Psalm 147: 1-20

In the NBC drama TV series The West Wing, everyone knew that in the Oval Office they were ever and only to address Jed Bartlet as “Mr. President.” On a couple of occasions when he had to remind someone of this, President Bartlet would say something along the lines of, “You understand why I need to be addressed that way in this room, don’t you? It’s not arrogance or pride on my part. But sometimes I need to make hard, life-and-death decisions in this office and when I do, I need to know I am acting as the President, that this is the high office I must uphold.” Proper address of those in authority is fitting for lots of reasons, and the higher the office, the higher a bar of “fittingness” we need to clear. So when we are talking about the Sovereign Creator and Redeemer God of the cosmos as Psalm 147 introduces this God to us, the bar is set exceedingly high and the only fitting thing we can do is fall down and worship...

Psalm 147 is an example of many biblical psalms and other passages that celebrate how active God is within his own creation. C.S. Lewis once noted that when it comes to God and creation, we are always fighting on two different fronts to keep things in perspective. On the one hand are those who remove God fully from creation. This is the Deist view—the universe is like a giant clock that God wound up long ago but has ever since God has just let it tick down on its own with little to no divine awareness of what is happening (much less any divine activity within that creation). On the other extreme are the pantheists—and the cousin school of thought of panentheism—that identity God so closely with the creation as to make the creation itself God (or part of God). Neither extreme will do, Lewis observed. As Psalm 147 shows, God and creation are at once distinct and yet God is intimately involved in it, taking delight in it, directing the rain and the snow, superintending the care of animals and of all creation. It’s a balancing act. For those who exile God from his own creation, we need to show how much delight God still takes in the cosmos on a rolling basis—God delights in your vegetable garden, for instance. For those who blur the lines between God and creation, we need to put some daylight between the two while at the same time keeping God passionately involved. Like so much else in theology, orthodoxy tends to lie in the territory of both/and rather than that of either/or!

Psalm 147 is an example of many biblical psalms and other passages that celebrate how active God is within his own creation. C.S. Lewis once noted that when it comes to God and creation, we are always fighting on two different fronts to keep things in perspective. On the one hand are those who remove God fully from creation. This is the Deist view—the universe is like a giant clock that God wound up long ago but has ever since God has just let it tick down on its own with little to no divine awareness of what is happening (much less any divine activity within that creation). On the other extreme are the pantheists—and the cousin school of thought of panentheism—that identity God so closely with the creation as to make the creation itself God (or part of God). Neither extreme will do, Lewis observed. As Psalm 147 shows, God and creation are at once distinct AND YET God is intimately involved in it, taking delight in it, directing the rain and the snow, superintending the care of animals and of all creation. It’s a balancing act. For those who exile God from his own creation, we need to show how much delight God still takes in the cosmos on a rolling basis—God delights in your vegetable garden, for instance. For those who blur the lines between God and creation, we need to put some daylight between the two while at the same time keeping God passionately involved.

Psalm 147 is an example of many biblical psalms and other passages that celebrate how active God is within his own creation. C.S. Lewis once noted that when it comes to God and creation, we are always fighting on two different fronts to keep things in perspective. On the one hand are those who remove God fully from creation. This is the Deist view—the universe is like a giant clock that God wound up long ago but has ever since God has just let it tick down on its own with little to no divine awareness of what is happening (much less any divine activity within that creation). On the other extreme are the pantheists—and the cousin school of thought of panentheism—that identity God so closely with the creation as to make the creation itself God (or part of God). Neither extreme will do, Lewis observed...

(see Part II)