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TRINITY SUNDAY
~Psalm 8:1-9~
In-person service at Temple Baptist Church
(850 Venice Blvd., at Oak)
William S. Epps, Senior Pastor
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1O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. 2Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. 3When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? 5For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 6Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: 7All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; 8The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. 9O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Psalm: 8 1-9
Psalm 8 is a lyrical psalm that shares the wondrous sovereignty of God and the glorious dignity of humanity. It asserts that God’s sovereignty and human dignity are intimately linked.
There are many examples of this type of psalm in the book of Psalms (for example, Psalms 93, 136, 150). But Psalm 8 is unique in its own way. This is the first hymn of praise one encounters when reading the Psalms straight through. The psalms that immediately precede it are prayers spoken by people who are suffering or who are persecuted (Psalms 3-7). Psalm 8 also reveals that those suffering at the hands of evil forces are those made in the image of God and valued highly by their creator.
Indeed, the psalm proclaims that humans are God’s agents on earth.
Further, this psalm is the only hymn in the Psalter spoken entirely to God. It emphasizes God’s sovereignty (8:1, 9) and proclaims that humans exercise their accountability within the permission they have been given by God.
This psalm is bracketed by a sweeping expression in praise of God (vs. 1 and 9).
At the beginning and end of the psalm, it is confessed that God is Lord of all the earth and is honored everywhere, worshiped, and obeyed. Everything else that happens in the psalm occurs under the authority of the Lord of creation. Notice the Lord’s glory is above the heavens.
Consider what it means that the excellency of the name of the
Lord in all the earth has glory that is above the heavens.
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The next element shares a picture of life as we all experience it. In God’s world there are avengers, contenders, foes, and enemies that are a part of life. No one escapes that reality. There will be those who resist the rule of the Lord; those who interpret what they are doing as the rule of God; and those who do what they do because they believe life is about them discerning and doing whatever they want, like they want, when they want, all for their own reasons: "It’s my life and will live it my way on my terms."
Verse 2 further makes the point that even the weakest creatures (babes and infants) give voice to the power of God that overcomes all forces that would impede God’s will. The “avenger, contender, enemies, and foes” here most likely refer to the chaotic forces God overcame when creating the world. It asserts that God’s sovereignty and human dignity are intimately linked to each other subduing chaos to make cosmos, to bring about order out of what was disordered / unordered (see Genesis 1:1-2:4). The Lord has a way of turning chaos into cosmos, non-existence into existence, and disorder into order.
How does the Lord deal with these resisters (avengers, contenders, enemies and foes)? The Lord deals with them in a way we least expect. Now, get this, the Lord’s response to such resistance is to have babes and suckling children, sing their innocent, simple songs of praise and out of the expression of these songs comes what will withstand the resistance. Imagine babes and infants juxtaposed against avengers, contenders, enemies, and foes being effective for God! Yet they are because the babes and infants are allied with God’s majestic sovereignty, even though they appear modest, weak and unlikely to succeed. God’s sovereignty does succeed, for the God of strength and majesty acts in ways the world takes to be weak and yet prevails.
Consider what it means that the Lord's response to avengers, contenders,
enemies and foes who resist the authority of the Lord’s sovereignty, seems unlikely to succeed because it is perceived as weak.
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The contrast between God’s power and human weakness is continued in verses 3-4 in a clearer and more focused way. Contrasted with such impressive power of the Lord, the human being is seen as a feeble agent in the midst of creation. The poet is astonished that this great Creator should invest so much and risk so much on the human person. Nonetheless, the poet does not doubt that God is mindful of and visits humanity (a special creature God made in God’s image and fashioned in his likeness).
Indeed, God not only remembers visits humanity but gives to humanity a status of honor, dignity and authority. Then, the poet turns from God’s majestic power to reflect on the most puzzling of all creatures, the human person.
The human person is unimpressive when compared with the sun, moon and stars.
And yet the human person is elevated by God above all creatures and stands next to and close to God, as God’s angels crowned with glory and honor. Astonishingly, this one, of all creatures, is given dominion and power to command all other creatures, and elements of creation. The poet provides an inventory of those other creatures, sheep, oxen, beast of the field, birds of the air, fish of the seas – all beloved creatures of God, all creatures under human governance! The last three phrases of this list are used to refer to “all living things.” And then the poet returns to a sweeping expression of praise to God. (v. 9).
In this psalm we arrive at a central claim and oddity of biblical faith. At the beginning and end of the psalm, all sovereignty belongs only to God. In between these praises, all dominion belongs to humanity. These two affirmations of sovereignty and dominion are not in conflict or competition. Human dominion derives from and is authorized by divine sovereignty, divine permission and privilege within constraints and limits. Divine sovereignty is the license or permit for human dignity, which is authorized for the earth, so that the whole of the earth may become its true productive self.
(God has given you charge of all that God has given, so you can make of life what it has the ability to become - productive not destructive).
The psalm comes together with Genesis 1 and is a lyrical reflection of the same affirmations made there. This psalm is particularly appropriate for Trinity Sunday,
for Hebrews 2:6-8 makes clear, the human being who is understood in the psalm is none other than Jesus, whose dominion is linked to God’s sovereignty. The connection anticipates the Trinitarian Formula, God the Father, the creator of the ends of the earth, Jesus the Son, who comes from God as Lord, Redeemer and Savior of the world and the Holy Spirit, that proceeds from the Father and the Son to extend the intention of what God wants to fulfill through humanity as God agents in the world.
Consider what it means that the Lord is mindful of you and visits you.
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Come first and see that the whole of creation gives evidence of God’s sovereignty.
Psalm 8:1a and 9a declare that the whole created order gives evidence of God’s sovereignty. It is not that the psalmist admires elements of creation as though God is in them. Rather, the psalmist wonders at the natural world because of the majesty of God who stands over them and has put them in place.
We all have ways of expressing and interpreting the experiences of our lives. People look back over their lives and realize that life is lived forward but understood backward. When you look back over the circuitous route of your life, the twists, turns, round-a-bouts, ups, downs, ins and outs, you perceived differently in retrospect than in prospect. You started out living by faith and not by sight. We describe it differently.
We filter through the lens of our experiences, perceptions, and understandings how we interpret and manage life in all of its challenging changes. Some see life as accidental, (random unexpected occurrences). Some see life as coincidental, (unintentional chance incidents that happen). Some see life as just incidental, (serendipitous incidents happening by accident or chance rather than design). Then, there are those who see life as providential.
Biblical faith interprets reality with all of life’s accidental, coincidental, and incidental occurrences as part of a design to bring to pass what was God’s original intent and design for humanity and the world. Remember the circuitous route Joseph’s life took to get him where he finally ended, in a position to save many people. Imagine Joseph saying, “But as for you, you thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” (Genesis 50:20). Imagine what is being done to harm becoming the catalyst for something good.
God works in all things for the good of those who love him and are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
We all have our ways of expressing life’s meaning with language that shares what we perceive. I like the way William Herbert Curruth put it in a poem entitled, Each in His Own Tongue:
A fire mist and a planet, A crystal and a cell,
A jellyfish and a saurian, And caves where the cave men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty, And a face turned from the clod —
Some call it Evolution, And others call it God.
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 goldenrod —
Some of us call it Autumn, And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea beach, When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings Come welling and surging in;
Come from the mystic ocean, Whose rim no foot has trod —
Some of us call it Longing, And others call it God.
A picket frozen on duty, a mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock, And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless, The straight, hard pathway plod —
Some call it Consecration, And others call it God.
You call it what you want, but there are those who can see the hand of providence working favorably by design in the life of people and the world, saving us from the destruction we cause ourselves.
Consider what it means to see life as providential rather
than accidental, coincidental or incidental.
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Come next and see that avengers, contenders, enemies and foes do not negate the reality of the excellency of the Lord and why the Lord is praised.
Even the weakest creatures (babes and infants) give voice to the power of God that overcomes all forces that would hinder and impede God’s will. Get this: Avengers, contenders, enemies and foes are mentioned. You do not escape them because you praise the Lord.
Notice, nothing eclipses the excellency of the Lord and the glory that is above the earth verified by the cosmos itself.
God's majesty prevails. “My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” II Corinthians 12:9
Consider what it means that the avengers, contenders, enemies
and foes do not diminish the sovereignty or excellency of the Lord.
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The last part of the psalm focuses on the relationship of the Lord to humanity.
The next section of the psalm (verses 3-8) focuses on human beings and their place within the created order. But as it does, the psalmist presents the high place of humans in creation as a marvel in the face of the magnificence of the rest of God’s work.
Despite the lowliness of humans before God, verse 5 declares, God made humans “a little lower than God.” The dominion of humans extends to all living creatures. Here they are classified as domestic and wild, birds and fish.
The portrait of humans in this section is much like the one in Genesis 1:1-2:4a and 2:4b-25. The image of God bestowed on humans in Genesis 1:26-28 is defined by human dominion. In Genesis 2:15, God makes the human the caretaker of the earth. That is what Genesis says, God gave you the role of caretaker of the earth and all that God gave you to maintain and sustain yourself.
Psalm 8 describes the unique place of humans in terms of the human place over other creatures. Here and in Genesis we are not to dominate destructively but care take productively. We are part and parcel of creation with responsibility for managing reality within the limits of self-imposed restraints with the caveat that if you take care of the earth, the earth will take care of you. If you take care of one another then you will all be caretakers of each other to maintain life. Otherwise, you will use your role to dominate and control in destructive divisiveness and pejoratively painful ways which indicates the mismanagement of your responsibility.
The final verse contains the same words as the first line of the psalm (8:1a). But the repetition of these words adds emphasis and says something that the first occurrence of the words alone does not say. By repeating the words at the end, the whole psalm is given a structure that calls attention to God’s sovereignty. Just as God’s majesty begins and ends the psalm, so also it creates the context for human glory.
God has done all God does to enhance our existence. Jesus came to save us from the destruction we cause ourselves, save us from our selfish inclination to mismanage our environment, mishandle our lives and world by dominating destructively instead of maintaining productively.
Consider what it means that the Lord has made you a little
lower than God and given you dominion over the earth.
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I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice,
And it told Thy love to me;
But I long to rise in the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to Thee.
Refrain: Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord,
To the cross where Thou hast died;
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord,
To Thy precious, bleeding side.
Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord,
By the pow’r of grace divine;
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
And my will be lost in Thine.
Oh, the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God
I commune as friend with friend!
There are depths of love that I cannot know
Till I cross the narrow sea;
There are heights of joy that I may not reach
Till I rest in peace with Thee.
Consider what it means to say, "I belong to the Lord,"
as you reflect on the lyrics of this song.
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