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I expect the images of the recent attack on the USA involving four hijacked jet liners are still fresh in our minds.  As the death toll continues to rise, sorrow covers our nation like the dust and ash that scoured the brilliant Autumn-blue sky over Manhattan before blanketing the city in a grey twilight.   The American ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness along with the peace and security within our borders so often taken for granted, seems as scattered and adrift as the many millions of forms, files, and memos that tumbled from the buildings and into the streets for miles.  And in the midst of it all, underneath the sorrow and the insecurity, smolders the anger like the fires at the heart of the crash sites, still flaring up when wreckage is moved.  In her defiance of the evil that scarred her face this week America has lit candles, flown flags, and prayed.  There have been many commentators who have asserted throughout the week that on Wednesday morning, the day after the attack, we all woke up in a different world.  One New York resident caught his nine-year-old daughter gazing out their window, across the river, to Manhattan at the gaping hole in the skyline where the WTC used to dominate.  She turned to her father and said, “I think I am beginning to see the new view.”  Not only was this girl communicating that she noticed the absence of the twin skyscrapers, but in a profound sense telling her father that her whole perspective on the world had changed.  Something she had taken for granted as secure, stable, and unchanging, the New York Skyline out her living room window, and at a deeper level the relative safety of living in America and the remoteness of war were gone in an instant.  Suddenly, every moment of her young life was pushed to the edge of destruction and death and she stared into the black hole of chaos, evil, and uncertainty and she was beginning to see the ‘new view.’   From this new vantage point the world was shown for what it is at best, ever changeable, unpredictable, and completely out of our control.  It is no wonder that so many of those who saw the same view that this young girl did, responded with fear.

While all of this is new for very many Americans it is my guess that it is not so new for others of us.  I will not pretend that I know anything about what people thought or felt when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, but many who do have made the comparison between that time and this one.  I have lived and traveled overseas in places where threats to domestic security were taken as a part of everyday life and so I know that the instability and violation that many Americans feel at this time is not unique in the world today.   Such fear, sorrow, and anger is certainly not unique in history, as many other societies have faced even greater instability and entire dissolution; for example, the many states and provinces of the former USSR in Stalin’s time, the Roman Empire which finally succumbed to the sporadic and violent invasions of the Goths and Vandals at the 410 AD sack of Rome, and even Israel when what was left of her mighty army and prosperous society huddled behind the walls of Jerusalem under siege by the mighty Assyrian King Sennacherib in the days when Hezekiah was her King. 

What we are experiencing across our nation at this time is certainly new to us, and we are looking at a whole ‘new view’ of our life in these United States, but hatred, violence, cruelty, enmity, and diabolical schemes, have been a part of human history since our first parents violated the one command the Lord God had given them and sin and evil entered the world and took up its tyrannous rule in human hearts.  That is why, as we enter this new world, as our eyes adjust to the new view it is good to take the old world into account. It is good to look at the view before us with the eyes of those in the past who have faced similar circumstances.  It is for this reason that we may take more than some comfort and wisdom from the ancient Psalms, and in particular the Psalm selected for this morning, number 46.  Many scholars believe Psalm 46 was written on the occasion of the siege of Jerusalem during Hezekiah’s reign, and many of the same scholars note is general enough to address the people of God in any distress they may be facing.  Certainly Martin Luther found great comfort in this Psalm.  On the eve of the Diet of Worms where he would have to defend his radical message of the free grace of God given to us in Jesus Christ and not by any merit of our own, perhaps at the cost of his life, he composed the hymn we will sing later, “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” based on this Psalm.

The important quality of this psalm to the people of God through the ages has been the fact that in the middle of distress this Psalm provides perspective, a place from which to gain a new view of the circumstances around us.

The Psalmists, the sons of Korah to whom this psalm is attributed, begin with God.  This is fitting. Any Christian perspective on any crisis, the present one included, must begin with God.  The point from which we must view any situation is what we know to be true about God, this is our living room, so to speak, we live and move and have our being in God.  As Christians, the book of Colossians tells us that our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. We know what is true about God from His Word, this is our window—the glass through which we view the whole world. 

Here in Psalm 46 God’s word tells us that he is “our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”   The psalmists move from their starting point in God then to us and how knowing this truth about God changes us, “Therefore we will not fear…” they say.  I believe it was Os Guiness who once said, “The trouble with the world today is not that Christians are not where they should be, but that they are not who they should be right where they are.”  Our relationship with God does not so much change the circumstances in which we find ourselves, as much as it changes who we are in the midst of our circumstances.  Because God is our refuge and strength, because he is always with us even in trouble we are not people who fear in even the most extreme circumstances. 

It is only after the psalm writers tell us the truth about God and the truth about ourselves that follows on from what we know about God that they address the current situation—and it’s pretty bad; “though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”  This is a sort of “worst-case scenario” for folks in OT days—the total upheaval of the world—this picture of a violent natural destruction was a powerful symbol of any sudden and devastating disaster.  What Psalm 46 tells us is that even if the very worst we can imagine were to happen, we will not fear, because God is with us.  More stable than any construction of steel and concrete are the mountains, more constant than the skyline of any great city is the rise and fall of the sea, but even these may suddenly fall and be cast into turmoil, even then we may trust in God for refuge and strength.  Our confidence does not rest in the world around us, but in God who created and continually sustains the world around us. Because of the evil brought into the world through human sin, if we looked at our circumstances and then tried to reason from them about the character of God we would be like many this week who wondered if a good and loving God could even exist, and if he did how could he let this happen.  As Christians, as the people of God, our reasoning needs to follow the path the Psalmists lay down for us here, we need to start with God and with knowing that he is a good and loving God, then we know we can trust him and have no fear, only then we are ready to look at and assess the situation in the world around us. 

When we assess our situation from the vantage point of life in God and through the window of the Word we are able to see gladness, stability and help in places where the world sees only sorrow, weakness, and destruction.  The Psalmists write that there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.  Many ancient people criticized the location of Jerusalem because at best there were only a few small streams to provide water.  In Hezekiah’s reign the king even had a tunnel built to bring water to the city in the event of a siege because the streams were so vulnerable to being cut off.  But the psalm writers insist that what was the cause of so many complaints and the dismay of the people was actually what made the city glad, for this situation made it absolutely clear that it was God and God’s presence upon which the city had to rely.  The only way that the city could survive was if God was within her, no one would be able to give credit to anyone or anything else and this was cause for gladness.  It meant that the whole world would have indisputable evidence of God’s power.  Times of crisis are often shining hours for the church, when all human resources are gone then God’s work can clearly be seen.  It is for this reason that even in the midst of difficulty and sorrow the church can find a voice for praise.  That said, it may not come right away.  The Psalmists tell us that God will help her at the break of day.  This word in Hebrew signifies the time just before the dawn, the darkest and most dangerous hour of the night—an ideal time for an enemy to launch a surprise attack against a blind and sleepy army.  In this way the Psalm writers are indicating that God’s help for his people is given in “God’s good time.”  What we may perceive as slow, or even too late, may be just the right time for help in the Lord’s estimation.  I expect it is a bit too early to see the good that will come out of the tragedy this week, though many have already shown exemplary courage, and perseverance, even willingness to sacrifice their lives for the good of others.  We may yet see those streams of God’s grace that run quietly through the rubble, bringing new life out of death and gladness to the hearts of his people, even in the midst of deepest grief.  From our viewpoint of life in God through his Word we are not wrong to expect that it will be so.

The Psalm writers tell us that all of this is the case, not only in times of natural disaster, but in times of political turmoil as well.  Not only does God control the elements of nature that he created, but he is also in control of the political forces that affect our lives.  “Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall, he lifts his voice, the earth melts.” Nations and kingdoms are no more stable than the mountains and seas.  All the raging and scheming and anxious activity of human beings is contrasted here with the fact that all God has to do is raise his voice and the whole earth would melt.  And it is this God, the Lord Almighty who is with us the Psalmists assure us; what is more “the God of Jacob is our fortress.”  In this line the psalm writers echo the former one, a common element of Hebrew poetry, but they add something as well, a family reference.  Jacob’s God is our God insofar as we are adopted into God’s family, and if we trust in Christ then he tells us that we are God’s adopted children, in this way Christians may claim this Psalm as a part of their family heritage.  This is not a general psalm for every person, and I hope I have not given the impression this morning that this psalm, and this message is for America in general.  This Psalm is for the church, it is for those who have been adopted into the family of God through Christ alone and given the gift of the Holy Spirit who testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God.  The Lord may bless nations and kingdoms, but the promises of his protection and help in his word are for his chosen people in Christ.  If you trust in Christ, then this Psalm is for you, and the God of our ancestor in the faith, Jacob, is your fortress, and this makes all the difference when you view the present circumstances of this world.

The psalmists now invite us to “come see the works of the Lord” to do what we have been doing this morning, to look back and see what God has done in order to secure our confidence in what God has promised to do in spite of our current upheaval.  The Psalmists invite us to see what desolations the Lord has brought upon the earth—this kind of thing has happened before they tell us, and this too was in God’s hand.  What is more, the outcome was one of justice and peace.  The practice of breaking bows, and shattering spears, symbols of the enemy’s strength and prowess and burning the shields were typical victory celebration practices, which signified the utter defeat of the enemy—in this way God’s victory makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth.  Even war, war on a global scale—to the ends of the earth, is in God’s control it ends according to his purpose and the victory is his—it was then, and it is now.  The view through the window of the word of God leads us to see that ultimately God’s activity in the world is not about our comfort and ease—though many times he does bless us, especially in the USA— But rather the ultimate purpose of God’s working in the world is the revelation of his glory.  God speaks in this Psalm, “be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”  It may be that this phrase is addressed to the defeated enemies commanding they cease from making war on his people and acknowledge him and his might.  It may be addressed to all humanity, to all of us who rush around in times of crisis, trying by our own cleverness and might to put things right again without so much as a nod in the direction of the Lord Almighty.  It is the Lord who will be exalted among the nations and in the earth, and he will not let us succeed without him, because his whole aim is to reveal himself and his glory to the world, not for us to steal the glory that is his.

  One key element to a Christian perspective on any situation involves that to which this psalm points forward.  Luther in his hymn makes it absolutely clear that this Psalm points us forward to Christ.  Jesus Christ is the one who is our refuge and strength, in the sense that he is the one who covers our sin and presents us spotless before the throne of the Father, and he is the one who sends the Holy Spirit who gives us the strength to live the new life he bought for us on the cross.  This Psalm also points forward to that time when those in Christ will truly be still before God, and God’s glory will be revealed fully and plainly to the nations in all the earth.  Revelation 22 tells us of the river that flows from the throne and beside which grows the tree of life , its leaves are for the healing of the nations. 

Any looking at the world and the circumstances that surround us as Christians must take into account that this world is ever-changeable, unpredictable, and completely out of our control, but it must also take into consideration that there is a reality beyond this world.  There are streams in the midst of our beleaguered lives that make glad the city of God, we see glimpses of God’s grace and goodness even in the midst of terrible tragedy, but these are only the streams, the streams that come from the river that flows from the very throne of heaven, the river that feeds the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations that they may war no more, the river which lies beyond our present sight.  However, I imagine, that if we live in God fully and continually look through the window of his word we will begin to see this new view.  As we are fixed upon the solid rock of an eternal, unchangeable, good and loving God,  and as we gaze upon this far horizon witnessed to in his Word, the perspective on our present circumstances is bound to radically change.  For we will know, without a doubt, beyond what we can see, that “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear…” Amen.