3The voice of the LORD is upon the
waters; The God of glory thunders, The LORD is over many waters. 4The voice of the LORD is
powerful, The voice of the LORD is majestic.
5The voice of the LORD breaks the
cedars; Yes, the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. 6And He makes Lebanon skip like a
calf, And Sirion like a young wild ox. 7The voice of the LORD hews out
flames of fire.
8The voice of the LORD shakes the
wilderness; The LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. 9The voice of the LORD makes the
deer to calve, And strips the forests bare, And in His temple everything says,
"Glory!"
10The LORD sat as King at
the flood; Yes, the LORD sits as King forever. 11The LORD will give strength to
His people; The LORD will bless His people with peace. (NAS)
. . . Everyone now and at all times understands, has
understood, and will understand this text all too well – except for myself
alone and a few poor sinners and fools, like Moses, David, Isaiah, and such
people (among whom I can only boastfully place myself by saying: Nos poma
natamus ["I am floating along with the other apples"] – [that
is,] like horse dung among apples). These people consider God to be a man of
wonders and say that His creation is nothing but wondrous works. Yet very few
see God's wondrous works, though everyone sees His creation and cannot help but
grasp and feel it, as St. Paul says in Acts 17 [:26–27]. However, I, too, am
one of the coarse fellows who do not yet comprehend His creation, and (as I
said) I have just begun to believe this, so that, as an old student and a doctor
now almost at the end of my days, I must rightly wonder at how the people in
our time know everything that the Holy Spirit knows as soon as they have so
much as sniffed at a book. Yet they go off on their way and see nothing of the
things God does daily before our eyes, which are both terrifying and
comforting. They give it no heed, as if it were all a charlatan’s trick.
Through Adam's sin human nature has fallen so far from God and his image – that
is, from knowing Him [cf. Col. 3:10] – that we also do not understand our own
body and life, how wonderfully these are daily created, granted, and preserved
by God. Therefore, is it any wonder if we are obstinate, stubborn, utterly
blind, and [insensible] logs toward His other wondrous works, which He reveals
to us in all creatures, besides our own body and life?
Martin Luther, “Preface to Ambrosius Moibanus, The
Twenty-Ninth Psalm, On the Power of the Voice of God in the Air, 1536.”
Page 119 in vol. 60 of Luther’s Works, American Edition. Edited by Christopher
Boyd Brown. St. Louis: Concordia, 2011.
Taken from Dr. Martin Luther’s preface to Ambrosius
Moibanus’ exposition of the twenty-ninth Psalm of David; the exposition was inspired
by a severe storm that ravaged Silesia in the summer and autumn of 1535. It
distressed Moibanus when so few
recognized God's almighty hand at work in the storm, and instead, interpreted
it as a natural phenomenon or the work of the devil. Moibanus was a leader of the Lutheran
Reformation in his native homeland of Breslau (common day Wrocław, Poland), and studied in Wittenberg where
he came in contact with Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, and Johann Heß, among others. It is interesting to note that for Luther
this was a subject he struggled with all throughout his life, and only began to
accept its full significance toward the end of his days, as he so modestly reflects above. It is a hard pill to swallow indeed, to say that, for example, a tsunami
affecting hundreds is somehow connected to an act of God upon unrepentant
sinners. Later on Luther seems to say that men are pretentious to accept divine
help, while shunning the divine calamity. How true of us today. Let us learn
from this Psalm of David that the Lord sends blessings and strength to His
people, as well as shaking the ground beneath our feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment