Creatio and praise

The pur­po­se of life is to wor­ship the Lord. Psalm 104 beg­ins with a call to wor­ship. It then men­ti­ons the reasons why one should prai­se God. It ends with a rene­wed call to prai­se God. The pau­se and con­tem­pla­ti­on of God’s crea­ti­on offers gre­at sup­port to find one’s way as a human being into the actu­al voca­ti­on of wor­ship­ping God.

A micro­wa­ve oven was inven­ted to heat up food. It is less sui­ta­ble for dry­ing the dog. A welder’s pur­po­se is to join metal tog­e­ther. If you want to sew your clo­thes with it, you won’t get any­whe­re. Each tool was crea­ted for a spe­ci­fic pur­po­se. It does no good to ali­en­ate it from its pur­po­se. Why does man exist? Man is ful­ly human when he stands befo­re God and wor­ships Him. That is the mea­ning of life. In a cur­rent wor­ship song we sing: Come and prai­se the Lord, my soul sings, wor­ship the King, sing as never befo­re only for Him and wor­ship the King. In the same song we sing that the­re are ten thousand reasons. In Psalm 104 we find some of them.

It is one of the Psalms that beg­ins with the call to wor­ship. «Prai­se the Lord (Yah­weh), my soul! Lord my God, you are very gre­at!»(Psalm 104:1 NLB). This is fol­lo­wed by reasons for prai­sing God. And at the end comes the rene­wed call to prai­se God. «Prai­se the Lord, my soul! Hal­le­lu­jah!»(v.35b NLB). The aut­hor of this Psalm calls upon hims­elf to prai­se God. A life of wor­ship is not a self-per­pe­tua­tor. But the­re are ten thousand reasons for this.

Yahweh is great and glorious

«[…] In honour and glo­ry you are clo­thed, and light sur­rounds you like a gar­ment. […]»(v.1f NLB). Clo­thes make the man, says the pro­verb. We express our iden­ti­ty with the way we dress. The clo­thes of Yah­weh (Ger­man: Herr) are honour and glo­ry. Next Satur­day we will cele­bra­te the wed­ding of Meli and Sei­men. The­re, a boho style is cal­led for – airy trou­sers, braces, a linen smock and hat. The bri­de and groom want to pro­mo­te that their wed­ding feast will be uncom­pli­ca­ted, light, sum­me­ry and cheerful.

What do Yahweh’s garm­ents express honour, glo­ry and light? It must be noted that no one has seen Yah­weh. «Yah­weh said to Moses: «Howe­ver, you can­not see my face, for every per­son who sees me must die»(Exodus 33:20 NLB). After Moses recei­ved the ins­truc­tions for life on Mount Sinai, he was ama­zed: «The Lord our God has shown us his glo­ry and power and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire. Today we expe­ri­en­ced that God spo­ke to peo­p­le and they still did not have to die» (Deut. 5:24 NLB). No one could see the Lord’s dress code with their eyes. Howe­ver, due to accom­pany­ing natu­ral phe­no­me­na and hea­ring God’s voice, honour, glo­ry and light were infer­red. The­se garm­ents express God’s beau­ty, His majes­ty, His majes­ty, His sple­ndour, His holi­ne­ss and His vast attrac­tion. And this draws us in. Whe­re the­re is light, the­re is life. Whe­re the­re is God’s light, the­re is divi­ne, eter­nal life.

Yah­weh reve­als Hims­elf in His crea­ti­on. The­r­e­fo­re, many mira­cles are recoun­ted in Psalm 104 as reasons for prai­se. Some of them shall be men­tio­ned in extracts:

«The birds build their nests in them and the storks live in the cypres­ses. High on the moun­ta­ins lie pas­tu­res for the ibe­x­es, and the rocks offer refu­ge to the cliff bad­gers. You crea­ted the moon to deter­mi­ne the sea­sons, and the sun that knows when to set» (V.17–19 NLB).

«Lord, what a varie­ty you have crea­ted! In your wis­dom you have made them all. The earth is full of your crea­tures. The­re is the oce­an, gre­at and wide, tee­ming with life of all kinds, with ani­mals gre­at and small.» (v.24f NLB).

«When the Lord looks at the earth, it trem­bles, when he tou­ch­es the moun­ta­ins, they smo­ke» (V.32 NLB).

In crea­ti­on, howe­ver, not only is the honour, glo­ry and majes­ty of Yah­weh to be found, but also His joy and plea­su­re: «May the glo­ry of the Lord endu­re fore­ver! The Lord takes delight in what He has crea­ted!»(V.31 NLB). As we work­ed with the archi­tect on the plans for the remo­del­ling of our house, he chal­len­ged us again and again to go to work with relish. The LORD crea­ted the world with much wit, joy and plea­su­re. When he had you in mind, a sly smi­le flit­ted across his face. Voller desi­re he set to work and wove you in your mother’s womb. Or ima­gi­ne when He came up with the idea for the Mil­ky Way or crea­ted the octo­pus or the round-tail­ed manatee.…

Yahweh sustains the world

It is not that the Lord, after crea­ting the world, gave it a push and said, «So, now you must look for yours­elf». No, Yah­weh sus­ta­ins the world. «They all wait for you to give them food when they need it. With your help, they gather pro­vi­si­ons. You open your hand to feed them, and they beco­me full.»(v.27f NLB).

Are you awa­re of this when you buy a kebab at the sta­ti­on or open the fri­dge at home? If the Lord does not open his hand, you get not­hing. Every time you sit at the table and the food is on the table, Yah­weh has ope­ned his hand. It is appro­pria­te and a gre­at bene­fit to pau­se for a moment befo­re eating to give thanks. It makes the heart glad and leads to worship.

«[…] If you take their breath away, they die and turn to dust again.» (V.29 NLB). The word for Breath means in Hebrew ruachwhich also means Spi­rit of God. After God had for­med Adam from the dust of the earth, the decisi­ve step comes: God brea­thes breath into man’s nostrils (Gene­sis 2:7). Man is crea­ted to have the breath of life, he is a breathing being. Breathing is the need that we can least post­po­ne. We con­scious­ly do our own drin­king, eating and slee­ping. Breathing hap­pens auto­ma­ti­cal­ly. Accor­ding to Hebrew thin­king, man is high­ly depen­dent and not – as we often belie­ve – self-suf­fi­ci­ent. The move­ment of life hap­pens sil­ent­ly and unob­tru­si­ve­ly. Every breath we take is a gift from God. We would be dead on the spot if he took back his spirit.

«The Son reflects the glo­ry of God, and ever­y­thing about Him is an expres­si­on of the natu­re of God. He sus­ta­ins the uni­ver­se through the power of his Word […].»(Hebrews 1:3 NLB). When we look at Jesus Christ, we get a glim­pse of the glo­ry and natu­re of God. The Son of God sus­ta­ins the uni­ver­se through His Word. It is he who does not tear the fine web that holds all crea­ti­on tog­e­ther by his love. Ica­rus or MACS J1149+ Len­sed Star 1 is the most distant star ever obser­ved. It is only visi­ble through the gra­vi­ta­tio­nal len­sing effect of a lar­ge clus­ter of gala­xies loca­ted five bil­li­on light years from Earth. One light year is 9.46 tril­li­on kilo­me­t­res. Even Ica­rus is embra­ced by God’s love.

Yahweh will make the world new

At the last Ziesch­tigs-Kafi we tal­ked about a few mira­cles of crea­ti­on. Among other things, we mar­vel­led at the fact that a human being can walk at all. So many mus­cles and ten­dons have to be coor­di­na­ted. In addi­ti­on, the­re is a who­le regu­la­to­ry sys­tem that keeps us in balan­ce. And then someone said: «Through his greed, man is capa­ble of caus­ing enorm­ous dama­ge.«He refer­red to the war in Ukrai­ne, whe­re immense dama­ge is being done to infra­struc­tu­re and natu­re. Lust for power and greed for money are the cau­se of gre­at evil.

That is pro­ba­b­ly why the Psalm says: «But all sin­ners shall dis­ap­pear from the earth, so that the­re will be no more wicked ones» (V.35 NLB). Sin is when we trust in some­thing other than God. Sin is the cau­se of all explo­ita­ti­on of crea­ti­on, of all oppres­si­on of peo­p­le and nati­ons, of all pover­ty, of the extinc­tion of spe­ci­es and the des­truc­tion of the environment.

Sin will then dis­ap­pear from the earth fore­ver when the new crea­ti­on of the world comes to this earth. The state­ment on the pic­tu­re of our annu­al the­me is: «Look, I’m doing some­thing new; it is alre­a­dy ger­mi­na­ting»(Isai­ah 43:19 NLB). God will crea­te a new hea­ven and a new earth. The New Jeru­sa­lem will float down to earth. With the resur­rec­tion of Jesus Christ the start but­ton for new crea­ti­on was pushed. It’s coming good!

Jesus Christ sus­ta­ins the uni­ver­se through the power of his word. In the same breath the aut­hor says: «[…] Having cle­an­sed us of our sins by his death, he sat down in the place of honour at the right hand of the glo­rious God in hea­ven»(Hebrews 1:3 NLB). When we trust Jesus Christ and give Him our life, He cle­an­ses us from all dis­trust of God (= sin). This for­gi­ve­ness paves the way for a per­son to return to Yah­weh in His glo­ry and holi­ne­ss. At the moment, Jesus sits in the place of honour at God’s right hand side in hea­ven. From the­re He will come again and bring the new crea­ti­on into the world. Until that hap­pens, the pur­po­se of our exis­tence lies in what Psalm 104 aspi­res to: «I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will prai­se my God as long as I am on earth!» (V.33 NLB).

Questions for the small groups

Bible text rea­ding: Psalm 104

1. What helps you in your ever­y­day life to wor­ship God?
2. The Lord is clo­thed with honour, glo­ry and light. What do the­se garm­ents mean?
3. What reasons does the psal­mist give for prai­sing God? How do the­se reasons help you to prai­se God?
4. When the Lord opens his hand, we are fed and satis­fied. How do you know that you are awa­re of this truth?
5. How do you ima­gi­ne the new hea­ven and the new earth? What is «miss­ing» when all sin­ners are gone from the earth?
6. Go for a walk out in natu­re this week and wor­ship God!