20. The Lord, our Creator and Sustainer

A Meditation of Psalm 104

Like Psalm 103, Psalm 104 also begins and ends with the same invocation—Bless the Lord, O my soul. The Lord blesses us; therefore, let us bless the Lord –that is the summary of psalm 103. Psalm 104 may be summarized with a slight change as follows: The Lord blesses all that exists; therefore, let us bless the Lord.

Shakespeare, the well-known English dramatist, made one of his characters compare the world to a stage, where the actors enter, play their part, and exit. We see a similar picture in Psalm 104. We see a grand stage that includes the entire world with all that exists, where actors constantly enter, act their part, and exit. The actors include not only human beings, but also animals, birds, fish, plants, the Sun, and the Moon. Staying invisible to the eyes of the audience is the director of the whole drama, the Lord. He created the stage –“established the earth upon its foundations”. He directs the drama by moving around in His chariot –the clouds. Now and then He sends winds and flaming fire as His messengers.

When things happen on the stage, the audience seldom sees the hand of the director. Grass does not simply grow, but He causes it to grow. Darkness does not come on its own, but He appoints it to come. He exhales, and the earth is filled with living beings; he opens His hands, and they all eat from them; He inhales, and they all get back to dust. The entire stage, with all its actors, trembles at a mere glare from Him.  A touch is enough to make the mountains smoke.   

It is a paradox that although we, the humans, often fail to see the presence of the director, the animals are not so blind. When the young lions get hungry, they seek their food from God. All the animals wait for God. They get greatly dismayed if God hides His face from them.

Here in this psalm, the poet is trying to present a theory of all that exists. Looking at the drama of existence, we cannot figure out what it all means. We ourselves appear on the stage, play our part, and exit. We do not get an opportunity to watch the entire drama, or to understand what it all means. The poet here makes an attempt to explain the whole drama by assuming the presence of the dramatist-director behind the stage. The poet does not pretend to understand the meaning of the whole drama. However, he/she assures us that although we do not understand the meaning of the drama of existence, there exists someone who understands it—the author and director of the drama. 

Without the dramatist, a drama wouldn’t make sense. Without the director behind the stage, the actions on the stage would not happen in a coordinated way. Unfortunately, ours is an age in which attempts have been made to explain the drama of existence without assuming the presence of the dramatist-director behind the stage. As the German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche made a madman cry out, “We have killed God—you and I”. 

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