“What a relief!”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Psalm 103:8-14 (Forward, p. 32) CEV p. 617
Surely most of us would be more than slightly nervous or ill at ease every time we passed a police vehicle if we knew fully well that there was a ticket made out in our name, or worse still, an arrest warrant. We would always be worrying ‘when the other shoe would drop.’
Well, what about us and God? Most of us have a well-ingrained, and certainly, well-justified, sense that we have ‘blown it’ from time to time. That is, that we have sinned. And so, there might well be a similar sense of dis-ease in terms of us and God. “Just when’, we might wonder, ‘will the other shoe drop?’
It is here that the words of today’s psalm come as an incredible relief to each of us. Interestingly, each verse builds upon its predecessor to provide us with a fond and welcome relief, a relief that comes from God Himself:
Verse 8 lays out the basic underpinning to it all, explaining to us something of the nature and character of God:
“The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, show to anger and of great kindness” (NRSV);
“The Lord is merciful! He is kind and patient, and his love never fails” (CEV).
Verses 9-10 build upon these ideas of mercy and patience and explain how they find expression when applied to our lives:
“He will not always accuse us, nor will he keep his anger for ever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our wickedness” (NSRV);
“The Lord won’t always be angry and point out all our sins; he doesn’t punish us as our sins deserve” (CEV).
Verses 11-12 then go on to explain just how this works out in terms of our sins, our failings to honour and love and obey Him:
“For as the heavens are high above the earth, so is his mercy great upon those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us” (NSRV);
“How great is God’s love for all who worship him? Greater than the distance between heaven and earth! How far has the Lord taken our sins from us? Farther than the distance from east to west!” (CEV).
The final two verses of today’s passage, verses 13-14, then explain something of why God is so kind, merciful and forgiving towards us. It is because He fully understands us and so knows fully well just what kind of creatures we are. Just as we would not expect a family pet or a farmyard animal to understand human moral reasoning, much less comply with it—seeing as these animals don’t have that capability—so too God knows of ‘what we are made’, and how we never could reasonably be expected to be perfect and follow all His commands:
“As a father cares for his children, so does the Lord care for those who fear him. For he himself knows whereof we are made; he remembers that we are but dust” (NRSV);
“Just as parents are kind to their children, the Lord is kind to all who worship him, because he knows we are made of dust” (CEV).
We are but dust, as the Ash Wednesday liturgy reminds us, and what a fitting image that is in describing us. Like the dust, we are earth-bound, transient, insubstantial, lacking in substance and flaky, and easily moved or scattered about. Dust can scarcely be ‘counted upon’ to do anything, and so it is with us. But God knows that and takes it into account. That is why He has provided a means of salvation for us in the person of Jesus Christ. We don’t have to do it or manage it on our own. What a relief! Thanks be to God for this incredible gift. Amen.
Forward notes: “For he himself knows whereof we are made; he remembers that we are but dust” (verse 14).
“My family grew wheat on our farm, and I loved to watch it grow from seeds to new, green shoots to beautiful golden blades that swayed delicately in a soft breeze. The wheat field seemed like a carpet that blanketed the earth with its inimitable hue. Then came the harvest.
“The psalmist describes the flowers in a field that flourish and then are no more. One day, our bodily lives on this earth will end like the flowers and the wheat. But it is not really our end. We remember, as God remembers, how we were made.
“’Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.’ We hear these words spoken on Ash Wednesday as we prepare for Lent, a time to reflect on and remember our mortality.
“God’s love for us is everlasting and transcends our mortal existence. We were created by God, and we will return to God.
“A return to dust is a return to God.”
MOVING FORWARD: “What does it mean to you to return to dust?”
A concluding note: I find that I must disagree with the author of today’s Forward Day by Day meditation. Returning to the dust does mean that we have died, but it does not necessarily mean that we return to God. Whether we return to God is based on the lives we have lived while alive on earth, more precisely on what decisions we have made with regards to God. All of us are indeed the offspring of God in terms of being created by Him, but that does not necessarily mean that we are His sons and daughters. As the Prologue to John’s Gospel says, “To all that accepted Him, who believed in Him, who put their trust or faith in His name, He gave the power to become the children of God. They were not God’s children by nature or because of any human desires. God himself was the one who made them his children” (John 1:12-13). And so, we must choose, you and I, what will become of us after death. It is not automatic.
