Wonder Sparked and Reborn: Awe

Awe and Wonder

Main point: In a divided, uncertain, exhausting time the practice of awe is needed now more than ever to find life by zoom out to see and find strength in the sovereign God, changing our pespective through a copernican revolution, and zooming in on Son (Christ).  

We continue a sermon series entitled, Wonder Sparked and Reborn.

The hope of this series is to prepare for the season of Advent and Christmas by intentionally focusing on imagination, awe, gratitude, so that hope, peace, joy and love might be sparked and reborn in our lives through Christ’s birth.

Today, we explore awe and the practce of awe in our daily lives.  

And here is what I wonder if you will explore with me…. Do we need teh practice of awe now in our lives more than ever in our lives?

Our scripture reading for this Sunday is Psalm 8. Hear the word of the Lord.  

1 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

    Your glory is higher than the heavens.

2 You have taught children and infants

    to tell of your strength,

silencing your enemies

    and all who oppose you.

3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—

    the moon and the stars you set in place—

4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them,

    human beings that you should care for them?

5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God

    and crowned them with glory and honor.

6 You gave them charge of everything you made,

    putting all things under their authority—

7 the flocks and the herds

    and all the wild animals,

8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,

    and everything that swims the ocean currents.

9 O Lord, 

our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

This is the  Word of the Lord.

Thanks Be to God.

Prayer:  Loving God, You are the Creator of hte world and  yet you Meet us here… In this sanctuary, in this moment, meet us in our hearts and minds.  Lord, this day and everyday guide our Words by your word.  Guide our thoughts by your Spirit. That in your light we may see light, in your truth we may find wisdom, and in your call we may discover life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

An Invitation to see and wonder.  

Some of y’all have heard this story, so forgive me if you have… But when Pearl was born.

Pearl is our third child. She had just been born and family was meeting her for the first time.  My oldest Son Jack was sitting up by Anna my wife and Pearl was in her arms.

Family and friends would come in to hold Pearl 

As the would hold her they would each say, “Aww…”  

And than another… “Awww…”

After about the eighth person holding Pearl 

Jack my son started saying, “I feel an Awww  coming on.”  

Awe.

What is Awe?  

Awe is defined as “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.”  

Synonyms of Awe are:

wonder, 

amazement, 

astonishment

reverential

It happens in our lives. Have you ever gazed upon the night sky and said just like the psalmist…

3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—

    the moon and the stars you set in place—

4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them,

    human beings that you should care for them?

Now based upon pictures from the

telescope named after Hubble, we have expanded our estimates from one or millions of galaxies

to at least 100 to 200 billion galaxies and some estimates say 500 billion galaxies.

Does it not give you a sense of awe.  

Awe – a reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.  

But why might we need awe in our lives?

There is a novel Flatland a novel about creatures living in a two-dimensional world.

A world where these creatures are confronted by a creator from a three-dimensional world.

In the novel these two dimensional creatures are confused and inspired by the discovery of a three-dimensional world.

And once they find it can’t imagine a world without it.

On my bad days I feel like I inhabit that flatland.  

Like groundhog day my life is a wrote, routine.  

Flatland feels like that place of Cynicism

Hopeless. Feeling Trapped,

Tired.

All I can see is myeself.

Busy

Exhausted.

And we hunger for something larger. The transcendent.

The divine.

We yearn for hope, joy, peace, and love. We yearn for full life.

We yearn to live fully.

Our passage for today is a Psalm praise. And the invitation is to connect with God through awe.  We need wonder and awe in our lives to live fully. To pull us from the flatland.

That we are the psalmist… Wondering.

Questioning.

“When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—    the moon and the stars you set in place— what are mere mortals that you should think about them…”

And I want to argue that the psalm is an invitation That to practice awe we as teh psalmist says but learn to see again. We must learn to see in specifics ways…and I am going to suggest three.

First, to zoom out to see the sovereign God Second to change our perspective like a copernican revolution And three to zoom in on the Son. The Son who loves you and me.  

How Great Thou Art.

In just a moment we will sing that hymn.

This hymn was written by Carl Boberg.  And it begins with the words that describe awe and the invitation to zoom out in our lives.

O Lord, my God, When I in awesome wonder Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made; I see the stars; I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed. (1) The Psalmist wants us to see a sovereign God. Who cerated in awesome wonder. Who created the heavens and the earth. Who is the Alpha and Omega of our lives.  And we live in this tension. That we are given power, responsibility. But we are not the ultimate power. We are not God. Thanks be to God. But part of finding awe, is to recognize a power greater than ourselves. But where it the tension.  Through  technology, politics, Money, even religion, we can believe we are God.  We can fool ourselves into believing we are in full control. Power can corrupt.  Hubris, power, self-sufficiency. And so how do we get it back? We start by opening our eyes. “When I look at your heavens,” We remember who we are.  And yet we are given power in trust.  There is an old Jewish legend that goes like this: “Before the world was created, the Holy One kept creating worlds and destroying them. Finally He created this one, and was satisfied. He said to Adam: This is the last world I shall make. I place it in your hands: hold it in trust.” But in this psalm we are also invited to a different way of seeing ourselves.  We are invited to change our perspective.  The Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus is credited with articulating a shift that changed the way we see.  In the16th century. What is called the Copernican Revolution was a shift in astronomical thought from the geocentric model, which placed Earth at the center of the universe, to the heliocentric model, which placed the sun at the center. The Psalmist invites us to shift our view.  That all to often we put ourselves and not the  Son (not Sun but Son) at the center of our worldview.  That which we revolve around? And might we shift our vision to see a God, But we are reminded. That we are not God. We are dependent upon God and not ourselves. And with that truth comes humility.  Which frees us from our greatest sin which is to be God.  And to practice awe we zoom hin.  And we hear the third verse of the stanza about hte same God. And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. Part of the invitation of awe As we live in this divided time. Is to zoom in on Christ. To focus on the love of the Son.  This is our authority.  Our purpose.  Our meaning.  Ot focus our eyes on the the God who was born into our lives and into our world. A visible sign of God’s invisible grace.  Who loves you and who is with you. And to ponder this question like the psalmist. 4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them,    human beings that you should care for them? And when we see the majesty of God. We we embrace the mystery of hte incarnation. When we see tha majesty of Gods love. We always find life. And we know what the hymn writer is talking about… Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee; How great Thou art; How great Thou art. And that is awe.  

This week Zoom out to see and find strength in the sovereign God, change your perspective, zoom in on the Son and you to will feel an “awe” coming on.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

O Lord, my God, When I in awesome wonder Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made; I see the stars; I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed. (1) Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee; How great Thou art; How great Thou art.

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin.

Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee; How great Thou art; How great Thou art.

Outline:

 I feel an awe coming on.

But what if we have lost that awe?  I don’t feel that sense of awe.

To fully live.  To live with hope, joy, peace, and love.  Something has to be sparked in us.  Reborn in us.  What needs to be sparked in us is awe.

Our passage is an invitation to zoom out, and zoom in.

To change our perspective like Copernicus.

And to zoom in on the God, who care for us so much.  That the Alpha and Omega would come as a child.  

Flatland:

Zoom out:

Tree

Iceberg

Change our perspective:  Copernican revolution

Zoom in on the Son.  

On the everyday miracles.

Incarnation, On Christ

To practice awe

Zoom out, to change your perspective, to zoom in on Christ.

To find a humble confidence.  In Alpha and Omega of our lives and in the one who is closest to us.  Who cares and loves even us.  

In order to find life.  To find everyday awe.  

Maybe you to will feel an awe coming on.  

Notes:

Humble confidence… Creation and Ecology, states these apt concluding words to this brief look at Psalm 8: All God’s creatures are first and foremost creatures, ourselves included. All earthly creatures share the same Earth; and all participate in an interrelated and interdependent community … Cosmic humility is a much needed ecological virtue … We need the humility “to walk more lightly upon the Earth, with more regard for the life around us.” … We need the humility to know ourselves as creatures within creation, not gods over creation, the humility of knowing that only God is God.1 The psalmist praises God for founding a "bulwark" (or strength, stronghold) against enemies "out of the mouths of babes and infants." For those reading the psalms in order, this is the first time infants are mentioned in the entire Book of Psalms; indeed, the image of the babe is a fresh idea. A prevalent mental association made with infants is their dependency on their parents. The psalmist makes this association explicit by using not only the word for child, but also the word for "nursing infant," The nursing infant truly is dependent on his or her mother in a way to which no other relationship quite compares. And it is out of the mouths of the utterly dependent that God achieves God's plan - in this case beating back the foes, which scholar J. Clinton McCann deems "the chaotic forces that God conquered and ordered in the sovereign act of creation." "sovereign" serves as a further reminder that God is in charge. Because God exercises complete sovereignty, humans are as completely dependent on God as nursing infants are on their mothers.

​​that we are dependent on God even though (or more appropriately, especially because) we exercise dominion over the earth. We miss the all-important message that God has given us dominion: we do not intrinsically have it. We properly receive this gift only when we recognize our relationship with God is one of total dependence. Scholar James Mays puts it this way: Psalm 8's "vision of the royal office of the human race is completely theocentric, but humanity in its career has performed the office in an anthropocentric mode. Dominion has become domination; rule has become ruin; subordination in the divine purpose has become subjection to human sinfulness." And we live in this tension. That we are given power. But we are not the ultimate power. We are not God. Thanks be to God. But part of finding awe, is to recognize a power greater than ourselves. It is an inconvenient truth as it is humbling and liberating.  Now, the answer to the singer’s question “Who am I?” question is the surprised recognition that “I’m surrounded!”–which could well be the title of a sermon on this psalm. “I’m surrounded!”–surrounded by the gracious works of God and the gathered t At the center, the wondering awe of the poet (C O Lord, my God, When I in awesome wonder Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made; I see the stars; I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed. (1) And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee; How great Thou art; How great Thou art.

The same God that stitched the iridescent feathers onto the littlest hummingbird fashioned a pair of eyelashes for each human baby. The God that painted stripes on the zebra decorated human beings in a wide assortment of shades. The God that spoke the universe into existence breathed life into a clump of dirt. That same God gave us language and emotions and a soul, crowning us with glory and honor. And, as if none of that was enough, God stooped down onto the earth and clothed himself with flesh and bones. As Hildegard of Bingen reminds us, the earth “forms not only the basic raw material for humankind, but also the substance of the incarnation of God’s son.” We have been created just a little lower than God.

Through industry, technology, politics, economy, even religion, we have smoothly ordered our world so that we can fool ourselves into believing that we are masters of our universe. 

You are the Creator not the Creature.  We live in a time of misinformation.  But our greatest sin has been to believe we are god.  

Hubris, power, self-sufficiency,

How do we get it back? We start by opening our eyes. “When I look at your heavens,” the psalmist says, “the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are you human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” Paying attention helps us to recover a proper sense of awe. Looking at the splendor of creation in its minute details is key to remembering who we are and what our role with God is in this partnership.

There is an old Jewish legend that goes like this: “Before the world was created, the Holy One kept creating worlds and destroying them. Finally He created this one, and was satisfied. He said to Adam: This is the last world I shall make. I place it in your hands: hold it in trust.”

The psalmist’s response is the most appropriate one: awe before the creator and the creation, wonder at our place in the world. We have forgotten who we are, but we can begin to pay attention, to recover a sense of wonder, practice repentance and relearn gratitude and humility. 

How Great Thou Art, was written by 

According to Boberg’s great-nephew, the story and its song were paraphrases of Psalm 8—and that song would eventually become the battle cry for the underground church in Sweden in the late 1800s when the Baptists and Mission Friends were being persecuted.

Comments from the group:

But as individuals, Let us be a people of wonder.

Who live into the possibility of a relationship restored.

Who live into the possibility of a son getting sober.  

Who live in the the possibility of a better time when you will be finacially, whole, healthy,

Can you see it?

If you are to close your eyes can you see it?

Hold onto that dream.  

For a life and a faith without dreams is a life and a faith which is dead.  

But those dreams can be restored.

From the one who said 

Let the kids to come forward.  

If you want to see the kingdom.  

You have to look through the eyes of a child.  

Amen.

Majesty of a banana

Noticing and being in awe…

Beauty and majesty in the little things

God made all of these trees change color

Awe and wonder….

Spaciousness

Millwork and cemetery…

Roland noticed all the gold

Given us power…

Responsible…

Role in creation…

Tension….

We are not the Creator and creature.

We are part of creation.

Buechner at Harvard

[1] Peterson, Eugene H. Under the Unpredictable Plant: an Exploration in Vocational Holiness. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1994. Print.

Remembers, and being at home. 

God was always there, and going home…

Crayon is guiding…

Hand them small purple crayon, where will your purple crayon lead you?

Childlike awe and wonder…

Anything can happen?

We can see it in the moment?

Some of y’all have heard this story but when Pearl was born.

I can remember when Pearl our third child was being born.   

My oldest Son Jack was sitting up by Anna my wife and Pearl was in her arms.

Family and friends would come in to hold Pearl 

As the would hold her they would each say, “Aww…”  

After about the eighth person holding Pearl 

Jack my son started saying, “I feel an Awe coming on.”  

Awe.

What is Awe?  

Awe is defined as “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.”  

Synonyms of Awe are:

wonder, 

amazement, 

astonishment

reverential

Awe – a reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.  

This seems to describe what the writer of proverbs is after.  

Here the Hebrew word for fear has a connotation of wonder, amazement, and reverence.  

And yet why does this lead to wisdom?

The theologian John Calvin began his work the Institutes of Christian Religion with this central idea He said, 

“Nearly all the wisdom we possess, 

that is to say, true and proper wisdom, consists of two parts: 

the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” 

What this statement means is that “the only authentic way to know ourselves is to be in relationship to God...

It means that knowing God enables us to know ourselves.

To see ourselves as we truly are.” 

That we discover our true identity in relationship to God.  

But it is easy to miss this truth and this wisdom.   

And this is where our passage from Genesis comes in.

A message which teaches us a deep truth about who we are and what we are tempted to believe.

If you look at the passage from genesis what is the promise of the serpent to Adam and Eve.

The temptation that is offered is that, you will be like God.”  

And don’t we hear that temptation all the time.

The cultural wisdom says, a happy life is being self-sufficient, and in-control.

That the secret to a happy life is more power or prestige. 

That life is about the accumulation of stuff.

We are tempted by it all the time. 

And we can come to believe in that knowledge.  

We come to believe that the secret to strength is found in ourselves.  

Don’t believe me…?

Do you know what I got for Christmas this year.  

Do you know what this is?

That is right a selfie stick. 

Are y’all even out there…

I can’t even see y’all.  

I might just take a selfie right now.

Here is the wisdom of our passage from proverbs.  

And it is very simple.

The truth is we need God and we need one another 

but we are so good at covering up this secret.  

Frederick Buechner, the Presbyterian Pastor and author writes, 

“What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. 

It is important to tell the secret of who we truly and fully are . . . 

because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing.

The truth is we need God.  

And this recognition is the path to wisdom.

And on this path what is the first step?

In a new year, 

a wise journey begins with a simple wise step of humility and remembering.

In a time of searching for identity in a new year.  

What will be my new years resolutions.  

My goals for this year? 

Who am I?

What am I about?

My first step is to remember that I belong to God.

In a time of selfie’s, and narcicism, and saying whatever you want politically in order to get ahead we remember that as Christians we are called to a higher standard? 

To a higher calling believing that there is a greater power beyond self, 

I remember that I am not God and I am called to a purpose greater than your own personal well-being.  

In a time of fear we recognize that our strength comes from a higher power.  

And this is not about fear but it is about wisdom…  

For it is really about living life fully.  

So how do we take that first step?

Anna’s grandfather was a minister in the Christian reformed church.  He was in charge of missions.  One summer he became the interim pastor in the church where their family went to church.  So they would go play over at the manse and she told me that every once in a while she would be over there.

She would be playing and she would see his door half-way open.

And out of the corner of her eye 

she would see her grandfather on his knees praying.  

No one around.  

She didn’t know he saw.

Just there on his knees praying.

Maybe that is the step.

Maybe it is less about words than a recognition in our soul.

As we being a new year.  

Maybe this is where we should start.  

In a simple act of humility.  

On our knees praying.

With all the fear that is around us.  

North Korea this week saying they have a hydrogen bomb.

Growing unrest between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Maybe we start our new year here.

On our knees.

Recognizing that even in the midst of all this unrest.  

We believe in an all powerful God working for good.

The God who created the heavens and the earth.

And yet this is the God who knows us by name.

Maybe reverence is the beginning of wisdom. 

To be moved from hubris to humility…

From self-sufficiency to being God sufficiency.

And this is the path to wisdom.

But what we will learn is that it is also the path to good news.  

That the greatest gift that we know is that our lives are in the hands of the Almighty.  

That we are in the all powerful hands of almighty God. 

That at the end of our life it all can be taken away but our trust is in the Lord.  

That the path to wisdom leads to this truth and this good news…

 best summed up by the words of the Heidelberg catechism.  

That my only comfort in life or in death is that I belong in body and soul to my lord and savior Jesus Christ.  

And on our knees maybe we can see this most clearly. 

On our knees maybe we remember.  

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. 

Will you pray with me?

Loving God.

We come before you on our knees.

We humbly bow before you.

There is so much unrest in our world.

So much violence.

So much fear.  

 Our struggles are so real to us.

The loss of mobility.

The loss of a spouse.

The loss of a son or daughter.

The loss of a friend.

These fears are real to us.

And we give them all to you.

For you are strong enough to carry us when the weight is to heavy.

You are powerful enough to sustain us when we are afraid.

You are loving enough to hear us even though we are a mere speck in your eye.  

From our knees we name our weakness and we recognize your strength.

From our knees in humility, we recognize your power.

In awe we recognize that you are our hope.  

Calm our fears.

Give us your peace. 

Help us to trust your steadfast love.

That you are our sovereign God.

The God of the universe.

The God of our lives.

This day we are in awe of you.  

Amen.