How Majestic Is Your Name

LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold

against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of us, those You care for?... Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Friends in Christ,

Psalm 8 warms our hearts with sweeping thoughts and words about majesty. Like the recent coronation of King Charles III of England that included fanfare, splendid robes, jewel encrusted crowns, angelic music, a service in a sweeping cathedral, celebrities and world leaders, and much more, is the majesty of God. Two times in the verses of Psalm 8 are the soaring words, “LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

‘Majestic’ is a word and concept we seldom say or hear, but one well worth considering on Trinity Sunday because it joins us to our Heavenly Father, His Son, and His Spirit.

(1) What does majestic mean? More than you might think! Do you still use or do you remember when you signed your name with a pen that is chained to the counter in a bank of office? My guess is that you have not given that pen a second’s thought. But, like many things, that pen has a story. For over 40 years Skilcraft pens have been assembled by blind factory workers in Wisconsin and North Carolina. The pens must meet rigorous government specifications: to write continuously for a mile and within temperature range of 40 below zero to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The original design has changed little over the decades. Each pen costs less than 60 cents to manufacture. Tradition says that pen has helped lost Navy pilots navigate by map and been used emergency tracheotomies. The pen can write upside down. The pen has a rich history that touches war, peace, bureaucrats and peasants, adults and children, work, and play. And you would never know it to look at it. It is just there. Always. Everywhere.

Just as God, Father, Son and Spirit, is seldom thought of by many, unseen by more, yet continues to do amazing things – create life, maintain a beautiful world, forgive sins, heal diseases, comfort the lonely, care for the broken, give hope to the discouraged and much more. God is here. Always. Everywhere.

(2) Why? Because He is not us; we are not Him. He is majestic; we are, to be Biblical, pitiful, if not pathetic because of our sin. What do we confess in our services? “I a poor miserable sinner, confess to you all my sins and iniquities …”

Sin leaves us far from God. Very far. Look at it this way. A barber who did not believe in God was cutting the hair of a local Pastor. Because the two knew each other well, the barber felt free to challenge the Pastor with biting words in a sharp voice, “If there is a loving God, how can He allow poverty, war, and suffering?” At that moment, outside the front window of the shop, a disheveled man crossed the street – dirty and unwashed, wild, uncombed hair, scraggly beard – a mess. The pastor looked quietly at the man outside and then responded, “You are a barber and claim to be a good one. How can you allow that man to go unkept and unshaven? Why haven’t you cut his hair and shaved his beard?” Reacting impulsively to the challenge, the barber blurted out, “The man never gave me a chance!” To which the pastor said quietly, “Exactly. It is the same with God. Our world is what it is because so many reject God and never give Him a chance – like you!”

The prophet Isaiah explained it this way: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way.” Which leaves us lost, hungry, wounded, scarred, dirty, and in danger, far from the loving care of the Good Shepherd. They are the very reasons we need Jesus, the loving Shepherd sent from His Father, to find us, love us, and care for us, or as the Psalmist wrote of God, “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

3. How, then, can we respond? With joy and joyful service. How good if our response would be like that of long-ago King Henry III of Bavaria. King Henry grew tired of court life and the pressures of being a king. Legend reports that one day He went by himself to a local monastery and asked to be accepted into the religious order as a contemplative monk who would spend the rest of his life in the monastery. “Your Majesty,” said Prior Richard, “do you understand that the pledge here is one of obedience? That will be hard because you have been a king.” “I understand,” said Henry. “The rest of my life I will be obedient to you, as Christ leads you.” “Then I will tell you what to do,” said Prior Richard. “Go back to your throne and serve faithfully in the place where God has put you. Be the king God wants you to be for His people.” When King Henry died, a statement was posted on the castle door: “The King learned to rule by being obedient.”