Review Oct 7, 2015 Reality Check or Cash

Reality Check or Cash.

Psalm 8O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger. 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? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

We should approach truth with fear and trembling; aware that, as humans, we are poorly prepared to encounter it. Most of us hide from truth with each moment we live.  We look in the mirror and see no gray hair where gray hair is evident, no pounds where extra weight clearly dwells, no lines where crows feet tread. Conversely we can also look at that same said mirror and see faults where no fault lies...  Humans are rarely comfortable with un-disguised truths. Try giving an honest, unvarnished answer to a concerned question about weight one day and see how it goes.

Partly it is because we are scared of what honest evaluations about life would require us to do. It is far easier to convince ourselves of something being "OK" than it is to actually make a not-so-OK thing right. If we simply refuse to acknowledge a failing, or better yet excuse it....or best of all elevate it to the level of virtue we can go on living life without the detriment of having to face the consequences of our actions. Or at least that is what we tell ourselves .

Equally humans love to pick and choose the truths that they feel most "important" (ie easiest to deal with) while disregarding the ones they find "unimportant" (ie difficult).  We see it all the time among Christians who either embrace God's call to do justice and offer mercy while conveniently disregarding God's call to morality, or conversely embrace God's call to morality while withholding mercy and justice from their neighbors.  All the while both sides forgive their own trespasses by holding up how much more important it is that they practice the truth that they think is superior.

Every so often we simply need a reality check.  The author of last week's psalm puts it plainly when he says, "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?" Here is a truth to re-define all of our truths: we are specks of dust in a vast cosmos of things created by a God who perceives the whole of creation from the quantum level interactions of sub-atomic particles to the stately motion of galactic clusters in the same sidelong glance.  In all of that scope if we were to locate ourselves in the swirl of the creation our place would hardly seem worth noticing.  What are we that God would notice us? All our truth, all our self importance, all our effort, all our accomplishments when seen against the backdrop of God's amazing breadth come to nothing.

This may very well be the truth we hide from the most. It is the truth we cannot negate no matter how we try.  It is the truth of our mortality.  It is the truth that one day we all die and in a hundred years most of humanity will have completely forgotten us. It is the truth that nothing we do really changes the world around us so significantly as to have a permanent effect. If this were the truth that the Bible concluded on what a terrible mess humanity would be.  But that isn't where the author ends.  He goes on to say, "Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor."

The greatest glory ever given humanity is the gift of the very life, death, and resurrection of the Son of the Father which allowed the very Holy Spirit of God to come and enter our lives. More precious than stars are we before God. More valuable are we to God the Father than  a billion galaxies.  More treasured than all the moons in all the skies of all the planets in all the universe are you and I.  This is the truth somehow we forget on a day to day basis.  Of all the truths we hide from ourselves every day somehow this one thought is equally hidden from us, and by what?  Our sense of undeserving?  Our lack of faith?  Our fear of rejection? Our terror of a God who sees the whole of the cosmos in one glance?

This is why the Father sent the Son to die for you and I. So that we might have a reason to set aside all of those doubts and fears that was so absolute, so unquestionable, so rock solid that no human insecurity could surmount it. The witness of Christ's life, death, and resurrection stands a testament and monument for us to look at through all time and know that we are seen and loved.