or how poorly we fill the earth, subdue it, and rule over it?
The poet now turns to the cycle of the seasons and day and night, other facets of God's design. When the sun goes down, it's God who makes darkness. Darkness itself isn't evil. Night is the day of the animals, especially for lions and other beasts of prey. The poet challenges us to hear the lion's roar in a new way, as a prayer for food…or maybe it's asking for God's blessing upon its meal! If our poet only pictured an idyllic valley, a stream flowing by trees laden with birds, we'd consider him a romantic. But this is no song from Disney. The same God who made the wild donkeys made lions that eat them. Take a closer look at the scene by the stream. You'll notice the wild donkeys sniffing the air for danger. The birds, while hopping and chirping, keep a sharp eye out for snakes. As Tennyson observed, "Nature (is) red in tooth and claw." Listen as I read a poem by William Blake called "The Tyger." It captures the difficulty we have of acknowledging God as creator both of the gentle lamb and of the tiger, a killing machine.
The Tyger
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes!
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of they heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Look at a tiger and what do you see? Well-muscled trunk and legs rippling beneath a striped coat; thick neck supporting a massive head complete with penetrating eyes, crushing jaws and piercing teeth. Fearful symmetry. Could this also be one of God's creations?
It is, but the prophet Isaiah answers Blake by picturing a future world that's no longer under God's curse, a world that more perfectly reflects God's original design; a world in which the food chain, as we know it, is broken. In Isaiah 11:6 it says about this more perfect world, "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Isaiah's new paradise is more than a world where men beat plows from bloody swords. It's a world where peace is so profound, the animals live in harmony. The wolf and the lamb live together.
When humans are mentioned in Isaiah 11, they're represented by a child, a child who plays with cobras and takes lions on walks. But don't give your child a pet cobra anytime soon! God's original design for how humans and animals should live together is still out of joint. In Paradise Lost, John Milton imagines how different life might have been in the garden and how much we lost because of the fall. Milton imagines that after Adam eats the forbidden fruit, he strolls through the garden, still unaware of how much his world has changed. Nearby he notices a few animals. Delighted to see his friends, he approaches them, but instead of greeting him, the animals flee in terror. Adam's confused by this. A few animals do not run, but glare at him in some new way. Adam doesn't like the look of this and quickly exits stage right. Slowly it dawns on him, before God speaks one word of judgment, that paradise has already been lost. Yes, the curse has bent and twisted creation, which makes all of it long for a better world, a world in which animals and humans can live in harmony once again, the new paradise of Isaiah.
Our poet now glances briefly at the Mediterranean Sea, vast and spacious, teeming with life. He could go on and on about the creatures of the sea, but he mentions only one-- leviathan. Probably this refers to whales which God formed to frolic there, to play there. Next time you see a whale breach, remember this verse. God made the whale, this massive and yet elegant creature, to play in the ocean!
The last part of this movement sounds a more somber note- our total dependence on God and the reality of both life and death. All of these good things we've seen so far like air, earth, water and food are all gifts from the hand of God, and they're gifts to all of us, humans and animals alike. At some point, however, God will hide his face, take back his breath and we will "return to the dust." But the movement ends with a word of hope, a promise that God will send his Spirit to renew life on the earth. Sometimes I meet people, even Christian people, who tell me something like this: "We've decided not to have children. We don't think it's right to bring them into a world with racism, poverty, crime, overpopulation, nuclear weapons, war, and famine." That's quite a list, and I can understand why people would be afraid to bring children into a world like that. But when has the world not been a perilous place to live? I think one of the best ways we can demonstrate our faith in God's renewing Spirit and our hope in his sovereign plan is by continuing to bring new life into the world.
In the third and final movement, the song expresses the poet's wishes and vows. Here I think the pace of the song accelerates and ends with a thundering crescendo. "May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works-- he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the Lord. But may sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more. Praise the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord," the choir shouts. With the last note still ringing in its ears, the congregation drops to its knees, worshipping God. For all of us who are here, the song will linger in our memories, weaving its way into our hearts. Never will we forget this moment, the first time this psalm was sung.
Now I bet some of you are thinking something like this: "That's all well and good, but it's December the 13th and Christmas is less than two weeks away. What does all of this have to do with Christmas?" That's a good question. What does this have to do with Christmas? Let's see if I can sketch out a brief P.S. to this sermon that might answer your question. Each Christmas, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. But this was no ordinary birth. Yes, we believe that he was born of a virgin, but the key issue is not so much how he was born but who was born that night in Bethlehem. Christians believe that Jesus was not just a man; he was both God and man and yet, somehow, one person. We call this the incarnation, the most radical idea we believe and the hardest to wrap our heads around. From the earliest moments of the church, Christians have proclaimed that the Creator of the universe, at a certain point in time and space, became part of His creation. In Colossians chapter one, Paul reminds the Christians at Colossae that Jesus is the maker of heaven and earth. Beginning in verse fifteen Paul writes, "He (speaking of Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." In another letter to the Christians at Philippi, Paul encourages them to imitate Jesus' humility, the humility he showed most profoundly in his incarnation and crucifixion. To support his point, he quotes the lyrics of a song the Philippians loved to sing. In chapter two, verse five, he writes, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death-
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."
So for almost 2,000 Christmases, Christians have celebrated the incarnation, that moment when God humbled himself and became… a baby!! Do you understand what that means, that the Creator of heaven and earth, the mighty Lord of the universe, became an infant? It seems easier to say God became a man, much harder to say he was a newborn, so fragile, so dependent on a carpenter and his wife. Remember that line in "Away in a Manger" that says, "the little Lord Jesus no crying he made?" Would you be surprised if Jesus was colicky and Mary and Joseph didn't get a decent night's sleep the first three months of his life, or if he had really bad dirty diapers, or if he repeatedly wacked his head on the ground while learning to walk? Do you think Jesus never dumped his bowl of matzo ball soup on his head? Was Jesus a difficult child to raise? God knows… he was a difficult man!
Do you see why the incarnation is such a radical idea, and why it's earth-shaking in its implications? That baby lying in a feeding trough, his cries and whimpers wafting through the silence of Bethlehem that night, is the same one who wraps himself in a robe of light, who stretches out the sky like a tent, who makes the clouds his chariot, and who rides on the wings of the wind.
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