An Epiphany of Holy Peace – Psalm 139

A text – Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
139:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.
139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
139:14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
139:15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
139:16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
139:17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
139:18 I try to count them — they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you.

A reflection:

This psalmist believes in a God who knows everything from the beginning to the end of time. This all-knowing God can not be escaped or hidden from. Some of us might feel that this God who sees and knows everything about us will shame us for our mistakes or misdeeds. But for the psalmist, there is no shame here. God knows all and endures all and invites us to do our work for God, all of our lives long.

In Old Testament times this God knew and chose Samuel as well as the psalmist. Later this same God as Jesus would know and choose Nathanael under the fig tree, and God would know and choose 11 others to walk and work with him. And this same God knew and chose and appeared to Saul of Tarsus, the church persecutor who became Paul the Apostle. This same God chooses you and me, too, and is still unfathomable. How weighty are God’s thoughts – we try to count them – they are more than the sand. We come to the end – and we are still with God. And will be with God until the end of time.

This large, very specific God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, this God the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sanctifier – the Holy Trinity – this God knows us from beginning to end. When we realize or re-recognize these qualities of the God we believe in, we have OUR epiphany. Once we realize the all-knowingness of God, we know that this big, specific God loves us, and we will inevitably belong in this God’s arms for eternity – before we were born and after we die. God loves us – you and me. Then, now, forever. An epiphany of no fear, no shame, no worry – an epiphany of holy peace.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for being truly God, knowing everything. Loving us all as your children. Help us to show someone who needs to know this that you are their God too, and to extend your peace into their life too.  Amen.