I Peter 5:5-8
The mighty hand of God! What
does that bring to mind? Do you see this human hand in your mind’s eye? I guess
what first came to me was that familiar segment of the ceiling of the Cisteen
Chapel depicting the creation. We all have seen it: God reaching his hand to
Adam, Michelangelo’s way of showing a connection between God and his creation.
We used to have a copy of
that Hand in that painting but I looked for it last week and could not find it.
I remember years and years ago, before renovations and additions. It hung by
the receptionist’s along the
There are about 20 references
in the Bible to the Mighty Hand of God. The first is in Genesis as a dying Jacob
describes where Joseph’s strength will come from. Moses recalls several
times how
And then the only clear
reference in the New Testament comes in the passage from 1 Peter we just read:
Peter calling us to humility and a lasting place under the hand, the mighty
hand, of God.
And we can’t forget the
promise of Jesus as John recalls for us his words in the 10th
Chapter saying that his followers shall never perish, neither shall any one
pluck them out of my hand.
God’s plan was and
continues to be that he be actively involved in the lives of his people and he
does not shy away from doing mighty things!
I
You don’t hear people going
around talking about how the mighty hand of God has done great things these
days. If they did you might put them in the category with the folks saying the
‘End is at hand” or the “Sky is falling”. Today we have cleaned it up a bit,
made it more palatable to the ear. I guess, like Michelangelo’s painting, we
have put it up somewhere or just stored it.
But David was not shy! He
wrote this 139th Psalm and he was not at all ashamed to recognize
the prominence God desires to play in the lives of his People.
This David:
A man called and anointed for greatness found himself
driven into the wilderness of life and literally: running for his life
hiding from the world
facing death
surviving by the hair on his chin.
In his greatness he was on
the one hand a man after God’s on heart and on the other a poster boy for
dysfunctional life of the decade.
David was on top of the world
and he was in the pits. He suffered from his own mistakes and he suffered at
the hands of others and in the midst of all of this where was his God?
David tells us in the 139th
Psalm.
Was God simply a reigning King? I don’t think so
Was God merely exalted in heaven? Absolutely not
Was God just enthroned before the Angels? No
David described a personal
relationship with the living God at the deepest level! He understood that:
God’s plan was and
continues to be that he be actively involved in the lives of his people and he
does not shy away from doing mighty things!
David was not necessarily
able to explain it and he even acknowledged that he could not understand it.
But that did not stop his believing the fact that
GOD
SEES AND KNOWS IT ALL
AND
HIS
PRESENCE IS INESCAPLE
Think about what David
realized:
God searched for him…In the
Hebrew it means to penetrate/to examine and find out
God knew him
No matter where or how far
From extreme to extreme
God would be there
Story after story, event
after event, promise after promise: the one who created all things continues to
sustain the universe and all that is in it.
It was not always easy to see
nor was it easy to understand. But it was clear that there was more going on in
the lives of God’s people than circumstances and happenstance
II
We
too have ways of describing things that we can not understand and can not
explain.
·
We may call it
Mother Nature
·
We might call it
providence but with a little ‘p’.
·
Or we become bold
try and explain it as a miracle
We don’t want people to think
we are weird! We like it neat!
We want to be able to asses
it and explain it
We want to be able to prove it
It must be reasonable
Otherwise we want to just
disregard it as ‘out of the ordinary”
But if we will just take a
moment and climb out from underneath that misunderstanding
That somehow we are in control!
We can then see it as it
really is: You know what I am talking about. We see and know that thinks are at
work all around us. And we have experience mighty acts OF God’s hand right
before our eyes.
The
Sun comes up
The flower blooms
The Baby is born
The tumor disappears, the wound heals
In the midst of turmoil- a
peace that passes understanding
Some how we know that there
is a power greater than ourselves
The hand of God!
III
This word hand that the
Hebrews used is an interesting one. They thought of the hand in some different
ways as we do today. We have only one word for it ‘HAND’and then we tack on
adjectives to describe it. But, the Hebrews had a variety of words for hand.
Right, left, open, closed, and others too. But the word which we translate into
the English as hand is ‘yad’. It really does not mean a literal
hand.
The Hebrews came to use these
different words for the hand of God to be symbolic of manifestations of God’s
working in and through his people.
Blessing
Ordination
Healing
Consecration
Benediction
Symbols of Power and place of
honor.
In Hebrew that word can mean
three different things:
i.
Power
ii.
Possession
iii.
Protection
Power: this comes from the word they describe a ‘twisting
wind’ or tornado. It was that type of wind that nothing could ‘stand against’
Possession: from the idea of having ‘meaning’. Ultimate
importance! Whose you are!!
Protection: it is ‘guidance or supervision’.
This is what they meant by
the Hand of God:
That which could stand
against opposing force, bringing ultimate meaning, and give needed guidance.
IV
Just
as Michelangelo depicted God’s hand reaching down to connect with his creation
in the beginning, God’s hand came down and connected with his creation again
but this time we were not limited in our descriptions of it to just symbols.
No,
this connection was more complete, more clear, more compelling. You see this
time God came down and took on the form of a person, the Person of Jesus.
Once again we see God’s
plan continues to be actively involved in the lives of his people and he does
not shy away from doing mighty things!
The
fullness of the Hand of God revealed in the person of Christ. And once again we
see in revelation the power of God, his desire that we be possessed by him and
all of his protection for our purpose.
The
people of God had forgotten. They had forgotten that the hand of God was still
there. They forgot that he searched them, he knew then, and there was no place
they could go from his presence.
They
thought they could get to God.
They
thought they were responsible and in control.
They
thought theirs was a better way.
And
is that not the world’s problem today: who is in control?
God
continues to call his people into a closer relationship with himself full of
love and obedience and then, in some respects, he hangs around to see what we
will do.
V
I would imagine that a lot of
us are a lot like David. We find ourselves running from someone or something and
we feel and we don’t have a clue what is going to happen.
We find ourselves hiding from
something or even worst than that hiding from everything. We can’t cope any
more. It all just seems too big and the only energy we have left is just to
hide.
Or we face a foe much greater
than ourselves. The gorillas finally got here: whether it is physical or
possibly spiritual and the fight is just not in us.
Whatever, God is there.
We may be like David and face
the consequences of our actions and with it the quilt and the shame we pile on
ourselves.
Or we find our under attack:
difficulties not of our own making or choosing but still difficulties.
Whatever, God is right there.
And like David, the one known
as the man after God’s own heart, we find ourselves deeply burdened by the ways
of this world and we wonder???
Where is God in all of this!
Whatever it might be we need we
need to remember this: God is with us and that God is in the business
of making all things new and he does it through the likes of you and me. It is
by his hand which contains as the Hebrews knew all the power, means, and protection
that we might need.
But how do I balance God’s
call and life in this work-a-day world????
LISTEN to Peter!
In his Epistle Peter talks
about living out our faith in a world that is different from what God is
calling us to be and do. Peter calls upon the early church to be different: he
says it this way:
“Humble
yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may lift you up in
due time. Cast all your anxieties upon him, because he cares for you”
In
other words, don’t let the wisdom of this world be the thing that shapes you.
Let all you know about God in Christ be what molds your will and your ways.
I have heard it been said
that we should be nice to everyone we meet because we all hurt. I believe that
is in fact true.
I don’t know but today there
may be some of us that need that Power
of Gods Hand that lets us withstand the blow that is surly coming our way.
Or we might need that Protection or direction, that sure
guidance that comes when we are led by the Hand of God.
Or it might be the meaning in
our lives or his Possession. We have
looked and looked in all the wrong places and we just want what satisfies as
only the Hand of God will do.
Christ made it clear that we
are sent into the world to change the world not be changed by it.
VI
Then we need to hear what
Peter was saying:
Humble yourself: that Greek word we translate’ humble’
means to allow you to ‘be pressed by’. That is to be shaped as clay is shaped
by the potter, let the print of God be made clear on your person in how you
live, act and speak.
For he will ‘lift you up’ in due time. The pressing down
becomes the catalyst of our being lifted up.
Cast your worries on him. These anxieties…that which can
strangle.. give them to him.
None of this is easy. But we
can begin by remembering the Power, the Meaning, the Protection in Jesus
·
There is no
greater power reviled than the power of the resurrection from the Dead of Jesus
Christ.
·
There is no
greater meaning than that which we receive his redemption and salvation through
the cross that we can be called Children of God.
·
And there is no
greater direction than we receive through the working of the Holy Spirit.