“Nature is my church.”
“I feel close to God when hiking the mountains.”
In my work as a hospital chaplain, I’ve heard those and similar statements hundreds of times. Sometimes they’re excuses for skipping out on the messiness of community (which is actually a significant part of the unselfing program God has us on). But most of the time, they reflect a sense of wonder and awe many of us have when we get outside and into the created world around us. For many, there is a worshipful feeling that exceeds singing in a church service.
Nights spent out under the stars far from the light pollution of cities has moved me to tears. So too have days spent paddling a canoe along lakes between mountains with a deep and profound silence weighing on me. Watching a bald eagle glide on invisible wind currents; feeling the air go thick and charged with electricity as a storm rolls in. These are a few of my favorite things.
Creation is a vast sanctuary, a churchless church.
There are creation hymns scattered throughout the Psalms, but none of them are a long or as large in scope as Psalm 104. And where other psalms draw from surrounding Canaanite imagery and poetry rather than Genesis 1, Psalm 104 is tied solely to the first 35 verses of the Bible.
We don’t see it as readily with modern Western eyes, but Genesis 1 presents creation as a temple. The firmaments establish the sacred space. The “lights” of the fourth day are the sacred lamps. And the final thing to be put into any temple is an image of the deity, which turns out to be you and me. (Oh, and the gold and the mountain of Genesis 2 are also temple imagery.)
All of creation is intended to be the temple of God, the theater of his engagement with us and our participation in his life.
Along with Adam and Eve, we get kicked out of this temple when we try to replace God with ourselves, not content with being his images. But the Scriptures tell the story of the reclaiming of humanity as God’s image and of creation as his temple. Finally, in Revelation 21, we see the final restoration as the whole earth is filled with the New Jerusalem which is fashioned in the cube-like shape (Rev. 21:15-17) of the Most Holy Place, infused with the Presence of God. There is no temple (Rev. 21:22), because the whole earth has become the temple.
All of that to say: There’s a very good reason why people feel like creation is their church. It’s supposed to be! That was God’s intent from the very beginning and that’s the goal of what he’s been doing ever since our ancestors got booted from the Garden.
So, let’s dive into Psalm 104 as it walks through the seven days of the Genesis 1 poem but with the eyes of a very different poet.
Praise the LORD, my soul.
LORD my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendor and majesty (Ps. 104:1).
Just as Gen. 1:1-2 is the intro to that account, Ps. 104:1 is the intro to this poem. But where the Genesis intro includes the chaotic elements of the darkness and the deep, the psalm starts with the greatness of Yahweh the King alone. There is no hint of chaos or opposition. Yahweh is supreme.
Another departure is in how God is addressed. Whereas Gen. 1 uses the generic word elohim (which is a plural word in Hebrew that can be used either as a singular “god” or plural “gods”), Psalm 104 uses the covenant name of God, Yahweh. Gen. 2-3, which some refer to as a second creation story, uses the covenant name along with elohim. Rather than seeing these as separate creation stories, I see them as two voices which harmonize beautifully. Where the term elohim is more generic and bigger picture in its view of God and his relationship with his creation, the name Yahweh points to the personal nature of our God and his more intimate relationship with not just humanity, but all of his creation. By pulling the Name from Gen. 2-3 and the content from Gen. 1, Psalm 104 subtly combines the two together. We have the vast creation as temple and the intimate relational God engaging with it.
Having introduced Yahweh as King and us as worshipers, Psalm 104 enters the temple.
The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment;
he stretches out the heavens like a tent
and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot
and rides on the wings of the wind.
He makes winds his messengers,
flames of fire his servants (Ps. 104:2-4)
These verses correspond to Gen. 1:3-5, Day One of the creation account.
The sky is God’s tent or tabernacle (didn’t we just note the temple nature of creation?). He wears light like a kingly robe. Worship and majesty are combined.
In an audacious move echoing other psalms, Yahweh is called the wind rider, making the clouds his chariot. Poetic in its imagery to us, it’s that and more. This is theologically bold, since this is language Israel’s neighbors would have used for the Canaanite deity Ba’al. There’s risk here of conflating the two deities. Early Christians did something similar in what would now be frowned on as “cultural appropriation” when they took over pagan holidays, reinterpreting them in the light of Jesus. Their belief in Christus Victor (Christ the Victor) led them to expect our Lord to take over for himself any enemy held territory. Both Genesis 1 and Psalm 104 do the same for Yahweh.
Not only does this tame the world of other so-called gods, it tames the natural world, showing it leashed and reined in the service of our God.
Although the world around us, both natural and cultural, may seem wild and chaotic, our Lord is asserting his kindly, kingly domination over it, bending it to his will and purposes.
Likewise, the gale winds are his messengers, his angels. The forks of lightning that set the sky and fields ablaze are his servants who do his bidding, showing his glory.
Next is Day Two (corresponding to Gen. 1:6-8).
He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
they flowed over the mountains,
they went down into the valleys,
to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
never again will they cover the earth (Ps. 104:5-9).
First, we note a shift from “he” to “you,” as God is now personally addressed and the poem becomes prayer.
The Flood story is fairly long (Gen. 6-9), longer than the creation story. But it needs to be read next to the creation account, since the Deluge is a story of un-creation and re-creation; God unmakes his Day Two boundaries for the chaotic waters, letting the waters above and below destroy the creation temple. But then God “remembers” those on the ark (“remember” is the key word in the maintenance of covenant relationships) and he re-creates the earth as the waters recede, never to flood the earth again. We see both the Day Two creation and the re-creation after the Flood blended together in this section (in v. 9, we see the creation establishment of the boundary and the “never again” promise made by God after the Flood).
In both creation and Flood accounts, the waters and the chaos they cause are not eliminated (as they are in the “no sea” of the “new creation” of Rev. 21:1). Instead, they’re restrained. God establishes a safe place in his world. It’s a sanctuary in both meanings of the world — a sacred space and a safe space.
While continuing the Day Two emphasis on the waters, the psalmist segues into Day Three with its emphasis on vegetation. Instead of the waters being the chaotic anti-creation deeps of Day Two and Gen. 1:2, now they are the life-giving springs, rivers, lakes, and rainfalls that are elsewhere tied to the life of God shared with his creation by his Spirit. (And we move from “you” back to “he.”)
He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work (Ps. 104:10-13).
The cosmology of Genesis 1 envisions a “firmament” above and ground below us. There’s a storehouse of water above the firmament referred to throughout the Scriptures and envisioned as a sea so calmed under his kingship that it’s smooth as glass (Rev. 4:6). There are storehouses of water below us as well. We live between the waters in a safe zone between the chaotic but controlled elements. These threatening waters leak through in life-giving ways. The storehouse below comes up in springs and feeds rivers. The storehouse above pours out in rainfall. We see these two referred to at the beginning and end of the passage quoted above. Their limited flow is what makes them life-bringing, as opposed to their unrestricted flow in the Flood (Gen. 7:11) which makes them life-destroying.
This segue moves us seamlessly into Day Three, which corresponds with Gen. 1:9-13).
He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate —
bringing forth food from the earth:
wine that gladdens human hearts,
oil to make their faces shine,
and bread that sustains their hearts.
The trees of the LORD are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the junipers.
The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the hyrax (Ps. 104:14-18).
In the Genesis 1 account, vegetation is created on Day Three, but its purpose is given on Day Six: providing food (Gen. 1:29-30). The way the Genesis 1 account is written, each of the items on the first three days finds its fulfillment in the next three days. The first three days provide the form, reversing the “formless” or “shapeless” of Gen. 1:2; and the next three days fill that form, reversing the “empty” of Gen. 1:2.
The light and the dark of Day One are filled with the greater and lesser lights (sun and moon) and stars of Day Four. The sea and sky of Day Two are filled with the sea creatures and birds of Day Five. The dry land of Day Three is filled with the land animals and humans of Day Six. Day Three has a second phase, the creation of vegetation. Therefore, Day Six has to have a second phase, a filling phase: vegetation is for food. The psalmist will return to food later on with Day Six but deals with it here with Day Three as well.
I absolutely love this! As a poet, the psalmist uses a significant amount of license and freedom when dealing with the Genesis 1 text. He moves things around to better fit his poetic imagery. He blends the creation account with the anti-creation/re-creation Flood story. He imagines specific animals and trees. He references wine, oil, and bread, the three mainstays of the Hebrew diet eaten daily. He weaves the theological with the everyday without hesitation.
But the psalmist doesn’t let his poetry abuse or minimize the Genesis 1 text the way that far too many preachers treat the texts they preach from. You can see everything about Genesis 1 in this poem. The psalmist doesn’t take a verse or two and use them as proof texts for whatever he wants to write about like so many preachers. No, the Genesis 1 text is engaged with in its entirety, something far more difficult in a poem than in a sermon.
There’s a playfulness here which is equally matched with a reverence for the text. There’s a hermeneutical pairing here every preacher should emulate.
On to Day Four, which corresponds with Gen. 1:14-19. (Note the brief dip back into “you” language before returning to more objective language.)
He made the moon to mark the seasons,
and the sun knows when to go down.
You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.
Then people go out to their work,
to their labor until evening (Ps. 104:19-23).
Genesis 1 refuses to name the sun and the moon, since their names were also the names of those worshiped as gods. Genesis 1 merely calls them “lights,” relegating them to the duty of lamps, lighting the temple of the one true God.
Here in Psalm 104, they are named. As in Genesis 1, they mark seasons, keeping the calendar. But no calendar is value neutral. The holidays we celebrate both give shape to the year and remind us what is most important to our culture. This is why it was so important to early Christians to reinterpret pagan holidays in the light of Jesus. Likewise, the sun and the moon are commanded: “let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years” (Gen. 1:14).
Psalm 104 goes beyond Genesis 1, reflecting on nocturnal beasts and diurnal humans, each seeking their food from God. Human labor and ambition is limited by darkness as the sun goes down each day, something our artificial lights have undermined, increasing our slavery to our work and our ambition to dominate through our work. Naming a lion’s roar as a prayer, seeking its food from God, points to a humility in the created world embodied by the king of beasts which we humans lack.
The simple acts of sleep and meal prayers are essential to a biblical spirituality, acknowledging our inability to secure our lives, something only God can do.
And so we move on to Day Five (corresponding to Gen. 1:20:23) and return to the “you” of prayer language.
How many are your works, LORD!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number —
living things both large and small.
There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there (Ps. 104:24-26).
Interestingly, Psalm 104 ignores the winged creatures of the skies here, having referenced birds and storks in the Day Three section. The focus is on sea creatures and ships. But what stands out is Leviathan.
Attempts at equating Leviathan with crocodiles fails, as does Herman Melville’s equating it with the white whale of Moby Dick. Leviathan was a many-headed sea serpent in Babylonian and Canaanite mythologies. A vast hydra. A kraken.
Again, the psalmist is theologically adventurous. To incorporate an anti-creation god-beast from a competing religion in your creation hymn is bold and dangerous. And humorous.
There’s a tongue-in-cheek mockery here. Leviathan isn’t scary. It’s a feature of God’s aquarium. It’s more frolicsome than fearsome.
Israel was surrounded by larger and smaller kingdoms with their larger and smaller religions. It was a hostile environment. It was also a non-seafaring nation situated along the coastline of the wild Mediterranean. That too was a hostile environment. But in this one image, the psalmist disarms both. What seems hostile is reduced to household pet status.
The ocean dark, wild, and mysterious is filled creatures which reflect the wisdom of God.
Day Six, which corresponds to Gen. 1:24-30 —
All creatures look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground (Ps. 104:27-30).
In Genesis 1, Day Six deals with land animals, humans included, and God’s provision of food for them. But where Genesis 1 emphasizes the ability of vegetation to produce life on its own, Psalm 104 emphasizes the agency of God in providing the food animals need.
All creatures look to God to provide them with their food. When he gives it, they take it. When he holds out his hand filled with food, they eat and are satisfied. And yet, as the source of their life, he is also the source of their death. The giver of breath is also the one who takes it away. (The Hebrew for the word rendered as creature’s “breath” and as God’s “Spirit” is the same: ruach.)
The source of all life is the one and same Spirit, the Breath of God. Only God has life in and of himself. The life in you and me and every other living creature is borrowed from God. When God sends his Spirit, creation takes place. When he removes his Spirit, death follows.
Our lives are not our own. We live borrowed lives, breathing borrowed breath. We have no claim on any of it. It’s all gift.
Day Seven.
May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works —
he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
who touches the mountains, and they smoke.
I will sing to the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
May my meditation be pleasing to him,
as I rejoice in the LORD.
But may sinners vanish from the earth
and the wicked be no more.
Praise the LORD, my soul.
Praise the LORD (Ps. 104:31-35).
Creation is incomplete without the seventh day. A Sabbath rest is the goal of creation. So, what does God do on this day of rest? He enjoys what he’s made, like a cook sitting down to enjoy the meal he’s just prepared or an artist standing back to take in the painting she’s been working on.
The earth itself is uncontainable in its joy. It shivers with delight in its earthquakes. It bursts with unrestrained enthusiasm in volcanic eruptions. And we join in uncontained and unrestrained ourselves. For isn’t that what singing is? Language in excelsis.
The single verse about the wicked feels out of place here, but it too is essential. God has made a very good creation, but it is marred by those who live against his purposes. Their contrariness spoils the harmony of creation’s song. They are like the time we went camping at a site we’ll never return to. People with RVs were far too close, their generators filling the air with noise in order to power their televisions and stereos.
God’s Sabbath requires the silencing of the din of human ambition, with its noise and busyness and injustice.
With the self-idolatry of sin removed, creation returns to being the sanctuary it was always intended to be. The world becomes our church. And God’s church too. And praise, the language of lovers, is all that is left.