Daily Devotional • November 5
A Reading from Ecclesiastes 43:1-22
1 The pride of the higher realms is the clear vault of the sky,
as glorious to behold as the sight of the heavens.
2 The sun, when it appears, proclaims as it rises
what a marvelous instrument it is, the work of the Most High.
3 At noon it parches the land,
and who can withstand its burning heat?
4 A man tending a furnace works in burning heat,
but three times as hot is the sun scorching the mountains;
when it breathes out fiery vapors
and when it shines forth its rays, it blinds the eyes.
5 Great is the Lord who made it;
at his orders it hurries on its course.
6 It is the moon that marks the changing seasons,
governing the times, an everlasting sign.
7 From the moon comes the sign for festal days,
a light that wanes when it completes its course.
8 The new moon, as its name suggests, renews itself;
how marvelous it is in this change,
a beacon to the hosts on high
shining in the vault of the heavens!
9 The glory of the stars is the beauty of heaven,
a glittering array in the heights of the Lord.
10 On the orders of the Holy One they stand in their appointed places;
they never relax in their watches.
11 Look at the rainbow and praise him who made it;
it is exceedingly beautiful in its brightness.
12 It encircles the sky with its glorious arc;
the hands of the Most High have stretched it out.
13 By his command he sends the driving snow
and speeds the lightnings of his judgment.
14 Therefore the storehouses are opened,
and the clouds fly out like birds.
15 In his majesty he gives the clouds their strength,
and the hailstones are broken in pieces.
17a The voice of his thunder causes the earth to tremble;
when he appears, the mountains shake.
At his will the south wind blows,
so do the storm from the north and the whirlwind.
He scatters the snow like birds flying down,
and its descent is like locusts alighting.
18 The eye is dazzled by the beauty of its whiteness,
and the mind is amazed as it falls.
19 He pours frost over the earth like salt,
and icicles form like pointed thorns.
20 The cold north wind blows,
and ice freezes on the water;
it settles on every pool of water,
and the water puts it on like a breastplate.
21 He consumes the mountains and burns up the wilderness
and withers the tender grass like fire.
22 A mist quickly heals all things;
the falling dew gives refreshment from the heat.
Meditation
This hymn of praise to God’s mysterious and beautiful power as revealed in creation is alive with delight and awe. Listening to it, we can feel that we stand alongside the writer, drop-jawed in stupefied wonder at what the Lord has done in appointing and arranging by his own hand the splendors of the heavens and the elements.
It reminds me of an experience I had a number of years ago which was one of the most compelling encounters with the reality of God and his presence in and focus on the tangible world. I was on a silent retreat in the south of Wales, and I went out walking in the forest one morning after a rainy dawn. It was February: the trees’ branches were bare skeletons against a white sky. But they were festooned in glory. Everywhere you could look, shining spheres of reflected light had been hung like baubles from every twig and stem: the raindrops had become multicolored— radiant, extravagantly beautiful. I gasped. I walked and walked and looked and looked, through this unpeopled corner of the countryside.
For no reason, no specific productivity, God had chosen to spangle the world with splendor that day, and I was almost offended by the extravagance of beauty. This is what our God is like – flinging beauty and goodness about with wild abandon for the sheer sake of it. May we indeed “Look … and praise him who made it.”
The Reverend Cara Greenham Hancock is a deacon serving in the Anglican Church of Australia, as a curate at the parish of St Stephen and St Mary, Mount Waverley.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Diocese of Puerto Rico – The Episcopal Church
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Venice, Florida