...of mercy and might

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.

Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!

God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

---Reginald Heber, 1826

I will admit it. I have always been a bit put off by descriptions of God as powerful. It seems in this world that being powerful is an invitation to mistreat or take advantage of the weak and poor. For every “good King Wenceslas”, there are hundreds of “Ivan the Terribles”. Power seems so intoxicating, and so easy to abuse. So my vision of a powerful, almighty God is colored by the lens of the world in which I live, and the one I read about in history books. Reginald Heber, in the mid-1800’s, caught the essence of God’s power with one short phrase: “merciful and mighty.”

In a world where might is often used to man-handle and menace, and strength to strong-arm and subdue, we the faithful shine a light on a God who stands in contrast to those faulty human ideals. We worship a God who is strong and tender, who is limitless and approachable, who is Law and Love.

Merciful and mighty, God, we worship you.

...carry me

"Momma...carry me." Parents the world over know that the time you are most likely to hear this refrain is when your arms are already full, home or the car is still blocks away...and you yourself are weary and staggering just to stay upright. It is the time you are probably wishing for someone to carry you. 

One of the remarkable aspects about life on this round earth seems to be that things were not created for isolation. Creatures flourish in herds, prides, flocks, litters, and packs. And people seem to flourish in community, too. In one of the creation stories from Genesis (this one from the second chapter), after assigning place and occupation to the human, isolation begins to seem pretty overwhelming. Matter of fact, it is the first pronouncement of "not good" amongst all the "goods" of creation. Company, and community, is created as the remedy for the "not good" of isolation.

In community, we hold each other up. We celebrate, and we mourn, in solidarity. We lean, and we prop up. We are strong, and we are weak, and we are not ashamed. We bear each other's burdens, and let others close enough to bear ours.

We trust each other to be the hands of God, to bear us up, when we just. can't. even. 

When we whisper, "carry me."

...for ALL the saints

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,

Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

And hearts are brave again and arms are strong.

Alleluia!

---William Walsham How, 1864

Some weeks just wear you down. Your good intentions are misconstrued, your to-do list is filled with didn’ts, your best effort isn’t good enough. The half-inch of restoring rain is forgotten in months of choking drought. The dream job you studied for and fought to land has turned into the shackles and chains that threaten to drag you under with the weight of stress and pressure. The last-minute, miracle touchdown drive is replaced in memory by your opponent’s last-second pass-that-defied-logic, and you lose…again.

What keeps me coming back to this place, week after week, when the world doesn’t always make sense? It’s the song I hear in the distance, peculiar to this place---this place filled with the spirits of those gone on before, and the spirits of those in the pew next to me. The song is one of triumph; and our hearts, mine and yours, are brave again, and our arms are strong.

Just in time to tackle another week in the real world, strengthened by the song I hear in this place, among these saints.

...merciful, and mighty

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.

Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!

God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

---Reginald Heber, 1826

I will admit it. I have always been a bit put off by descriptions of God as powerful. It seems in this world that being powerful is an invitation to mistreat or take advantage of the weak and poor. For every “good King Wenceslas”, there are hundreds of “Ivan the Terribles”. Power seems so intoxicating, and so easy to abuse. So my vision of a powerful, almighty God is colored by the lens of the world in which I live, and the one I read about in history books. Reginald Heber, in the mid-1800’s, caught the essence of God’s power with one short phrase: “merciful and mighty.” We worship a God who is strong and tender, who is limitless and approachable, who is Law and Love.

Merciful and mighty, God, we worship you.

...no such thing as an Incredible Hulk for Jesus

Be strong in the Lord, and be of good courage;

Your mighty Defender is always the same.

Mount up with wings as the eagle ascending;

Victory is sure when you call on His name.

---Linda Lee Johnson, 1979

Be strong. In January, it’s hard to get away from this message. Fitness equipment that some well-meaning soul gifted for Christmas cries to us petulantly from the box. TV commercials for decadent football playoff snack spreads battle for air time with ads for gyms and P90X, whatever that is. And you’d better get with the program quick, before the last of your resolution withers away in the cold grey light of February. Be strong.

And when people say to ‘be strong in the Lord’, we are tempted to think of the same process; some sort of spiritual calisthenics, some program we can work, to ‘bulk up’ spiritually to live and serve in a way pleasing to God. Like there is such a thing as an Incredible Hulk for Jesus.

But instead, we are given here the image of an eagle, a mighty and powerful bird, strong for sure. Isaiah used the soaring eagle as a symbol of those whose strength is renewed by God. The thing is, while the eagle covers great distances at a time, it doesn’t do it by flapping its powerful wings. It catches currents of warm rising air called thermals, and glides, even soars, to great heights and for great distances, without exhausting its own finite stores of power. The eagle’s strength comes from relying on thermals to carry it.

Where does your strength come from?