Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 8: An invitation to wonder

An invitation to wonder [1]


¹ Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
   You have set your glory in the heavens.
² Through the praise of children and infants
    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
    to silence the foe and the avenger.
³ When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?
⁵ You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honour.
⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet:
⁷ all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,
⁸ the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas.
⁹ Lord, our Lord,  how majestic is your name in all the earth!

In the last few clear evenings of these strangely blue sky days, there have been some magnificent star-studded vistas overhead. Looking west into the heavens at around 8.30pm there have been Orion’s belt to the left, the faint red glow of Mars slightly higher up in the middle (as it were) and there, straight ahead, quite low in the sky, is the brightest of them all – Venus, the second planet from the sun, named after the Roman god of love and beauty.

Taking that one walk of the day in the quiet of the evening across Warley Woods (what a blessing this 100-acre mix of woodland and meadow is for the surrounding community in these days), vivid Venus lights the path through the magnificent beech trees onto the bowl-shaped open space where, in the day, children have played (two metres apart, dogs have chased sticks and tennis balls, and folk have sat on benches noticeably with spaces between. And you feel so small. The unfamiliar expanse of the cosmos of God’s magnificent creativity overhead, the little familiar paths and tracks of our lives before us. And at present, we give grateful thanks that we can take these little steps out of the enclosure of our homes, be it for only once a day.  

Here is one mind-blowing fact for us today, on March 25^th 2020. This is mined from Bill Bryson’s magnificent book A Short History of Nearly Everything. If you have ever wondered at how you exist and have feet on terra firma, just grasp this: Carl Sagan calculated the number of probable planets in the universe at as many as ten billion trillion – a number vastly beyond our imagining. But what is equally beyond our imagining is the amount of space through which they are lightly scattered. ‘If we were randomly inserted into the universe,’ Sagan wrote, ‘the chances that you would be on or near a planet would be less than one in a billion trillion trillion.’ (That’s 10³³, or 1 followed by 33 zeros.) ‘Worlds are precious.’[2]

The psalmist brings us down to earth with poetry and lifts up with unashamed praise. Yes, we are small. Insignificant in the vastness of the cosmos. And yet God cares for us. God cares for all 7 billion of us who are humans on this earth (one quarter of whom are now in ‘lockdown’). He cares for each individual (and each creature - not to be dominated, but to be cared for too by us). For each is significant because each has been given the freedom to participate in regenerative living, in creative expression, in divine work. God is no autocrat or puppet master. This magnificent creator, the psalmist tells us, gives away dominion and invites us – as those crowned with glory and honour – to share in the care of all creation. Oh that we would learn how much better we can do this work. And maybe this enforced quietness will open our ears and eyes again to wonder and to caring for it all.

How far does our part in this creation care extend? What kind of sharing are we invited into? This psalm invites us to blow our minds with the knowledge that even children and infants can rejoice in – and that is to blow our minds with wonder.

In these incredibly care-worn days, may we step outside of the familiar tracks of our thoughts and spend a few minutes just being blown away by these two truths: the vastness of the universe and the delight God has in each one of us. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

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[1] New International Version - UK (NIVUK) Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 [2] A Short History of Nearly Everything ©Bill Bryson 2003, published by Doubleday, pg26