What do the heavens say?

Children’s Message

I have some questions for you:

What does a dog say?

How about an elephant?

Now (and I apologize to all the parents for what I’m about to do) What does the fox say?

Thanks to Ylvis, we now know what the fox says:

Ring ding ding dingeringeding

Wa pa pa pa pa pa pow

Hatee hatee hatee ho

Joff tchoff tchoffo tchoffo tchoff

Jacha chacha chacha chow

Fraka kaka kaka kaka kow

Ahee ahee hahee

Aooooooooo

Wooooooooo

And they weren’t just making it up. Foxes do make most or all of those sounds.

Now are you ready for some tricker ones?

What does the sun say?

How about the sky?

All of creation?

I grew up near an airport so the sky had jet takeoff noises all the time. The sun and sky and creation don’t have sounds we usually think of though. But they do have things to share with us.

One of my favorite parts about living in the mountains is the amazing sunrises and sunsets on an almost-daily basis. Science can explain refraction of light and other reasons for why the sunset looks like it does, and it can even simulate a sunset in a lab or on a video game, but God gave the sun and sky and sunsets to everyone, everywhere in the world - and they in turn show us the glory of God’s creation and God’s provision for everyone in all creation.

So this week, I want you to watch and listen each day as you go about your life to what God’s creation is telling you.

Let us pray.

Sermon

I’m going to do something unusual, at least for me, and focus on the Psalm today, Psalm 19.

It’s easy to overlook theology in the Psalms and just feel like “yeah, yeah, those are where our songs come from” or treat them (in the words of my pastor at an inner-city Minneapolis church) like “Yay God songs.” But there’s a lot of meat in there, if you take the time to look. There are psalms retelling the history of Israel, psalms of lament, and yes, many psalms of praise. Luther was a notable scholar of the Psalms as well, and they were central to his theology, something we’ll come back to.

Psalm 19 has lines long-time churchgoers are likely to recognize:

Psalm 19:1 “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.”

Psalm 19:14 “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

But Psalm 19 is more than a bunch of nice bits put together. It has a story to tell us, an important one I think. All we need to do is pay close attention.

The heavens declare God’s glory - and do it without ceasing, day and night - and without even needing words.

Like a bridegroom coming out from his wedding canopy, the sun emerges and proclaims God’s handiwork. And I’ll admit, while this is one of my favorite Psalms, this verse also pulled me toward choosing this text out of a collection of great options today because I remember very well that feeling of wanting to shout from the rooftops how blessed I was to get to be married to my love of loves.

So the Psalmist uses this to emphasize that God’s glory is being communicated to us so loudly and repeatedly (with or without words) that we could be almost at risk of getting tired of it - like a cute newlywed couple who only have eyes for each other.

But what is God’s glory then? What are the heavens declaring so stridently and continuously?

God’s glory, we learn starting in verse 7, is the law, decrees, precepts, ordinances and commandments, and fear of the Lord.

But wait, how does law and fear turn into glory, and a very loud glory at that?

How were the heavens and the firmament and day and night created? By God’s decrees. So creation proclaims God’s decrees because creation (us included) is literally the direct manifestation of God’s commandments. God said “Let there be light… and it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (that might ring some bells from the Proverbs series in Lent). In fact, if I heard the middle section of this Psalm without context and had to guess, I’d probably assume it was from Proverbs.

To fear God is to know God, and to know God is to have life (Newheiser, Opening Up Proverbs, p. 28). How does this work? Theologians talk about 3 uses of the law.

The first use is to restrain sin and provide a basis for a stable society - this is how we traditionally think about laws and law enforcement. Verse 11 states “Moreover by them is your servant warned” - this is the first use.

The third use is related - to teach us how to live. That is, if the first use discourages us from bad works, the third use leads us toward good works. Verses 7-10 connect here - as the law creates life and is greatly desired.

But the final verses of the Psalm, where the Psalmist moves from declaration to prayer, lead us toward what is the perhaps most critical use of the law, the second use. Whereas the first and third uses of the law guide our works on earth, the second use points us to something greater - the Gospel. For the law inevitably convicts.

Even if we are perfect in living life to the best of our abilities, seeking to be moral and follow God, we will make mistakes unknowingly:

Psalm 19:12 “But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults.”

Luther leaned heavily into the Christological nature of this Psalm - that ultimately though there may be ups and downs in our experience, though we may sin and repent seventy times seven time or more, and though we may not even realize we are separating ourselves from God, the days continue to pass and God continues to forgive.

The good news of Psalm 19, the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection, the good news we celebrate in the waters of baptism and the bread and wine of the sacrament - the good news is that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, because that love is embedded in all of creation.

We are called to fear the Lord and seek to follow his ordinances, knowing we will fail but also knowing that our hope does not depend on our actions.

In Luther’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer, he states that “In fact, God’s good and gracious will comes about without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come about in and among us” (Book of Concord, Kolb & Wengert, Small Catechism).

When we pray with the Psalmist “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (19:14), it has the same function as when we pray “may your kingdom come, may your will be done” - we ask God’s forgiveness and guidance not as a way to coerce or coax God into helping us, but as recognition that God already has made a promise, sealed with God’s very life, that we are redeemed in God’s sight, apart from anything we do.

So I ask you again, what do the heavens say? [pause]

The heavens echo God’s proclamation from the very origins of creation that creation is good, that it comes from God and will return to God, and that we, as God’s people, made in God’s image, have the unmatched privilege to be vessels of God’s mission of redemption and love for all of creation, but without the burden of fear that we will fail, because we have already been redeemed through Jesus Christ and have assurance more reliable than the sun’s rising and setting that all creation will be redeemed together with us.

Thus, we are freed to live lives of hope, sinning boldly and loving more boldly, running with perseverance the race that is set before us in light of the witness of all that Gospel has accomplished and all the majesty of creation, the witness that God will see God’s will through.

And that, my friends, is truly good news.

Thanks be to God.