When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
The world at the time this psalm was written was a bit like a snowglobe….it was big…but it had limits. They still believed the earth they lived on was the center of everything…and the stars and sun and moon simply existed for the sake of it. Yes, the creation seemed majestic and vast…but it was only as big as they could travel by boat or by foot. They didn’t have the Hubble or James Webb telescopes. They didn’t have a clue how infinitely vast the universe truly was. They had no idea that even the world they stood on was simply a speck, one microscopic dot among the bazillions of galaxies.
And so this psalm becomes even more powerful today with our perspective shaped by Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. And the question, even more pointed — How arrogant are we, after all, to think that we matter to God as pitiful and small as we are on this microscopic dot in the universe?
And then, when we consider what we have done with our human abilities…the “dominion” we have been given over this planet…the ability to create and imagine…how we have used it to cause harm to the work of God’s hands…to the seas and lands and all living things… how we have used it to destroy one another….truly…how dare we believe that God cares us?
Yet…yet…that is what we believe. That’s the reason we’re here, isn’t it? In fact, we dare to trust that it is the truest thing we can say about our existence…and that’s why we say week after week after week. God loves you. You matter to God. The fact that you exist is God’s beautiful intention…. And you are precious and known in the midst of all the wonders of God’s creation.
Like the psalmist, we look at the miracles of creation and see the fingerprints of God…In stars and galaxies and black holes… in the millions of sea creatures and species of plants, the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air. But we also see the fingerprints of God in the holy wonder of our life together – in the miracle of birth and the sound of babes and infants…in the beauty of love and the power of forgiveness. As human beings, we were born with a sense of God within us. We come into this world with an understanding that there is something more than ourselves in this universe. We come into this world with a deep sense that there is meaning in our existence. We are born with hearts that seek connection….that dare to dream and seek to understand…despite the reality of how small we are in the vast universe. St. Augustine said “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord”. Because we have within us a sense of the eternal that is matched by the expansiveness of the universe. And that restlessness in us…that creative edge of wonder and questions and search for meaning…can only find rest in God. Jesus said, come to me and find rest for your souls. And we hear the words of Jesus and he echoes what is most true in our own hearts…that God is love. That in the midst of our pain, God weeps. That redemption and forgiveness are possible and life is held in the heart of God and has no end. That is who Jesus reveals. That is truly what creation reveals. A God who has no end. A God of abundance and wonder and delight.
The gospel of John begins by the writer asserting that Jesus was part of the very creation of the world. He writes “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” He’s talking about Jesus…Gd’s Word made flesh. And Paul in his letter to the church in Collosae insisted that through Jesus all things were made and it is in him all things hold together. We read these stories in the Bible and see people like us, making sense of the world we know…making sense of what it means to be alive. And we end up simply looking at Jesus….. because how he lived…how he loved… reflects what we know to be most true deep in our hearts. Jesus reflects the wonders of creation. He is the incarnation of the underserved extravagant superfluous grace of God that pulses in quantum particles and big bangs and the mysteries of the universe. I love Elizabeth Barret Browning’s quote ‘ “Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.”
Jesus is the incarnation of God’s extravagant grace…the incarnation of God who crammed earth with heaven. The incarnation of God who created skinks and geckos and chameleons and nearly 5,000 other species of lizards….just lizards, mind you, on this planet. Jesus is the incarnation of God who created mums and lilacs and marigolds and about half a million other types of flowering plants that flourish on this third rock from the sun in our small galaxy. In Jesus, we see the God of creation’s extravagant grace and abundance incarnate as love…love for us. For mere humans on this floating rock. What are we that God is mindful of us? Jesus’ answer is that we are children of God. We are reflections of God with the internal spark of creativity and wonder. Messed up and broken as we are, Jesus still calls us beautiful — – Able to love, able to forgive…and born with restless hearts that will find their home in God. That is who you are friends…in all our small ordinariness …specks that we are in the immeasurable cosmos…you are beautiful. You are beloved. You are a wonder. Take off your shoes….this is holy ground. You are holy ground. Amen.
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