3rd Saturday of Advent (December 21). TREMBLE, O EARTH

Prepare to Listen.  Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the LORD.
 
Prayerfully Read Psalm 114
1When Israel went out from Egypt,
   the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,
2Judah became God’s sanctuary,
   Israel his dominion.
3The sea looked and fled;
   Jordan turned back.
4The mountains skipped like rams,
   the hills like lambs.
5Why is it, O sea, that you flee?
   O Jordan, that you turn back?
6O mountains, that you skip like rams?
   O hills, like lambs?
7Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the LORD,
   at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8who turns the rock into a pool of water,
   the flint into a spring of water.
 
Prayerfully Wonder and Reflect
When last did you tremble at the presence of the Lord?  Tell that story.
 
I chose this psalm because of the final verse—turns the rock into a pool of water.  Taking us back to the story of water from a rock in the wilderness (Exodus 17).[1]  I also chose it because it’s a song about Israel’s redemption.  It begins with deliverance from Egypt when “the sea looked and fled,” includes entrance into the land when “Jordan turned back,” and ends with water from the rock in the wilderness.  It gives the whole plan of salvation—beginning, ending, middle.  Advent focuses on the beginning of God’s plan of our salvation in Jesus.  The end is still future.  The middle of the story is where we live now, in our own wilderness wanderings, needing water from the rock.
 
As the psalmist wondered about God’s miraculous salvation, she became poetic, asking the sea, the Jordan river, the mountains and hills why they behaved contrary to their nature.  Creation is powerful and has its set ways of being.  Why did it suddenly behave against those set ways?  She doesn’t wait for nature to respond, but instead speaks to it: “Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the God of Jacob.”  God’s presence in nature is astonishing and so too is God’s powerful plan of salvation.  Thinking about it should cause us to tremble in awe at God’s power working in the world and in our lives for the full redemption of all creation.
 
Advent is a story of God’s miraculous works, making nature do God’s bidding.  Try writing your own psalm to describe God’s work as you’ve experienced it.
 
Prayerfully Respond
Lord, your presence alone is the cause of our salvation.  Help me live faithfully in your presence in the middle bit of the salvation story.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Tremble, with nature, at God’s presence.
[1] See devotion for 1st Saturday of Advent.