Day 28 - Tuesday, March 29
Title: THE MAJESTY & GLORY OF CHRIST’S NAME
Scripture: Psalm 8
O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

Poetry: 
Everything Rushes 
by Jessica Powers

The brisk blue morning whisked in with a thought:
everything in creation rushes, rushes
toward God—tall trees, small bushes,
quick birds and fish, the beetles, round as naught,

eels in the water, deer on forest floor,
what sits in trees, what burrows underground,
what wriggles to declare life must abound,
and we, the spearhead that run on before,

and lesser things to which life cannot come:
our work, our words that move toward the
 Unmoved,
whatever can be touched, used, handled, loved—
all, all are rushing on ad terminum.

So I, with eager voice and news-flushed face,
cry to those caught in comas, stupors, sleeping:
come, everything is running
flying,
    leaping,
hurtling through time!
    And we are in this race.

AND WHAT IS MAN?

Today’s musical meditation on Psalm 8 by Tom Fettke opens with a sense of mystery: two woodwinds suspend between them a wide-open space, methodically descending together. They are joined by a horn, who voices a simple cascading melody that also then passes through several different instruments, until the women’s voices in unison set the scene: it is a starlit night, and I am gazing into the depths of the heavens. What I see there in all its immensity and beauty is not the vagaries of chance and physics, but art majestic. And once I see the heavens as art, as something intricately worked and ordered, I cannot look at them without seeing they belong to an Artist far greater than they, One whose great eternal glory is set far above these visible glories.

Who has not looked up to the stars and felt wonder? Astronauts, who are even more exposed to the visible heavens than we, bear witness to their feelings of overwhelming awe and grandeur at the heavens’ beauty. They speak of the earth as a jewel, a paradise, even something holy. And they speak also of the way it makes them feel humble, for who has not gazed at such a visible glory without also asking the question that Fettke’s music asks after setting the scene: since this be so, what is man that You are mindful of him?

David’s psalm draws us into this question as a cry of the heart. What is man, that the true Majesty of the universe has us in mind at all? What is man, that we matter to the Lord of the heavens, though even just the sight of the heavens makes us feel so small, so humble? What is man, that the Lord cares for him, visits him, gives him dominion over earth and sea and sky, and crowns him too with glory and honor? All these things—the Lord’s care, His visitation, His gifts of dominion and glory to man—are all perfected in Jesus, God’s most surprising and wondrous answer to the question, “And what is man?”

The greatest crown man has ever been given is to the Word made flesh: the Son of God made Son of Man, Jesus Christ. Christina DeMichelle’s Christ Enthroned in His Creation makes visible His lordship over the creatures, many of whom give metaphorical reminders of Christ’s work on earth. But the crowning of the Son of Man is not quite what you would expect if you looked merely at the visible glory of those we tend to crown as kings of the world. The Caesars, the Alexanders, the Khans crowned by the world are known by their power to compel. But David’s psalm in verse 2—before he tells of his gaze upon the night sky—pointed to weak and helpless infants as the ones who proclaim the strength of this Lord of the heavens. Babies’ cries are the way in which this Lord silences enemies!

Jesus Himself quotes this same verse when the Pharisees criticized the blind, the lame, and the children for crying “Hosanna to the Son of David” to Jesus in the temple. “Don’t you hear what they’re saying?” they indignantly objected to Jesus, who replies “Yes! Haven’t you read David?” Why don’t the Pharisees recognize what the poor and weak can see: that the glory and honor of the Messiah over his enemies are not found in the force of arms, but in His submitting to weakness and His exalting the lowly?  And when the book of Hebrews speaks of Jesus in the words of Psalm 2, it tells us of His power in terms that no Caesar could recognize: “Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (2:9).

If we restlessly strive to attain the crowns offered by the world or if we are already crowned in our own eyes like the Pharisees, we will struggle to see the true glory being offered to us in Christ, the glory proclaimed by David and reached through weakness. The greatest of majesties is proclaimed in all the earth twice over: through the immensity of His divine artistry that humbles those who attend to it and through the surprising humility He Himself embraced in being made man. Only the humble can see that, and thereby finally see themselves truly.

Prayer:
Majestic Lord, whose glory is far above the heavens You created,
Guard our hearts from longing for the world’s glittering but brittle crowns.
Make us humble enough to see the true glory of man
In the humility Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Dr. Diane Vincent
Associate Professor of Medieval Literature
Torrey Honors College
Biola University

For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.