Psalm 19 — The Soundtrack of the Kingdom
Aurora, Nov. 8, 2026
Begin to live in the Kingdom now
God is really all for us. Our maker has lots and lots of ways to reach us and to teach us. And the payoff is very good. There’s the assurance of good things to come later, in the resurrected life after this one. Our second reading today from Thessalonians says: “For the Lord himself … will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.” What a wonderful promise. But what about now? What about this life?
Jesus said, “The Kingdom is at hand, it is very near to you.” We often miss the joys, the assurances, the satisfactions and pleasures of experiencing the kingdom in this life. There’s something going on around us right now and we often miss it. In recent weeks, we’ve been reading Exodus and now Joshua. Before the Exodus from Egypt, God had spoken directly only to a few people, and mainly TO them.
With Moses, God begins a new two-way conversation with humans. This will extend first to Joshua, Moses’ successor, then to the prophets, and later to all people of faith through the Holy Spirit. Even you and me. The first written communication from God to humans is ten rules written in stone. God knew there was no way humans could keep all these perfectly. But God used these commandments to make us aware there is such a thing as sin. And we are sinners. And he loves us anyway. And he wants us to love him back.
After 40 years in the desert, Moses summed up the meaning behind this teaching to the free people in the desert. “Hear O Israel, the Lord is God and the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.” How do we get to know God well enough to feel that kind of love?
A few years later, Joshua laid out a choice, ‘who are you going to serve?’ “Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.”
After Moses, the Israelites muddled forward through more than 1,200 years of fighting, conquest and exile. The elites, the intellectuals, expanded on the Ten Commandments and 603 other Biblical laws. Their purpose was to protect the intent of the law by extending it to cover all possible meanings. Which meant writing more laws, manmade laws. With just a rulebook the common people were left behind, like sheep without a shepherd. How do we start that loving conversation with our Creator?
Let’s look at the Book of Psalms. Psalms continues the conversation between humans and God. Psalms are dialogues with our Creator. We cry to God, we lay out our tale of woe. God answers us, assures us. We question. God answers. We complain. God comforts. Regret, praise, hope, joy, thanksgiving, it’s all there in the Psalms. And there are clues to other conversations.
Psalm 19 is unusual. It hints at what can be. Psalm 19 is a hidden message about the experience of the Kingdom of God in this world.
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.This mysterious and glorious communication without words is going on continuously between the Creator and all of Creation, whether animate or inanimate. Living animals, plants and people, and the rocks, trees and even fence posts, all join the song. This heavenly communication is happening between all created things. This song without words is being sung by planets and stars, days and nights, rocks and trees, insects and birds, four-legged animals and two-legged animals. And it is being sung for and with planets and stars, days and nights, rocks and trees, insects and birds, four-legged animals and two-legged animals. Do we hear it? Do we get it?
We humans are blessed and cursed with the mental capability to reason analytically, to think we understand more than we do, and the free will to do so. We think we are even more special than we are; not just the leading edge of God’s evolution of species, but the whole purpose of it. Our musings, our self-indulgences and our anxieties can deafen us to the celestial music always happening around us. We are in the middle of a sacred and exquisite concert. Too often it’s missing an instrument: the human heart.
Before we can sing the sacred song, we need to hear it. Remember the blessing, the mitzvah Moses gave: “Hear O Israel. The Lord your God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.”
Then Joshua asks the children of Israel if they are ready to serve the Lord God and the Lord God alone. Are we ready to double down? The Israelites had lived as slaves under Egyptian rule. While still in the desert these former slaves received a new directive, God’s Law. This law was to govern their behavior, their actions.
Now forty years later their children, a new generation born in freedom, is charged with new instructions – not just to follow God’s laws in their actions, but to plant these rules deep in their hearts and souls with all their might and very being. To become a transformed People. God’s people acting in God’s creation.
God wanted these descendants of former slaves to be reborn, transformed from their former way of life to something totally new and beautiful and glorious. A free people with free will, human beings preparing to become the sons and daughters of God because they choose to become so.
What the Jews went through in the Old Testament forecasts what all of humanity will go through. But we have an advantage the Old Testament Hebrews did not have. God sent us his own son formed and born as a human being. Jesus came to teach us our part in this divine concert and the Christian church is our practice hall.
The New Testament describes the melody. Galatians teaches the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control. We have the lyrics. But we need to hear the melody, the harmony.
Jesus came to do more than save sinners. He came to teach us sinners to hear and to love God our Lord. When Jesus quoted Moses’ blessing he made an addition: We are to love God with not only all our heart and soul and strength, but with all our mind. Jesus calls on us to engage our mind with God. Then, only then, we can open our hearts and sing.
Fortunately the song is going on all around us. Psalm 19 describes it. How do we hear it? First, we quiet the racket going on between our ears. We shut up and listen. We make time to turn off the ceaseless chatter of the media, the screens, the emails, IMs and blogs, the social media tweets and chirps and commentary and comments on the commentary. Then we make the decision to turn off our own internal commentary, the racket between our ears. We can become like the wise bridesmaids who were waiting and watching for the bridegroom.
There are simple ways at hand. Psalm 19 tells us the most obvious is to open our eyes and look, really look at what’s around us. The light, the clouds, the trees, the fields, the people. Wait and watch without expectation. Wait for your mind and heart to begin resonating in response to the silent music. Creation is humming all around you. Sometimes too the Spirit acts by arranging things to happen which we often dismiss as coincidence, if we notice at all. Notice. Notice everything that happens and think on it. You might begin to hear the song.
We often stop at the more reasonable, the more visible and explainable. But truth happens deeply. We can receive these spiritual values. We can transmit them as well. The animals, trees, and bees have no choice in the matter. This is how they communicate. For us, it depends on what we choose to hear, and what we sing back to Creation.
This is God’s song. As we follow its melody, reflect on its unspoken lyrics, we join a divine ensemble. Our transformation starts in this lifetime. We harmonize, we sing our part. We become part of the song. We start to hear with God’s ears, see with God’s eyes, as well as act with God’s hands. We take up our role in God’s Kingdom.
Hear O Israel. Join in the song.
Amen