Wrapped in Light

There is no way to count the number of times I have turned to the Old Testament Psalms for personal reading.  It is likely the same for most folks.  They are like a powerful magnet which draws people to them.  To speak of all the different ways they have nurtured our soul is an impossibility.  My earliest recollections of reading the Scripture brings the 23rd Psalm to mind, but many more have been added to that list of often read Psalms over the years. 

In a recent reading of the 104th Psalm, I was struck by the powerful images created by the writer.  It is not necessary to get very far into the Psalm before we are brought to a place of stopping and allowing our imagination to soar.  At the beginning the Psalmist described God by writing, "O Lord God, You are very great, You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment"  (Psalm 104:1-2)  The imagery of being wrapped in light immediately brought to mind a New Testament passage from John's gospel,   In the Prologue the Word of God says about Jesus, "What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in darkness, and darkness did not overcome it."  (John 1:3-5)

Describing the Holy One was one "wrapped in light as with a garment"  brings to mind brilliant darkness breaking sunrises, glorious shades of late evening colors, a bright white that illuminates the dark hours of the night, and northern lights which seem like powerful probes searching the universe. And then there are other lights like the soft light of a burning candle and the light of life which shines forth from the human eye.  God is wrapped up in such lights as well as with light which defies visualizing.  He is majesty.  He is to be honored.  Describing the One who is, but Who cannot be seen is something we seek to do, yet, as we do, it is always an expression of what is impossible to describe.