Riding on the Wings of the Wind

AM Psalm 145 • PM Psalm 104
Isa. 25:1-9 • Acts 4:13-21(22-31) or 2 Cor. 4:16-5:10 • John 16:16-33

Today’s morning reading, Psalm 145, has virtually no concrete imagery—that is, things we can see, hear, feel, taste, or smell. The Psalmist will nonetheless “extol” and “praise” God, even as God’s “greatness is unsearchable.”

However, today’s evening reading, Psalm 104, is chock full of figurative speech that depends on concrete images, even as some of the figures of speech take a while to unpack. In the first four verses:

Bless the LORD, O my soul.
O LORD my God, you are very great.
You are clothed with honor and majesty,
wrapped in light as with a garment.
You stretch out the heavens like a tent,
you set the beams of your chambers on the waters,
you make the clouds your chariot,
you ride on the wings of the wind,
you make the winds your messengers,
fire and flame your ministers.

We might not know what it feels like to be wrapped in light, but we can certainly feel being wrapped in a garment. We can see a massive tent being stretched out, beams of light on the waters. What God actually looks like when he is riding a chariot of clouds on the wings of the wind is somewhat problematic, but we are nonetheless given sensory imagery to help us experience God’s presence.

One night in 1978 I was cross country skiing with friends through some woods in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. On our way back to our motel, we came to the top of a hill we knew well because we had struggled up and glided down this hill in the daylight on many previous trips to Williamsport. But now it was night. Moonlight shone through bare branches of trees overhead and reflected off the snow. It would take forever to circle back around through the woods, so we chose to go down the hill.

My friend Joe went first. I could hear his skis in the snow as he picked up speed and disappeared into the darkness where the canopy of trees overhead was too thick to let moonlight through. Then he hollered from below that he had made it in one piece. Our friend Gregg went next, and he, too, disappeared into the darkness, and soon hollered that he had made it to the bottom. Then it was my turn. I bent my knees, kept my head up, poles at my side, pointed my skis down hill, and gave myself up to gravity. In seconds I was in darkness. Even though I was hurtling down, I felt I was flying. With the air in my face, I could have been on the wings of the wind. Then the forest canopy overhead opened up enough to let the moonlight through, the ground leveled off, and I had joined my friends at the bottom of the hill.

I would not claim to have been God riding a chariot of clouds. But the experience is one I have recalled many times over the years. I am sure it was sacred. That God was present.

Of course, figurative language may not always be effective. In today’s reading from John, the apostles (who, like me, are sometimes a little slow at the snap—witness my skiing downhill in the dark), tell Jesus that they can understand him better, because “now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech!”

To everything there is a season.

Written by James Gamble

Jim is grateful for his family, including his Saint Paul’s family. He is a first-year student in Education for Ministry, and no longer skis in the dark.