The Rev. Noah Van Niel

St. John the Evangelist

January 14^th, 2018

Epiphany 2 (B): 1 Sam 3:1-10; Psalm 139: 1-5, 12-17; 1 Cor 6:12-20; John 1:43-51

I am aware that when we are singing the Anglican chant settings of the psalms, it can sometimes be hard to process what the words are saying while trying to get all the notes and markings correct. Beauty comes at a price. However I want to call your attention back to Psalm 139 a portion of which we sang this morning because I think it is one of the most profound psalms in the entire Bible.

I can tell you the first time I noticed Psalm 139. It was January 18^th 2015, the second Sunday after the Epiphany, in the second year of our three year cycle of Sunday morning readings, precisely the same Sunday we find ourselves at today. Melinda was about 10 weeks pregnant with Vincent and so when the psalmist used the wonderful metaphors of gestation to try and articulate just how intimately God knows each and every one of us—it’s as if God created our inmost parts, and wove us together in the depths of the earth—it hit me with greater poignancy and power than it ever had before. How amazing to have a God whose power reaches so high that we cannot attain to it, and so low that He is knitting us together in the womb. How wondrous.

Three days later the psalm took a turn in a different direction however, when we went in for an ultrasound to check on how things were progressing. Continue reading →