March 18: Psalm 29

Today's reading.

"Ascribe!" That's not an exclamation we use much. Ascribe means to give, to credit, to attribute. We credit to God "the glory due his name" (29:2) because he has it, he deserves it, and we want to get on the glory train.

God doesn't need our worship. He graciously invites us to join in the cosmic party that happens in the midst of "the splendor of his holiness" (29:2). "The LORD sits enthroned as king forever" (29:10), and we just want to be part of the intergalactic shout of "Glory!" (29:9). We want to join in his worship because we've heard his voice.

We never see God in this psalm. "The voice of the LORD" is all we get to "see" of him. But his voice is all we need. His voice is the most powerful force in all the universe. His voice thunders, shakes the earth, flashes flames, breaks cedars and strips the forest bare. His voice is all the convincing we need to know that he is God.

God tells us of himself with words, not images. He forbade his people making images in their worship of him (Ex. 20:4) because he had given them all they needed to know of him with his own voice. His Word comes to us from outside us and calls us to believe and do things we otherwise would not believe or do. God's voice, his Word, breaks trees like toothpicks and melts sinful hearts like wax in a fire.

John says, "No one has ever seen God" (John 1:18), but God's Word has made him known. It was no mistake when John referred to Jesus Christ as "the Word" of God (John 1:1, 14). Christ is the revelation of God (John 14:9).

"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world" (Heb. 1:1-2). All the awe-striking power that Psalm 29 says belongs to God's voice comes to us now in the person and work of Christ Jesus who even now "upholds the universe by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:3).

We may not have cathedrals or temples to house our deity. We may not have shrines or relics to visit and conjure the divine. But we have God's voice, his Word. And his voice is all we need to hear to respond with a shout of "Glory!"