Leviathon

 

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it. These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. (Psalm 104:24-30 ESV).

 

Our reading today makes mention of one of the most difficult animals in the Bible to actually identify, “Leviathon.”  It obviously is a sea creature, seen from the reference to “the ships” (v. 25). Many believe it to be a whale of some sort. Whatever it was, it was a creature large enough to “play in the sea” (v. 25b). It could have been a blue whale. You can still see them today. The picture included today was taken off the coast of Juneau, Alaska. It’s a little difficult to see the scale and appreciate the enormity of its size. However, they are the largest animal known to man. They are over 100 feet tip to tail (about three school buses); they weigh in excess of 400,000 pounds; and, have the loudest “voice” of any living thing known to us. They are beautiful creatures.

 

In the early 300’s, Pachomius founded a monastery system that grew to include many thousands of monks. He observed that “the place in the monastery that is closest to God is not the church, but the garden. There the monks are the happiest.” In the 1400’s Thomas à Kempis wrote, “If your heart were right, then every created thing would be a mirror of life, and a book of sacred doctrine. There is no creature so small and worthless that it does not show forth the goodness of God.” In the 1500’s John Calvin urged believers to heed “a universal rule and not to pass over with ungrateful inattention or oblivion, those glorious perfections which God manifests in his creatures.” In the 1800’s Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevski wrote, “Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it; love every leaf, every ray of God’s light… If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things.” When a farmer delights in a freshly mowed field, when a pilot glories in the sky’s expansive view, when a chef grows giddy tasting crème brûlée, it can be a prayer echoing Psalm 104.

 

Here’s the truth for you today” God sustains lions and goats and wild donkeys and birds. How much more does he care for us! How much more will He provide for our every need! Set your anxieties aside for a few moments and marvel at God’s great creation!