February Update from pastor mark
It was a number of years ago when I first heard Michael Joncas’ “You Have Searched Me” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJotupY5hvw). It is a magnificent choral arrangement of one of my favorite Psalms: 139. I invite you to click the link above and have a listen.
This is a psalm that highlights the deep and enduring relationship God has with each of us. The psalmist addresses God directly in the first verse; God’s personal name, Yhvh (the Lord) is actually the very first word: “[O] Lord, you have searched me and known me.” Ten times in all, in the first 6 verses, the psalmist sings about God as “you,” and in those same verses we hear “me” or “my” or “I” thirteen times. This word for “knowing” (yada’) is used not only for simple recognition or cognition, but also for sexual intimacy. It happened when Adam “knew his wife, Eve,” back in Genesis that she conceived and bore Cain. This is all deeply personal, even intimate. God cares not just for the whole of creation, for all of humankind, but for you! And we can know God as God knows us, and in that knowing and being known trust in the Lord.
This God, the Lord, is with us. Not only does God know all, God is everywhere! These attributes of God are known by experience. There is “nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide.” There is no escape, even when you “wanna get away.” God knows where you live! That may strike you as threatening, as bad news. Don’t we sometimes just want to be left alone? But this is no “unknown god” (Acts 17); this is the creator who made the world and everything in it. Including you: the Lord formed your inward parts, knit you together in your mother’s womb; intricately woven are you in the depths of the earth. This God who is with you, remember, knows you. And loves you. And nothing can change that. This is God, the Lord, who is with you in every moment of life, unto death. Even in Sheol (the grave), the Lord is with you.
We will introduce another setting of this Psalm, from our All Creation Sings worship resource, on Sunday, February 2: “O God, You Search Me.” While Psalm 139 is not the appointed Psalm for the day, our first reading is from Jeremiah 1, where God says to the prophet: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”
You can preview the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JPGY1w-674. Have a listen. As we venture into this new year, with all the challenges and uncertainties we know (and with all we do not know), may you find strength and peace in knowing that in all things not only is God with you, but you are with God. You are forever safe in God’s creating and saving and sustaining hands that will hold you fast.
+ Pastor Mark