Scripture | Psalm 19:1-6 (NIV)
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. 5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. 6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.
Sermon | Spiritual Strength – Visio Divina
Pastor Thanael Certa-Werner
Throughout 2021, we, as a church, are taking on the task of growing our spiritual muscles. We want to work them out, give them plenty of exercise, and treat them right so that we can grow spiritually strong and closer to God. To meet our goal, we are going through the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook and working each week on one specific spiritual discipline. Right now, we’re focusing on worship disciplines – disciplines which teach us how to be in worship throughout our lives.
Over this last week, we talked about Sabbath. We looked at the biblical start of the sabbath in Genesis and Exodus, where God Himself rests after creating the universe and all of creation and then commands that His people rest as well from their work. We are made in God’s image, and if God rested after His work, it only makes sense that we too need rest. When we go without rest, we diminish the value of our work as we allow for work to take over space in our lives which it does not own. If we let it, work can take over our lives, becoming more important than our families, our sleep, our health, and even God. Sabbath is an intentional time to rest, to spend time with God, and re-energize for the week ahead. I hope you are all able to do that today as the world is put on hold and the storm outside rages. I hope you take this snow-day opportunity and spend time resting and with God.
Today, we expand on Sabbath while also looking at something different all together as we explore Visio Divina. But before we do, you know what we have to do, right? It’s time to practice our memory verse. Now there’s no helps this week, see if you can say it with me!
“I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139:14
I’m going to start today by adding to the growing library of embarrassing stories about your pastor. It takes place about five years ago in the Black Hills of South Dakota. When I was in college, I was a part of the Student Ministry Council. These are the people in charge of programming and leading campus ministry at Dakota Wesleyan University. Every year, we would go on two retreats to a camp somewhere in the Dakotas to spend time together and to sabbath from the work we did. For this retreat, we headed to Storm Mountain Center, a United Methodist Camp tucked into the Black Hills, lying at the foot of, you guessed it, Storm Mountain. Being the college students we were, and having the clear and obvious lack of judgement skills, we decided that a group of us would climb Storm Mountain before the crack of dawn and try and make it to the peak by sunrise. So, at about four in the morning, we all woke up and got dressed, began hating our decisions, and headed towards the trail.
Now it is important to remind you at this point that I was in pretty good shape during this time of my life. I ran multiple times a week, worked out in my dorm, ate right. I was young, fit-ish, and ready to take on the mountain. But let me tell you, the mountain was ready to take me on too. The funny things with mountains, is that as you climb higher, not only do they get steeper, but there’s less air. So, as you’re sweating a river out of your armpits, you’re also out of breath because you’re working so hard, AND because there’s no air. I have no clue why ANYONE puts themselves through this on a regular basis, I went through it once and I knew that I would never again climb the side of a mountain. At one point, I was so out of breath, I had to lie down on the pathway. Now, I don’t know how the rest of the climbers did, because after about 15 minutes, I didn’t see them again until I got to the very top.
Finally, after pure torture I made it to the top, and my reward was a granola bar, string cheese, and a dark sky. But then came the real reward, the sunrise. You could see for miles all around, and at the horizon, mountains lined up as the sun began to peek over. The sky filled with colors as the world was flooded in light once again. Sometimes, I think we take sunrises for granted, but when you have to work for your sunrise, it’s indescribable. In that moment, I knew exactly what the psalmist was talking about in our scripture for today.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech; they use no words no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
In that sunrise, I heard the voice of all creation proclaiming that God is King over all the earth. I was reminded of the beginning of the scripture, when God called forth the very first light, and I am reminded of the crazy, bold, audacious invasion by light into the darkness of this world which we celebrate every year at Christmas. What the psalmist points out is what I experienced. Without saying a word, the sun proclaimed these truths. Without a peep, creation proclaimed the Good News of Jesus Christ. How then can we hear this call, how can we listen for the voice of creation? Through the practice of Visio Divina.
Visio Divina is Latin for “Holy Seeing” or “Divine Sight.” The idea behind it is to worship God in the beauty of creation. Its underlying truth is that we are surrounded by the goodness and beauty which God has created. Visio Divina calls us back to Genesis an reminds us that God made this universe for us, making each thing and calling it good. This goodness of the created is a reflection of the Goodness of God Himself, and so the practice of Visio Divina is to seek God by praying with images, icons, created media, or creation itself.
In other words, the practice of Visio Divina is an intentional practice of seeing creation through the eyes of God’s love. When we take a walk in the woods and ponder the green trees, or the snow-covered trails, the bunny tracks we see in the snow, or the beaver marks on a fallen tree, we take time to find God’s fingerprints in creation. We take time to see the world in God’s eyes and get a glimpse of the Almighty’s face.
Many people feel that they are most connected or closest to God when they are in nature. Others feel close to God when they walk through art museums and see humanity’s creation which is a reflection of God’s creation. Some feel God in the artistry of a beautiful building, or the mechanical wonder of an airplane. It may be easy to confuse these things with worshiping creation, and not the creator. But, when we take time to marvel at the world, we take time to listen to creation’s voice and hear it proclaim the wonders and glory of God. Everything points to God and when we take time to be in creation, we get a view of its creator.
So, our challenge for this week is to do just that. To take time to marvel at the world, to ponder the snow falling around us, and to take time to listen to the silent voice of the universe which is continuously proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.