Psalm 8:1-4New American Standard Bible
The Lord’s Glory and Mankind’s Dignity.
For the music director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David.
8 Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth,
You who have [a]displayed Your splendor above the heavens!
2 From the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have established [b]strength
Because of Your enemies,
To do away with the enemy and the revengeful.
3 When I [c]consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have set in place;
4 What is man that You think of him,
And a son of man that You are concerned about him?
The Word of God for the Children of God. Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.
In this psalm the glory of God and the glory of humanity are folded together like the fingers of two hands.
And yet it seems like a mismatch.
What is our fragile existence compared to the majesty of God?
Yet Psalm 8 links the wonder of human existence with divine splendor.
God is pleased to fold his glories into ours to create a unique and wonderful fellowship.
As a boy, I would look up into the heavens on a clear night, through a telescope my father gave me, and we would see an array of uncountable numbers of stars.
If we know our constellations, we can tell where the “Big” and “Little Dipper” are, and we can find the North Star by its brightness – but from how far away?
Do we still follow the Mars Rover Perseverance Launched in 2020?
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
Do we still have the child like curiosity of what the surface of Mars looks like?
Do we still look at the images being sent back?
Aside from what we “see” on the surface of Mars, its rocks, its hills, its craters, its far distant mountains, its further distant horizons and sun rise and sunset.
What else do we see which may not be so obvious to the human eye?
We see the ‘tracks’ of humanity left by the Man-Made Perseverance Rover!
Yet, we have yet to actually put human feet to Martian soil.
But we have that curiosity – what does it look like?
But we have that curiosity – what would it feel like to be the first to step on it?
But we have that curiosity – what would it feel like to hold soil in our hands?
But we have that curiosity to keep right on trying, overcome the technological obstacles in our path which keeps us from answering those questions I asked.
We have that insatiable drive to overcome the enormous challenges, to invent the non-existent technology which would be needed to truly set foot on Mars.
Probably not in our generation – maybe not in the next two or three or four, but it is inevitable that one day humanity will launch that Manned Space Craft like it did in July 1969 – the Apollo 11 Moon walk by Late Astronaut, Neil Armstrong.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11.html
Psalm 8:1-5Complete Jewish Bible
8 (0) For the leader. On the gittit. A psalm of David:
2 (1) Adonai! Our Lord! How glorious
is your name throughout the earth!
The fame of your majesty
spreads even above the heavens!
3 (2) From the mouths of babies and infants at the breast
you established strength because of your foes,
in order that you might silence
the enemy and the avenger.
4 (3) When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and stars that you set in place —
5 (4) what are mere mortals, that you concern yourself with them;
humans, that you watch over them with such care?
The psalmist tells us that God, the Creator and Author of our humanity, is mindful of our human tracks, as faint as they may seem in the universe.
Between the infinite abyss of outer space and the quanta of subatomic particles are the very unique and singular personal prints of life made in God’s image.
Heaven zooms in on this track, for it holds the undeniable promise of a glorious communion with its Author and its Creator and its Maintainer and its Sustainer.
Put yourself in David’s place on that singular night which he craned his neck up, whether it was from his perspective as a shepherd or viewpoint of a King.
How big was the Moon that night he penned that verse?
Against the backdrop of that Moon,
How many stars did he count before he simply gave up trying to count them all.
Until God finally reached His own point of connection, a time of quiet, intimate, contemplative relationship deep inside David’s soul – and we have Psalms 8?
No matter how plain your life may seem, your Creator wants to weave his own vision of His own handwork deep into yours – as Deep as He reached David’s.
Nowadays, just what keeps us and our children from reaching those “depths?”
An insatiable “Lack of Curiosity?”
An insatiable “Lack of Faith?”
An insatiable “Lack of Hope?”
An insatiable “Lack of Love?”
An insatiable “Lack of Perseverance?”
An insatiable “Lack of God, the Father, God the Son and God, the Holy Spirit?”
Psalm 8:1-4The Message
8 God, brilliant Lord,
yours is a household name.
2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.
3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
God the Father, on the other hand, always has us on his mind.
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them . . . ?”
Though we don’t often act like it, we humans are at the top of creation’s glory.
“God created mankind in his own image . . . male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).
But then their sin scarred his image in them.
It wasn’t obliterated, but it was definitely blurred in an indescribable manner.
Yet every image bearing child reveals more of God’s glory.
Creation bears God’s fingerprints; we bear his very likeness.
The psalmist’s question is profoundly humbling and wondrously uplifting: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them . . .?”
We are each made in the image of God.
And though the rebellion of sin reverberates in our daily lives, God still sees his likeness in us.
His Son came to redeem and restore us.
We are “growing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10).
What a blessing it is that God is mindful of his image bearers!
What a blessing it is to know his image bearers have a fruitful purpose!
Look up into the heavens as David did that night – what is your purpose?
Contemplate and Meditate upon the Future which God has in store for us!
It does not matter at what stage of life you find yourself in this exact moment.
Become insatiably curious for witnessing God handiworks in that future!
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
You, O Lord, are more wonderful than our lips can proclaim!
When we look up, consider the awesome works of your hands,
Your .01% consideration, love for us is more than amazing!
You have actually trusted us with the whole of the earth,
And put everything we see under the care of our hands.
Lord, O Sovereign Lord, the earth is filled with your glory!
Lord God,
Mere words are not enough to express Your awesomeness,
Your majesty, Your holiness.
Our highest expressions of theology are but baby talk next to You:
Your creation, Your very self.
Make us insatiably curious and aware, through Your Holy Spirit,
that You are absolutely in heaven’s fullness and here among us.
May this awareness lead us to approach this hour more carefully.
The words we speak, the tunes we sing, the worship we bring,
the thoughts we think, the joy and sadness we feel, the life we live,
may these be an aroma ultimately pleasing to You.
For in spite of the inadequacy of our words,
this humble and incomplete expression of worship is addressed to You.
Make it complete, whole, full to overflowing,
O God, our rock, our strength and our redeemer.
In Savior Christ’s name we pray. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 