January 2ndPsalm 93
The One Fact
Pascal: “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”
In the 1970s we first began to see images of earth as seen from outer space. In 1972, Apollo 17’s ‘Blue Marble’, showed us the blue and green orb resembling the swirled marbles of childhood. It seemed reassuring and the image appeared on millions of posters around the world.
Twenty years later in 1990, Voyager 1’s images of our world seen as a ‘tiny blue dot’ from nearly four billion miles away, is, as Carl Sagan suggested, salutarily humbling.
But most of us don’t live as if humbled. Whether, in these beautiful images, our world seems large or tiny, central or radically decentered, what is truly remarkable is how quickly our wonderment goes back to sleep. How many of us give much of a thought to, say, the hovering H of the International Space Station, which orbits the Earth sixteen times a day as we go about our lives, some two hundred and fifty miles below it?
Samantha Harvey, a British novelist, in her slim, enormous novel “Orbital” imaginatively constructs the day-to-day lives of six astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Six imprisoned professionals speeding around the world at seventeen thousand miles per hour! Imagine seeing sixteen sunrises and sixteen sunsets every twenty-four hours! Morning arrives every 90 minutes!
At only two hundred and fifty miles’ distance, our glowing world still seems to occupy a privileged place. These astronauts, Harvey writes, “could still be led to believe that God himself had dropped it there, at the very centre of the waltzing universe. . . . No far-hurled nothingy satellite could bother itself with these shows of beauty, no paltry rock could arrange such intricacy as fungus and minds.” On the other hand, they can also see the infinite darkness that surrounds it, and they have a better sense than do most humans of the vast, eternal spaces…. From this Earth we send out probes and capsules and cameras to distant planets, we angle huge dishes to pick up signs of other life, but the galaxies appear to have nothing to say to us, and we must grasp “the staggering extent of our own non-extent.” We may be hideously unaccompanied. Harvey wonders whether, if human civilization is like a single life, we’re in a late-teen phase of nihilism and self-harm, trashing the planet “because we didn’t ask to be alive, we didn’t ask to inherit an earth to look after, and we didn’t ask to be so completely unjustly darkly alone.” [1]
Psalm 93 is the first of a series of ‘enthronement psalms’ (93, 95-99) which celebrate the truth that ‘The Lord reigns.’ (Note the five-fold use of ‘the Lord/Yahweh’ that knits this poem together). ‘The Lord reigns” could also be transalted, ‘The Lord is king.’ Commentators suggest that they are the theological heart of the Psalter. It is also noteworthy that this psalm was probably used during the earthly king’s coronation; surely a reminder who the ultimate authority is!
Psalm 93 contends that the earth is securely founded by Yahweh’s authority. However, it is also under threat from other powers as verse 3 make clear. The ‘floods,’ code for powers of chaos challenging Yahweh, are powerful; we know the reality of chaos and evil in our time. But verse 4 makes clear that the earth will stand firm because Yahweh stands firm! ‘Majestic on high is Yahweh.’ The crushing might of the ocean’s (chaos’) waves serves only to hightlight the far greater might of Yahweh who sits enthroned above the chaotic floods.
Of course, Yahweh does not force his way. The world is still vulnerable to human indifference and mismanagement. We dare not assume that we could not destroy the planet.
Two truths emerge for me in reading this poem:
One – the affirmation that God reign is ‘eschatological,’ that is, God’s promises are sure and can be trusted but complete fulfillment remains in the future.
It is appropriate that we read this psalm just after Christmas. The incarnation assures us that God loves us and our world. His son, Jesus, would later announce the presence of the kingdom and invite people to enter it Mark 1.15). Of course his message seemed ludicrous to some, dangerous to others, out of touch with reality. But the reign of God is always proclaimed even amidst circumstances that seem to deny it. As someone has said: ‘The one fact is God. All other things are circumstances.’ [2]
Two – to use this psalm in worship means that we belong, not to ourselves but to God. And so does the world. The ecological and political implications of this are staggering. Can we believe such good news?
Notes
[1] James Wood, ‘Circling the planet, looking for God, (New Yorker), December 18, 2023.
[2] G.A.F. Knight – Psalms, Volume 2, p.101.