A message on Psalm 8 by Deepak Babu is something some people might be willing to pay good money to hear. After all, Psalm 8 is a song of unbridled praise. And, as one of my friends graciously pointed out to me, I have the happy knack of finding the black lining to every silver cloud. He and some others would pay a cover charge for Christalaya to see how I manage to find the black lining to this silver cloud. But before we go there, let us see the first declaration of the Psalm.

“Yahweh, our Sovereign, how regal is your name in all the earth!” During my study for this message, I uncovered some evidence of this declaration. Here is some of the evidence in pictorial form.

So there you are! Eight pictures from around the world of natural formations that are varied, distinct, and that quite literally blow your mind away. In response to this surely we can say, “Yahweh, our Sovereign, how regal is your name in all the earth!”

When Uncle Ken spoke last week, he mentioned that the theme for this series is ‘Learning to Sing.’ Then he suggested that we also consider the theme to be ‘Singing to Learn.’

We who have access to numerous bibles and who are literate perhaps do not grasp adequately how true that is. A person who either does not have access to a bible or who does not know how to read can learn about God through the songs sung in church. The liturgy, the hymns, and the creeds used to be the songs of the church. They still are in churches where many of those who attend are unable to read. But by reciting the creeds, participating in the liturgy and singing from a set number of hymns, they learn about the faith. This also gives us an appreciation for why most hymns are long. It takes some length to communicate truths about God.

So what does this Psalm teach us? While there are many things we can learn from Psalm 8, let us focus only on two. First, the enigmatic sentence in v. 2. “Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.”

What does this mean? How do children and infants praise God? And how does their praise put in place a stronghold against God’s enemies? And in the context of the psalm, who or what are God’s enemies? Remember that this is a psalm of unbridled praise. The psalmist has pulled out all the stops to praise God here. So in the context of the psalm, anything that dampens the praise that God deserves is his enemy. Once we view the psalm in this manner, we can understand what it is saying.

We are born with an innate ability of praising God. A child is full of wonder. For a child the world is a miraculous place, a place of discovery and joy, a studio filled with works of art to be uncovered.

Then something happens as the child grows. She is exposed to hate, distrust, indifference and cruelty. And slowly the cynicism takes root and is nourished by further exposure to these enemies of God. For a cynical person is unable to offer pure unbridled praise to God. There is always the ‘what if’s and the ‘how about’s and the playing of the devil’s advocate. Life in this world educates us how to dampen our praise. Much like the t-shirt that reads, “I was born intelligent; education ruined me.” The psalmist would say, “We are born with the ability to praise God; our exposure to the dark side of human personality and culture ruins us.”

As someone who loves the music of Pink Floyd, I am well aware of the cynical side of human thoughts. And they sing about stark, grave realities. Life really makes it difficult to maintain an overly optimistic view of things.

And lest we misinterpret the psalmist, we should take note that he does not ask us to deny the horrendous side of human existence. His reason for unbridled praise is not that everything in this world is a bed of roses and that we live in some utopia.

Rather, he calls our attention to those aspects of God’s creation as yet unmarred by human sinfulness. The heavens, the stars, the planets, the comets, the asteroids, all those things that are beyond our ability to mar are those to which the psalmist draws our attention.

And the pictures we saw earlier show that even though we humans have left our devastating mark on Earth, there are still pristine places that still retain glimpses of glory.

The psalmist is telling us to recognize the source of our pain as well as the source of our healing. By sounding praise to God without reservation, the psalmist is telling us to focus our thoughts carefully. God is not responsible for the pain in this world; we are. But God can restore this world to a glory far beyond what it ever had. Hence, we praise him. We look at the unblemished heavens and understand what God is capable of.

We look at the heavens and recapture our sense of wonder, our understanding of glory. When Jesus entered Jerusalem and the temple on Palm Sunday, he quoted from this psalm in response to the praise offered him by the children there. When the adults, the cynical adults, the jaded adults, asked Jesus to silence the children, Jesus responded by quoting this psalm and thereby indicating what was needed in order to recognize God’s glory. In another place he said that a person must become like a child in order to see the kingdom of God.

This is exactly in line with the psalm. The jaded adults could not see the glory of God in Jesus. The still not cynical children saw through everything and recognized God’s deliverance in Jesus. In this world marred by humans the children were able to see in Jesus God’s solution to the marring.

And that brings us to the second aspect on which we will focus. If humans are the cause of the marring of Earth, what is our place in God’s scheme of things?

“What are humans,” the psalmist asks, “that you care for them?” If we take a pragmatic coldly logical view we cannot but conclude that humans are a speck in this universe. We could conclude that we are insignificant. But the psalmist will have nothing of it.

After asking the question about why God cares for humans, the psalmist answers. “You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet:”

What the psalmist is saying is that God’s calling for humans is still in place despite our tendency to ruin things. We are still crowned with glory and honor. We are still rulers over God’s creation. We may have messed up badly. We still mess up badly. But we cannot abdicate our position. It is our job to take care of the smooth running of this world.

Why is God concerned about humans? Please note, that the psalmist’s answer is not, “Because God loves humankind.” Nor is it, “Because he wants to save humans.” Rather, his answer is that God has entrusted humans with a task. We are God’s delegates and like any sovereign God is concerned about what his delegates are doing, for his own reputation hangs in the balance.

How do these two aspects belong together? Praise from children and being God’s regents do not seem to fit properly. But the psalmist is telling us that they fit perfectly well. We are made to be God’s regents, rulers and caretakers of his creation. But we have allowed ourselves to get jaded and disillusioned and cynical. This affects the way we exercise our authority on Earth. Instead of exercising dominion over creation the way God does, we dominate creation. We want to bend creation to our purposes rather than allowing it to fulfill the purposes for which God has made it.

And the only way to rectify this malady is to recover the wonder that God places in every child before our cynicism drives it away. The solution to the problems faced by the world lies in recovering our child-likeness, not childishness. We must recover the ability to see God’s glory in things that might not seem glorious. And then we will see God restoring all of creation, including ourselves, to offer the exuberant praise with which the psalmist begins and ends his psalm.

(Sermon preached at Christalaya, Koramangala on 20 January 2013)