For the choir director. A psalm of David.
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour out speech;
night after night they communicate knowledge.
There is no speech; there are no words;
their voice is not heard.
Their message has gone out to the whole earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun.
It is like a bridegroom coming from his home;
it rejoices like an athlete running a course.
It rises from one end of the heavens
and circles to their other end;
nothing is hidden from its heat.
The instruction of the LORD is perfect,
renewing one’s life;
the testimony of the LORD is trustworthy,
making the inexperienced wise.
The precepts of the LORD are right,
making the heart glad;
the command of the LORD is radiant,
making the eyes light up.
The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the LORD are reliable
and altogether righteous.
They are more desirable than gold—
than an abundance of pure gold;
and sweeter than honey
dripping from a honeycomb.
In addition, your servant is warned by them,
and in keeping them there is an abundant reward.
Who perceives his unintentional sins?
Cleanse me from my hidden faults.
Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins;
do not let them rule me.
Then I will be blameless
and cleansed from blatant rebellion.
May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.
Click here to listen to the Scripture in ESV.
Verse 10 uses lofty language to describe God’s word:
"They are more desirable than gold—
than an abundance of pure gold;
and sweeter than honey
dripping from a honeycomb."
Does your current practice of reading Scripture feel like a delight or a duty? What could help you start to pursue daily Scripture reading as a delight?
Art is a beautiful expression of God’s gift to us and can help us imagine, visualize, and better understand Scripture. View this work of art created from NASA photographs, connected to Sunday’s sermon passage.
Observe what you see in the image, from colors to composition to recognizable elements, without trying to understand what it is supposed to mean. Then read about the work, using these details to help you interpret the work of art. Ask God what he might be saying through the image, and listen for his insight in your thoughts and feelings, then take a moment to respond through prayer to what God showed you in this image.
Commentary:
At first glance, this NASA photograph appears to show distant stars and celestial bodies. Instead, this image “displays approximately 30,000 galaxies across nine billion years of time and space. Gathering the data to create this image required 1,450 hours, or the equivalent of 60 continuous days of observation.” If you zoom in, you’ll see tiny discs and spindles across many colors of the light spectrum, revealing countless depths of a universe we could never hope to grasp. Even now, as the data for this image has been condensed into this two-dimensional representation for our limited comprehension, thousands of those galaxies have long stopped growing and are now collections of stellar remnants, winking out slowly one star at a time.
“Glory,” or the Hebrew word kavod, is the theological term for beauty. This is an all-consuming splendor, a depthless source of wonder. Human creatures cannot help but feel the impulse to worship. Though we live in a world of glowing screens and constant light, when you consider a world without electricity, it’s no wonder civilizations throughout human history have worshipped the stars and celestial bodies. Perhaps through this image, we can grasp one of the things that made Yahweh so different from the gods of the nations surrounding Israel: he created these galaxies and even now continues to hold them in the span of his hands.
That such a God would deign to care about human creatures in a tiny corner of the Milky Way galaxy, let alone the seemingly depthless span of the universe, is almost incomprehensible. That he would come here as Emmanuel, to dwell with us, is a mystery indeed. How could his law not be perfect? How could we not fall down and worship?
Art Source: NASA, ESA, A. van der Wel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany), H. Ferguson and A. Koekemoer (STScI), and the CANDELS team, 2011. Image source.
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