My little girls and I made homemade play dough one day last week. What is it about a lump of soft dough that will keep a child’s hands and mind busy for so long? Sharlotte Hosanna (3) shaped animals and flowers and different foods with her hands. She and her sisters served me on tiny plastic lids and urged me, “Take a real bite, Mama!!” Their salty little fingers went on to make many more masterpieces.
We’re told of some simple finger work of God in creation: the moon and stars.
“Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” Psalm 8: 2-4
It was no hefty shouldering or back breaking work. It was as easy as shaping play dough with the fingertips. But it was the solar system. We ought to let that sink in. We should let our hearts take in the grandeur of God’s wisdom and power. His fingers created the solar system.
When the Psalmist thinks on the magnitude of the moon, stars, power of God and then on himself, he asks,
“What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”
What is man in comparison? If the stars are puny work to God then how insignificant must humans be? Why does God take any thought of us? We’re pretty pathetic. Not only does God have more wisdom and power in his pinky fingertip than the entire human race has had since time began, we actually dare to have delusions of our own wisdom. We question him. We go our own way. As if there are times that we are smarter than him. It is utterly laughable.
Yet he has stamped us with his image. Mankind is the only creation that bears the title of image bearer. This is the answer to the Psalmist’s question of “Why do you care about pitiful, pathetic mankind?” Genesis 1 shows us that man is the grand finale of God’s creation. This is why God values life. This is why we should also value life. Man bears the image of God.
Yet we have fallen so far into sin and rebellion since the time of creation when man was in an exalted state. And this should draw our minds to worship Christ. He was the perfect image of God and also the perfect image of what man had been created to be. And he became our substitute, that the creature would have peace with the Creator again.
“Hosanna, to the Son of David!”
“out of the mouths of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.”
During his triumphal entry into Jerusalem Jesus quoted the first phrase of this verse to the chief priests and teachers when they complained and said the children should be silenced from praising him. But Jesus knew, and the chief priests knew, how the verse ended.
“….because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.”
The chief priests knew what Jesus was implying. They were his “foes and enemies.” They were plotting his death. And he knew it. But the chorus of praise coming from the children in that moment drowned them out. Those high pitched, lisping voices silenced Christ’s enemies.
Someday the enemies of God will be silenced forever, in judgement. For now the assault comes through praise. And God is so high above his enemies that the very weakest of his image bearers can silence them. The cause of God succeeds even when his champions are infants and children.
When I sit next to my children in church and hear them lift their voices in praise, this verse often comes to my mind. The Lord would have praise from his babes. There is strength from God in the feeblest of his people. Their weapons are not in their strong bodies, great intellect, or guns and bullets. Their victory over the enemies of Christ comes through their praises.
Hosanna, to the Son of David!
The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Someday even death will hold no power over God’s people. Creation will be restored and mankind will be what God originally designed us to be. Until then all creation groans. We lament for what we once were and what we should be. We long for and eagerly await the day that creation is set right again.
But in the meantime we bring praise, along with the infants and children. And in this we silence the enemies of God.
Hosanna, to the Son of David!
(This is one of my favorite artists and one of my favorites of his work. Email readers will have to clink the link to view it.)
Fitly Spoken 