Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Psalm 115

115:1 Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory,for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!
2 Why should the nations say,“Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in the heavens;he does all that he pleases.
4 Their idols are silver and gold,the work of human hands.
5 They have mouths, but do not speak;eyes, but do not see.
6 They have ears, but do not hear;noses, but do not smell.
7 They have hands, but do not feel;feet, but do not walk;and they do not make a sound in their throat.
8 Those who make them become like them;so do all who trust in them.
9 O Israel, trust in the Lord!He is their help and their shield.
10 O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord!He is their help and their shield.
11 You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord!He is their help and their shield.

Glory hounds, our world is full of them. In the Gospel of Mark you find that Mark presents Jesus as doing serious business in healing away from the crowds. One of the reason is He didn't want to have all the attention on the fact that he can heal, there was more to his ministry, and he wanted people to give him glory for the entire package, not just that he was a interesting faith healer.

The glory of God is interesting. Like you see it all around you in creation, to me I see point to all this stuff, it is hard for me to imagine there not being one other than my own imagination. Yet it is incomplete. God is the Grandparent hiding behind the curtains and we only see the feet. Perhaps this plays into the OT theme of God's glory being beyond our comprehension and killing us if we saw it face to face. Even in Jesus that glory is present, yet people cried on his feat and carried his dead body. Strange.

This passage on idolatry is a great one! They are empty. These things that we give attention to, the type of attention that only God deserves in our life. Our liturgy this week at church had a great part of Luther's Catechism, I think it was question #1, unfortunately the bulletin is now in the recycling and I cannot find it. It explain really beautifully how God is to be our first love.

Now whenever I hear the word shield I think of faith because I taught the passage from Ephesians to the Communicans class. Feeling unprotected? Take up the shield of faith, you won't regret it.

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