Scripture Reading: Matthew 11: 25 – 30
SCRIPTURE REFERENCE: Psalm 75: 1 – 2 We give thanks to You, O God, we give thanks, for Your Name is near, men tell of your wonderful deeds. (God replies) ” When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm.”
Environmentalists are capturing the planet earth, in drab, black, and white photos! Through powerful scientific lenses, they examine the planet’s future as it is destined to be. The earth’s inhabitants, if they continue to live by their soulless rationality, will be developing these black and white photos for all posterity.
Gerard Manley Hopkins, a poet in the 1800s, addresses a very similar theme with finesse and crucial faith. Hopkins bursts in upon the darkening scene, that portrays man’s complete lack of stewardship of the earth’s resources, with this immortal pronouncement:
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like, shining from shook foil.” (2)
Today as I walked among the most glorious panoply of autumn foliage, God’s Presence was everywhere around me.
“A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe, rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high —
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the golden-rod —
Some of us call it Autumn
And others call it God.”(3)
Our response to environmental threats must not be a paralyzing fear or a multi-directional frenzy. Any effort now in caring for this world must not depend upon our own corrupt, self-serving efforts that helped to create the crisis in the first place. Instead, we must reinvite the world’s population to harken for the foot-fall of God. Our eyes are blind to a world that is ‘charged with the grandeur of God.’ The pronouncements of worldly wisdom are so bombarding our hearing that we are deaf to the Wisdom of God.
Psalm 75 speaks of the Jews in exile, stricken by memories of what it used to be like in their beloved homeland. In exile, they tremble at the fearful prospects of present threats. The ‘Songs Of Zion’ that were once the harbinger of God’s approach, are now sadly silent among them.
Then one day, the sound of a voice like something from heaven, echoes through the darkening chambers of these human souls: ” We give thanks to you, O God, for Your Name is near.”And hearts become brave again, and arms are strong. Hallelujah! (4)
Within each person, God still reserves a place of green pastures and quiet running streams. We must not let the shouting and the tumult of the fevered world occupy that part of God’s creation, which He chose, above all else, to ‘bear His Image.’
The predestined victory of God in Heaven comes to the world in Jesus Christ. His voice, the final clarion call from Heaven, calls us to responsiveness.
“We give thanks to You, O God. We give thanks to You. Your wondrous works declare that You are near,” to which God responds, “When the earth quakes and its people live in turmoil, I am the one who keeps its foundations firm.” Wondrous are the deeds awaiting us on God’s near horizon.
A Prayer To Follow This Meditation
O God, tenderly lay your cooling hand upon our fevered brows, so that Your touch will quiet our fears, and restore our hope.
We are genuinely sorry to have permitted the chaos and confusion of the world to come inside our personal space. The world seduces us into believing that its wisdom is the road-map to progress. It is our failure to stand firm in the faith that changes hope into despair and brings threatening disaster to our very doors.
“Dear Lord and Father of us all forgive our foolish ways! Clothe us once again in sound minds, and in purer lives may we find new opportunities for service. Let it be the hallmark of all believing people, to proclaim with deeper reverence,” The Lord our God is with us, and He fills the earth with His glory. So let it be to the end of time.” Amen.
Hymn: God Who Touches Earth With Beauty
EDITORIAL NOTES
- Scripture references are from the NIV translation of Scriptures.
- God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manly Hopkins. https://www.bartleby.com/122/7.html
- Some of us call it God by William Herbert Carruth.https://www.flickr.com/photos/92586827@N00/9838932493/
- For all the Saints, who from their labors rest by William Walsham How https://hymnary.org/text/for_all_the_saints_who_from_their_labors
- Photo: Porterville United Church of Canada. one of the most beautiful small communities in Newfoundland. It is part of the Lewisporte Pastoral Charge.