On Dutch Thanksgiving Day: Looking back and forward with Psalm 65

David, in Psalm 65, does not want to know about this. He looks back further than one year. And he looks even further ahead. The world was a paradise. And it will be again.

David, the poet of this song, is thanking God for everything He gives. He is giving thanks in silence. And with silence, which is the most beautiful song of praise for God. He sings of injustice and wrongdoing of sinful people and God's reconciliation.

And then, in verse 7, the tone suddenly changes. It is as if David looks back to the beginning, to the creation. Then, after all, it was God who raised life, as it were, from the depths of the seas. He put mountains in place; He pointed out the limits of the oceans.

Everything grew and blossomed

It was a paradise in the most literal sense of the word. Everything grew and blossomed, and abundance spread over the earth.

David gives thanks by looking back to how things were. But he also looks ahead. As in a vision, he sees deserts transformed into pastures. It is not possible, but it does happen. Where nothing could grow, life suddenly sprouts.

He sits down next to Isaiah, as it were. Together they prophesy of the time when cow and she-bear will graze together and when the lion and the ox will both eat straw.

2021 had abundant rain

In 2021 there was much blessing. Crops were growing and were harvested. There was not a severe drought but abundant rain.

But it was also a period of far-reaching restrictions due to the corona pandemic. There were countless illnesses, and many died. There was pain and unprecedented grief. Almost all the churches were emptier than usual on Sundays. There was –and is– the debate and high-minded discord about the relationship between God's providence and the use of medical means.

In Psalm 65, David closes his eyes for a moment to not be disturbed by current events. He looks back. To God's good beginning. And he looks forward. To the time when God will bring back the lost paradise to the earth when He restores His creation; when He makes everything that is crooked, straight and dry, alive; when He will raise again life from the waters of death. Because He is a God Who does not want death. He does not want the water of death to surrounding man forever.

The God of Israel is a God Who brings people to dry land.

Noah with all the inhabitants of the ark.

Jonah, who is spit out on dry land by the big fish.

The people of Israel, who reach the other side through the Red Sea and the Jordan on dry feet.

And the time is coming, says Isaiah, when the whole world will ask for Israel's Messiah. Jesus Christ is the only Ark of Salvation for a world that will continue to be flooded by the waters of death even after Thanksgiving Day.

But "in that day" not the waters of death, but the knowledge of God will cover the earth as waters cover the bottom of the sea.