The United Methodist Church of Swartz Creek

Let these oft-familiar words wash over you today, filling you with wonder and awe.

Psalm 8
1O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
2Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;
4what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
5Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
6You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,
7all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

“O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth…” (verse 1). Did the depth of those opening words sink in for you? ‘O LORD,’ Yahweh, the Most Holy One. A name that is almost too holy for us to utter and yet simultaneously encompasses all our deepest groanings and longings. And yet also ‘our Sovereign,’ our Lord, our God, thou. A name which encompasses our close proximity in relationship with God. Combined they create the mysterious God who is above all and yet is in all. The God who has created the mightiest mountains and yet still knows every hair on our heads. The God who has created the heavens and earth in all of their majesty and yet who cares deeply for humanity.

This psalm of praise expresses the amazement and wonder of a God who is so sovereign and yet chooses to be so present in human life. The psalmist asks rhetorically, why would the God who created the heavens by the “work of Your fingers” (verse 4) be “mindful” of humanity? Although it is in written in the form of a question, it becomes clear in verse 6 that the psalmist knows the answer even as he is asking it. Thus, what is significant is that even though the psalmist knows the answer, he seems to find it difficult to fully believe.

Like the psalmist, do we find it hard to believe that God has “made [us] a little lower than God, and crowned [us] with glory and honor” (verse 5)? Do we live into this gracious reality? Do we believe that God has empowered us to do amazing things?