I love the mornings at this time of year. Early sun. The world getting up. And the University is coming back to life – some staff returning, all of us working in new ways, and looking ahead to the new Academic year.
As I wake, I sometimes realise that I can think and hear clearly. It is as if there is not yet the clutter of the day to distract me. And the brain goes on working as we sleep doesn’t it. Have you ever gone to bed with something on your mind, a problem or decision not yet resolved? To find when you wake in the morning that the way ahead is clear. In the same way I think that God speaks in the small hours. I sometimes get up and write things down… As the psalmist says: “my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night.
Today’s psalm continues this theme:
Psalm 146
1 Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord, my soul.
2 I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
3 Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.
4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God.
6 He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
he remains faithful forever.
The psalm goes on to list the activities of God - justice, freedom, sight…
Activities that Isaiah also prophesies, quoted by Jesus at the start of his ministry.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”
After reading this prophecy, in the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. Luke records that the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. I wonder how he appeared. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
And so his public ministry started…Praise God.
The eternal living dynamic of the Christian faith is a vital foundation just now, as we live in a world of uncertainty and anxiety. God is the one constant. No earthly, human foundation does this. When death comes, those plans comes to nothing. So we can join the psalmist, saying:
Let me hear of your loving kindness in the morning, for in you I put my trust.
Show me the way I should walk for I lift up my soul to you.
and we can add “in Jesus name”.
AMEN
Nigel
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