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8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious,

    slow to anger, abounding in love.

9 He will not always accuse,

    nor will he harbor his anger forever;

10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve

    or repay us according to our iniquities.

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

    so great is his love for those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west,

    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children,

    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

Everything comes back to George Bailey.

A conversation about affordable housing?  “The money's not here. Your money's in Joe's house...right next to yours. And in the Kennedy house, and Mrs. Macklin's house, and a hundred others.”

A conversation with evil rich guys?  “Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about...they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this town...but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle.”

Or how to “get the girl” as they say in movies: “What is it you want, Mary? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon.”

And I think it’s a fairly straight line from George’s promise to lasso the moon to the many ways love is expressed, particularly in books for children.  “I Love to the Moon and Back” (Tim Warnes) is the first and obvious example, along with “Guess How Much I Love You?” (Sam McBratney)  Even the Munsch classic follows this lead, which (of course) you now have to say with me:

I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

my baby you'll be.

Unlike Robert Munsch, I can’t condone breaking into your grown children’s homes and rocking them in the wee hours, but it does add to a lovely story.  So we go from a lasso around the moon to loving from “the moon and back” (to quote Big Nutbrown Hare), pausing for a little nocturnal singing on the way.  Yet even before George Bailey and Robert Munsch and all the other writers we love, there was Psalm 103:

11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

    so great is his love for those who fear him;

12 as far as the east is from the west,

    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children,

    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

So the poet reaches for a spatial image when trying to describe the greatness of God’s love and mercy.  In a pre-scientific age, these immense distances—the east from the west—were ill-defined and a ready shorthand for a vastness that could not be measured.  

But there is more here.  The poet is making an intentional connection between the love of God and the natural world: the size of the sky, the dimensions of the known world, the depths of the sea.  We know that we’re never far removed from our ancient forebears, as we too experience awe as we look to the heavens or ponder the far horizon.  

So back to our passage.  “For as high as the heavens are above the earth,” the psalmist says, “so great is his love for those who fear him.”  Already we have a problem.  Fear of the Lord takes us to all sorts of uncomfortable places, where we are inclined to push back on a relationship based on fear.  We are ready to love God in return for the love God has for us, but to introduce fear doesn’t seem right.  So we look for a way forward.

A lazy theologian might step in at this moment and suggest we simply substitute the word “awe” for “fear” and it’s problem solved.  We all know awe, from the mountain vista to the wonder of a newborn.  ‘So great is his love for those in awe of him,’ simply feels better, and is certainly one way to solve the problem. 

Maybe I’m being too harsh on lazy theologians, but wouldn’t the poet say awe if she meant awe?  Fear and awe may live on the same street, but they are clearly not the same thing.  So it’s back to the drawing board.  

And to do this, I want to take you on a rollercoaster ride.  Why do people take a rollercoaster ride?  I expect they take the ride to experience fear.  Safe fear, or controlled fear to be sure, but fear nonetheless.  The rollercoaster is a sort of simulated danger, lighting up parts of our imagination and leaving us with the kind of euphoria you get when you survive a brush with danger.  A cynic might say this is fake danger, but your brain may not know the difference, and the result is often the same.

Please don’t go to lunch and say “pastor told us that our relationship with God is like a rollercoaster ride.”  Because there is more.  There is the difference between fear and fear.  We all know fear.  Fear for the future, fear for the safety of those we love, fear for our planetary home, fear of human carelessness and fear of human stupidity.  Fear of the things we can’t control and fear that we’ll mishandle the things we can control.  I could go on. 

This is the very real fear we experience through life on earth, and it’s also the precise type of fear that God seeks to save us from:

“The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Ps 27)

“I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” (Ps 23)

“Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not let them be afraid.” (John 14)

Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.” (Luke 1)

The last example might be the most instructive.  An angel speaks to Mary and says “Greetings, you who are highly favored!”  But Mary is rightly terrified.  This is the other fear, the natural fear that follows the unexpected, the tremendous, the truly startling.  It was more to do with the exhilaration of the rollercoaster than fear of harm, in whatever form it may take.  An encounter with the Living God ought to be fearful, in the best sense, or it might not be an encounter at all.  

On Boxing Day, 1958, Pope John decided to visit a prison, only the second time a pope left the safety of the Vatican in 88 years (the first time was the day before).  In his characteristic style he said to the prisoners, “You could not leave to see me, so I have come to see you.”  At one moment a murderer broke through the cordon and threw himself at the pope’s feet.  “Tell me, Holy Father, is there hope for even me?”  And the pope embraced him.  I tell this story, because it’s a story filled with fear.  I expect the pope was fearful, surrounded by hardened criminals.  His staff were fearful, freaking out, in fact.  And the man who stepped forward was terrified, that God would not forgive.  It’s in this light the poet speaks:

12 as far as the east is from the west,

    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children,

    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;

God’s love for us is best expressed in forgiveness—the unexpected, the tremendous, and the truly startling.  A thief is forgiven on the cross, St. Paul is thrown to the ground, a reprieve comes before the first stone is cast.  Compassion can be truly unsettling when the world demands judgment, retribution, and revenge.  But God has another way.  

“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” St. Paul wrote, maybe reflecting on his own story.  “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you.”  When we love and forgive others, we have the same capacity to unsettle or amaze.  When we imagine that everyone is a child of God, and treat them with compassion, we have the same capacity to unsettle and amaze.  With apologies to Robert Munsch, I’m going to suggest that each of us, whether deserved or not deserved, is held by the God who says:

I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

my baby you'll be.

Amen.