My church is reading through the Old Testament this year and
we just got out of 2 Samuel a couple weeks ago.
I was reading back through David’s song of Praise the other day and was
struck by these verses:
“The waves of death swirled around me; torrents of
destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of
the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called to the Lord; I called out to my
God. From His temple He heard my voice;
my cry came to His ears.
The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the
heavens shook; they trembled because He was angry. Smoke rose from His nostrils; consuming fire
came from His mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark
clouds were under His feet. He mounted the
cherubim and flew; He soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness His
canopy around him – the dark rain clouds of the sky. Out of the brightness of His presence bolts
of lightening blazed forth. The Lord
thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot arrows and scattered the enemies,
bolts of lightening and routed them. The
valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at
the rebuke of the Lord, at the blast of breath from His nostrils.
He reached down from on high and took hold of me…”
(2 Sam. 22:5-17)
That last line stopped me in my tracks. I couldn’t breathe for a second. God, the very God who caused the foundations
of the earth He made to shake at His anger, this God reached down from heaven
and took hold of man. We are helpless,
miserable, the cords of death wrap themselves around us and we are helpless to
cut free. But God, the holy, wrathful,
jealous, terrifying God thunders from on high and then reaches down and pulls
us from the deep.
I will never cease to be amazed by this. It is so incongruous. So unlikely.
So incredible.
It is the story of the gospel. The holy stooping to scoop us up.
This is what I want to spend my time talking about.
