3rd Friday of Lent (March 8). God is big enough

Prepare to Listen.  Serve the LORD with fear, with trembling kiss his feet.
 
Prayerfully Read Psalm 2
1Why do the nations conspire,
   and the peoples plot in vain?
2The kings of the earth set themselves,
   and the rulers take counsel together,
   against the LORD and his anointed, saying,
3‘Let us burst their bonds asunder,
   and cast their cords from us.’
4He who sits in the heavens laughs;
   The LORD has them in derision.
5Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
   and terrify them in his fury, saying,
6‘I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.’
7I will tell of the decree of the LORD:
He said to me, ‘You are my son;
   today I have begotten you.
8Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
   and the ends of the earth your possession.
9You shall break them with a rod of iron,
   and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’
10Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
   be warned, O rulers of the earth.
11Serve the LORD with fear,
   with trembling 12kiss his feet,
or he will be angry, and you will perish in the way;
   for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Happy are all who take refuge in him.
 
Prayerfully Wonder and Reflect
Perhaps recognizing the importance of this psalm, Handel wrote pieces on four verses.[1]  What importance do you see in Psalm 2?
 
The Psalter, a book that teaches us how to pray, doesn’t begin with prayer, but with two psalms that get us ready to pray.  Prayer takes us out of a world of anxieties, problems and ego-centeredness into a world of wonder, mystery and God-centeredness.  But “we are not used to wonder, God and mystery,”[2] or a world where God rules supreme.  We need help to get and remain there.  Psalm 2 takes us there by focusing our attention on God’s power over peoples and nations, kings and rulers, including those plotting to reject God’s Word and God’s control over their lives and lusting after control of our lives.
 
Plotters conspiring against the rule of God are in every generation and nation, including our own.  We become afraid, too intimidated to trust God to help us resist the plotters.  Peterson warns, “It we are intimated” we’ll forfeit everything to those “who set themselves against the Lord.”[3]  What we need is an imagination that enables us to see BIG, see God as infinitely bigger than the competing bigness of our world.  Psalm 2 enlarges our view of God.  It points us, not to an earthly savior, but a divine Messiah, designated by God as “my son;” who became one of us and lived among us.  When earthly plotters intimidate us or we look to humans for salvation, we’ll be too intimidated to pray to the LORD.  Let Psalm 2 enlarge your vision of God and God’s sovereign power to rule over the plotters, whoever they are.
 
Name what intimidates you then name what makes God BIG.  Trust and serve that BIG God today and always.
 
Prayerfully Respond
Lord, enlarge my vision of you so that I don’t let the plotters intimidate me or keep me from praying and serving you with that fear and trembling that rejects all other gods.  You alone are Lord.  May I live that truth today.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Serve the Lord in fear and trembling.
[1] Verses 1-2, 3, 4, 9.
[2] Peterson, E.  Answering God: The Psalms as tools for prayer.  San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row.  1989, p. 23.
[3] Peterson, 1989, p. 29.