Psalms 103:15-17: “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD [is] from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children;”

”It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Oh so poetic, we are just like grass, we flourish and then whiter and die.  Albert Camus would have loved this verse, pure existentialism. They still teach that in college don’t they?  I have not heard that term in years. For those who have also not heard the term in years or even ever heard it, existentialism is a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will. That is the candy coated definition, but there is more, with that total freedom comes the responsibility to determine one’s own fate. With this responsibility comes anguish and dread.  Remember John Lennon’s song Imagine?  Imagine if there is no religion, no heaven or no hell.  Sounds good until you read Nietzsche, Camus or Sartre and discover life is just a psychic  nightmare until you die.  There is no worth or value to life so, as the old beer commercial says, you just need to grab all the gusto you can get while you can get it.

I mean isn’t that what this verse is saying?  Life is just here today and gone tomorrow? A hundred years from now no one will even know you existed.  For that matter who cares if you are remembered a hundred years from now, you will be dead.  For that matter why even bother with life if all you are getting is pain, misery and heartbreak, where your only hope is what Nietzsche says that life will end and it can end anytime you want.

It is interesting that the root word for grass is chatsar where in its Semitic root it has the idea of something that quickly perishes. The word for flower is tsits which is a word used in ancient Canaanite cultures for colorful wings and feathers.  This is not your standard word for flower although you can draw that from this word.  The emphasis is on its bright colors. There wasn’t much color in those days.  Pretty much sand and desert, everything was sort of black and white until a bird flew by or you came upon a field of wild flowers.   I recall as a child we had only black and white TV until the mid-sixties when color started coming in.  My father purchased a color TV and we would scan the TV guide for programs that had a C after it indicating it was in color. I mean I was willing to watch even Lawrence Welk just because it was in color. Of course our younger generation has no concept of what TV was like without color and that total amazement we felt when a program came on in color.  My study partner talks about the Wizard of Oz and how the beginning is in black and white and then when she steps into Oz suddenly everything lights up in glorious Technicolor. For the moment you are awe stricken, but eventually you get used to it, just as this generation is used to color TV, no big deal.

So people who lived in a black and white world would be awed by a multi-colored bird or colored wild flowers or tsits if they should come upon it.  I believe this suggest that all of us live our lives, we may just be an average Joe Plumber simple grass or a famous politician or entertainer a flower or tsits that awes the world for a moment, but soon people get used to it and forget about it.  In the end, we will die and all will be forgotten.  How depressing is that thought?

Yet verse seventeen tells us that God’s mercy endures forever. Somewhere in that word mercy or chasad lies the meaning to life.  I have talked about chasad, it means love, goodness, kindness and faithfulness, and it also means shame and reproach.  The idea of shame and reproach is that when we stand before God His love, goodness, kindness and faithfulness is a superstar in the major leagues and the best we have to offer barely ranks us in the Pee Wee League.

Do you ever have bad nights?  I have bad nights.  I have nights when the loneliness is almost unbearable, when the thoughts of my failures and mistakes are magnified and my heart aches. Old Nietzsche recommends you think about suicide to get through the night.  You can take comfort in the fact that you can end your suffering anytime you want.  But the Psalmist gives us an alternative, we can just meditate on God’s chasad and that it is eternal.  His love is way beyond anything I can imagine. But how do we reach it?

You know scientist tell us that everything in this world is made up of matter. All matter is made of vibrating molecules and atoms or the Higgs particle.  They are all in movement, vibrating.  Our bodies are continually vibrating. When we think or feel we send out vibrations.  Animals can sense those vibrations, where we really can’t or we think we can’t.  Still our feelings are transmitted by these very very subtle vibrations.  A dog and even a baby can pick up whether you like them or not.  When I was performing as a ventriloquist I often appeared on a stage with flood lights on me such that I could not see the audience. For all I knew there was no audience out here.  But I could feel them, I could feel if they were a hostile audience or an acceptance audience who would laugh even when I said “hello.”  Many times I would change my whole routine based upon what I felt coming from the audience.  Something else, music is vibrations. Singing is simply the vibrations of your feelings, your heart. Your heart will sing a song.  You can tell when that worship leader is singing from his heart and when he is just trying to impress the congregation with his musical talent.  Sorry worship leaders, you can’t fool your audience, I learned from my years in performing before an audience.  They know if it is your heart singing or you mind singing. Your heart sings a song and you congregation will hear it with their hearts. If your heart is not singing a song, they will know it, trust me.

So if I am having a bad night or a lonely night my heart begins to sing its sad and lonely song to God’s heart.  Before long, if I listen closely, I will begin to hear the song of God’s heart.  You see God can do something no one else can do, He can alter the vibrations of your heart’s song.  As he does and you heart’s vibrations begin to sync with His heart and your  heart beings to sing His song and the closer your vibrations match those of God the more that loneliness and sadness begins to be replaced with the  chasad of God.   You see the secret of life is God’s chasad, that is eternal and when your heart and God’s heart are in sync, there is no anguish, dread or despair as the existentialist believe.   Life does not have to be a psychic nightmare and then you die. Not when you consider Psalms 103:15-17.