This week’s reflections are written by Rev. Brian Johnson, one of our Associate Pastors here at St. Matthew’s

Rooted 2019 – Week Thirteen Day Five

Today’s reading is Psalm 8

This Psalm is the first “Hymn of Praise” in the Psalter.  You can tell that it starts out with a more uplifting tune than the other musical Psalms 3- 7.  Another fun fact about this Psalm is that it is added to the silicon disc left on the moon by the crew of Apollo 11.  Therefore making it the first Bible passage in space. How appropriate to choose a passage from the Old Testament that proclaims God as the creator of all the universe and highlights the elevated position of the human race in relation to this God creator.

While we can gather many things from this Psalm, the thing I want to focus on is verses 4 and 5.  “what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them in glory and honor.”  This verse right here is one of the verses in the Bible that sets the human race apart from the rest of the creation on planet earth. We are not like the other intelligent creatures that we live with.  One distinct way we are different is that our God the creator has set us just below the heavenly world and allowed us to have dominion over His creation. We are partners with God in all that we do and share in His glory.  We see this relationship played out in Jesus Christ who is fully human and fully divine. This also highlights that we are truly made in the image of God. Now that we understand this relationship of God and the Human race, we can also see that we share with God in the suffering.  This part also shows us that we are made in God’s image. We share in His suffering. We see that Jesus suffered for our sake and we are called to take up our cross and follow him. It is not a fun thing to thing about having to suffer but it is part of the journey. We are called to be a suffering servant just like Christ.  So this idea flies in the face of a prosperity gospel message, however it is something we have to realize that is a reality. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. However as we share in the suffering of our God we also share in His glory. This is the uplifting part of the message. We are loved by an amazing God who gives us dominion over His creation and shares His glory with us.

If you’d like to get each day’s daily scripture reading sent to your phone, along with this reading guide, text @39110 to 81010 to sign up!