God Laughs: A Meditation on Psalm 2

The pairing of Psalm 2 with Transfiguration Sunday, seemed a good opportunity to meditate on the relative disparity between the glory of God, and the squalor of man.  Of course, most people don’t like to think of themselves as small and insignificant (I know I don’t,) but when we see ourselves in the light of Divine Glory, it’s hard to come to any other conclusion.

It has become an interesting mark of western culture, that our people and leaders, institutions and politicians, have largely discarded Christian traditions.  Whether it is the role and function of people in a family, or the roles and functions of people in society, what used to be based upon the inspiration of Scripture is largely lost.  Consider the traditional roles of fathers as providers and defenders of their families; mothers as nurturers and educators of their children; children as obedient participants in the duties and labors of the family; families as places of safety and respect in the broader culture; the broader culture as a place to protect the sanctity of families; communities as tapestries of mutually respected families; states and nations as tapestries of mutually respected communities; churches as voices of moral authority and virtue, justice and mercy; schools and universities as places to seek ultimate as well as practical truth, with the formation of virtuous and educated citizens their collective goal.  There was a day when this was normative in our land—never pristine and perfect, but normative.  How far we have fallen in our day.

Families have been laid waste by divorce, abuse, and abandonment; fathers have forgotten their duty to provide and protect, seeking rather their own satisfaction; mothers have forgotten to nurture and educate, seeking rather to pretend to be men, and wicked men, at that; children rebel and attack their parents, taught to seek their own fulfilment over that of their family; families are no longer places of safety and respect, but of discord and division; the broader culture no longer relies on the fabric of broken families, but on social and governmental institutions; neighborhoods are no longer safe places where families work together in mutual respect, but places of guarded and irreverent sectarianism; states and nations become reflections of these shattered families, and try to hold together what is falling apart; churches have sought money and members, sacrificing their moral authority and preaching of the Gospel, to preserve tax exemptions and social toleration; schools and universities no longer pursue either virtue or truth, and churn out citizens too uneducated to vote well, and too narcissistic to care.  And what have we received, as an inheritance of our “taking counsel together against the Lord and His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us’”?  What have we gained, from all our human progress?

Meteoric rises in divorce, and parental abandonment; childhood crime, sexual activity, abuse, drug use, depression, and suicide at historic levels; families in debt and despair, with home ownership lower, and government assistance higher; people voting themselves money from the public treasury, as the nation itself speeds toward fiscal insolvency; violent crime rising in neighborhoods across the nation; politicians beholden to their financial backers, rather than the people they are sworn to represent; lobbyists writing public policy on the power of their bribery; mothers and fathers murdering children; children murdering parents; virtue and self-sacrifice waning, as discipline and rigor is exchanged for medication and therapy.  We have become a nation of weak, self-absorbed, ignorant, and vicious people, as our families have likewise become weak, self-absorbed, ignorant, and vicious.  We have taught people that they are no more than animals, having lives without purpose and driven by chemical urge, and so our families, communities, and nation have become a reflection of meaningless animals, driven by chemical urges.

This is the sound of God laughing at us.  The confusion, corruption, division, and destruction of our times, which we have brought upon ourselves by abandoning God, is the sound of the heavens mocking us to scorn.  We have rejected God, and He has given us what we asked for.  We have disregarded the blessing and peace of heaven, and He has allowed us to build a hell of our own making.  We are reaping the fruit of the seeds we have sown, and the poisonous fruit sits rotten in our bellies.

And though we deserve all the scorn and ridicule we have earned, our suffering is both a sign of justice, and of mercy.  Our suffering is a sign of the God we have abandoned, and His Word which we have replaced with our own.  But in our suffering and despair, we find the truth which cuts us to our core:  we are the creature, and God is the Creator.  His glory outshines us in every conceivable way, and in His light, all that we are and all that we do, is small.  We are not God, though we would like to be—and thanks be to God that we are not, for imagine the hell we could create, if He took His providential grace and mercy from us completely?

But our God does not enjoy our destruction, nor does He wish to lose a single one of us.  Rather, in His great love and mercy, He sends His Son to die for the wickedness of this world, that all who would cling to Him in faith, would receive His grace, life and mercy.  He comes to us as both Judge and Savior:  to the one who would despise Him, His rod of iron will smash him to pieces, but to the one who repents and believes, His grace and compassion forgives and heals all.  His Word goes out to every corner under heaven, calling all to hear and believe.  And with the Psalmist we may hear His Spirit call:

Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 

Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 

Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,

and ye perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.

 Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.

Amen.