“In Ages Past and for Years to Come”

Psalm 29

Psalm 29:11: May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!

[prayer]

Major thunderstorms are impressive. There is something magnificent and awe-inspiring about the power unleashed in such a storm. Thunder booms. Lightning flashes. Rain comes down in torrents. There is nothing in all of God’s creation quite like what’s described by the psalmist in verse 9, especially as his words are paraphrased in The Message: “God’s thunder sets the oak trees dancing. A wild dance, whirling; the pelting rain strips their branches.”

The writer of today’s psalm was well aware of the power of raging thunderstorms. He had experienced them up close and personal. In them he heard the voice of the Lord thundering out over the world. In them he saw God’s power set loose, in sometimes-destructive ways. He also saw God’s provision in them. For it was such storms that took place in Israel’s brief rainy season that watered a dry and barren land, making it possible once again to plant and grow the food crops necessary for life.

For all their devastation these storms were beautiful to his people. They displayed God’s omnipotence while at the same time providing his comfort and assurance. Every year the storms came. Every year God provided life-giving water for his people. Those storms that magnified his greatness also demonstrated his goodness. Their God was dependable. On him they could rely.

Verses three through nine poetically describe the wonder and power of God. His powerful, majestic voice shakes the earth and commands the sea. Powerful trees cannot stand before his voice. Mountains quake. The heavens are filled with the flaming, flashing evidence of God’s might. Verses one and two are a call to worship, not only for people on earth, but also for the very angels of heaven. For even they were called to, “Worship the Lord in holy splendor.”

There’s a praise song containing the words “our God is an awesome God.” And our God is an awesome God. Over and over again we read of his awesomeness in his Word, especially the psalms. We laud that awesomeness in our praise songs. We describe it in hymns like “How Great Thou Art.” “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.” Confronted by such awesomeness we are very much made aware of our insignificance before and our utter dependence on the Lord our God.

Again, our God is an awesome God; a God to be feared and revered, a God to be worshiped and praised, a God whose gaze we dare not ever meet. Our God is the only God. Even if there were other gods, none could come close to equaling his splendor, might, and power. Even those ancient children of Israel understood that their God was different. While the Babylonians believed that their gods were threatened by the waters of that great flood described in Genesis, YHWH, the God of Israel, is described in his Word as conquering the very waters of pre-creation chaos: “The voice of the Lord is over the waters… The Lord sits enthroned over the flood.”

Our God is also a loving, compassionate, healing, and redeeming God, a God who provides for his people. Insignificant though we may be in the greater scope of things, we are still significant to God our Father and Creator. Instead of capriciously destroying us he loves us with a steadfast love that endures forever, a love that will not let us go. He gives us the sun and rain necessary for life. He entrusts us with the stewardship of his creation. He forgives us when we sin and consoles us when we grieve.

And in the person of Jesus Christ, he even deemed to become one of us in order that we might finally comprehend his great love for us. In Jesus he revealed himself to us. In Jesus he suffered and died for us. And by raising Jesus from the dead he displayed his ultimate power over sin, death, and evil. And now in heaven the living Lord “sits enthroned as king forever.”

That’s a really good thing to know as we begin a new year. What kind of a year will this be? What storms will we have to endure over the next twelve months? In what kind of world will we continue to live? When I came out of seminary almost thirty years ago we Americans were dealing with rising oil prices and energy costs. There was conflict in the Middle East. We were still recovering from the trauma of a war gone sour in Vietnam and that political and constitutional crisis we call Watergate. We lived daily under the threat of nuclear annihilation. Those were stormy times, scary times.

Thirty years later nothing much has changed. We’re still dealing with rising oil prices and high energy costs. There is chronic conflict in the Middle East. We’re in the midst of a war gone sour in Iraq. Political scandals abound. Five years removed from 9/11 we still live with the daily threat of annihilation at the hands of terrorists. These are stormy times, scary times.

How are we to face and survive times such as these? First of all by remembering that “The Lord sits enthroned over the flood [of darkness and chaos]; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.” Our God is an awesome God. Our God is omnipotent. He’s in charge. He’s in control. Our God is a provident God, who loves us, cares for us, and wants what’s best for us. The mighty God revealed in nature – a nature that he controls – is a God at work in history. All those things that were so scary thirty years ago and all those things that are so scary today pale in significance before the power of God. It is he that is awesome: not our circumstances, not our situations.

He is, after all, the God of Exodus. He is the God who, acting in history and controlling the geopolitical situation of that time, delivered his people from their exile in Babylon. He is the God by whose Mighty Act, that moment we call the Christ event, history was changed forever. He is the God who will bring history to completion at a time of his own choosing and in a way that is uniquely his. He is the God of whom even the angels sing praises. And as Paul writes in Romans, there is nothing in all creation - or beyond creation - that can separate us from the love of this God made known in Christ Jesus.

Every storm is followed by a time of peace and quiet. The thunder rolls away. The lightning fades from the sky. The rain stops falling. The sun comes out. The birds start singing again. The world smells clean and fresh. It is in reference to this phenomenon that the psalmist wrote his two final verses, using exclamation points: “May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!” Or as they’re paraphrased in The Message, “God makes his people strong. God gives his people peace.”

God makes his people strong. God gives his people peace. And he doesn’t always wait until the storm is over. Even in the midst of the worst that life, this world, sin, death, and evil can throw at us, we can draw strength from God. In him, through Jesus Christ, we can experience a peace that passes all understanding, a peace that has been described as a sense of God’s wholeness coming together for good and settling everything down.

Oil prices will go up and down. Presidents will come and go. One dirty little war will follow another. The Soviet Union came and went. Osama ben Laden will one day painfully discover that he’s been worshiping the wrong God. The Israelis and Arabs will continue to spit and spat just like they’ve done for centuries. Politicians will always be having their indiscretions found out.

But the rain still falls. The sun still shines. God still sits on his heavenly throne. Jesus will come again. And through it all the God made known in Christ Jesus gives us a strength and peace that we can find nowhere else. The God who has been our help in ages past and who will be our hope for years to come will not desert us. The One who got us through 1977 will also get us through 2007. Amen.