Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries
"Help and Hope"
May 4, 2020
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever.
— Psalm 146:5-6, ESV
The majesty of creation is all around us, but we may not always notice it until we see its glory reflected in a beautiful sunset, a delicate flower, or the uncoiling power of a seedling, pushing its way up through rocky soil. Much of God's wonderful creation is not readily visible. A far-away star named UY Scuti has a radius 1,700 times greater than that of our sun. The deepest part of the ocean, in the Mariana Trench of the western Pacific, is called the Challenger Deep and plunges to a depth of 36,200 feet. Yet all of this ordered splendor pales before the glory of its Creator. By His Word, God created the sun and moon, the planets and distant stars. By His Word, He gathered the waters into seas and carved the ocean depths.
Our psalm praises the Creator as our help and our hope. The God who "made heaven and earth," who created the great stars and ocean depths, is present to help us. He is "the God of Jacob," whose mighty acts in Israel's history brought to fulfillment His promise to send the Savior. When the right time had come, the Word by whom all things were made, who "laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning" (Hebrews 1:10b), took on human flesh. His birth heralded by a star He created—Jesus the Word came to live among us. He came to take onto Himself the sins of the world and carry them to the cross. He suffered the penalty of death that we deserved, the penalty decreed against human creatures lost in willful rebellion against their Creator.
Jesus overcame death and the grave, and He is our help and our hope, our help against the powers of sin and death, and our hope of life and resurrection. For the sake of His Son, God, who created the vast oceans, has "cast all our sins into the depths of the sea" (Micah 7:19b). Through Baptism, each of us is a new creation, and in Christ Jesus, we "have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator" (Colossians 3:10).
Our God and Creator "keeps faith forever." He continues to care for His splendid, ordered creation, causing "springs to gush forth in the valleys" and "the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate" (Psalm 104:10a, 14a). He "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45b). He keeps faith forever and will, when Jesus returns on the Last Day, raise us up from a death as He has promised. He will create a new heaven and a new earth where we will live in His presence forever. But there we will have no need of the sun or moon, for the glory of God, our help and hope, will be our light (see Revelation 21:22-23).
THE PRAYER: Thank You, God our Savior, for every gift of Your creation. You have created us anew in Christ Jesus, and we look forward to the day when You will make all things news. Amen.
Reflection Questions:
1. Do you enjoy the subject of science? What's something you've studied scientifically?This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Carol Geisler. Use these devotions in your newsletter and bulletin! Used by permission; all rights reserved by the Int'l LLL (LHM).
2. What does it say to you that the One who made the universe is faithful and is there to help you?
3. Has your view of the universe, and how it came to be, changed over time? How so?
Do you enjoy the subject of science? What's something you've studied scientifically?
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