The Creator and Ruler of all creation comes in this psalm as Judge. God “will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.” God comes to judge creation and its inhabitants. Can we have hope?
It is well documented that the gulf is widening between the haves and the have-nots, between developed and developing nations, between northern and southern hemispheres. Yet we increasingly share one world, one environment, one economy, one biological ecosystem. If God’s righteousness and equity are coming, what changes might we get ready for?
Dr. Pardis Sabeti is an Iranian-American computational biologist and geneticist with Harvard University who participated in the fight against the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Sabeti is also a musician and songwriter. While working in Africa, she often gathered coworkers to sing. She reflected on that experience, “after an hour of trying to sing through despair, my band mate played the beat of an old forgotten song and I began to hum. . . . We sat there together—women of different countries, ethnicities, and religions—in our seemingly forsaken temporary state on this earth with one truth, that ‘I’m alive and so are you, we are here, we are the proof.’” The song “One Truth” became an anthem for people who struggle to stay alive in the world.
What is that beat of an old forgotten song—the Lord’s song of life, healing, and hope? Our God is good, compassionate, and abounding in steadfast love. There is always hope, and we can sing the Lord’s song. “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord.”