As Far as the Sunrise from the Sunset

Some mornings, King David's soul felt too sleepy to sing.
So David did what a mother does with a sleepy child.
He woke it up.

"Wake up, my soul!" he sang.
"Praise the LORD!
Everything inside me, praise his holy name!
And don't you forget
one single good thing he has done."

(A king can give orders to a whole army.
David was giving orders to his own insides.)

"He forgives all my sins.
He heals all my sickness.
He pulled me up out of the pit.
He crowns me with love and kindness."

(David already owned a gold crown.
He liked this one better.)

"He fills my life with good things
until I feel as young as an eagle."

Then David sang about a day long ago,
when God showed Moses who he is.
On a mountain, God passed by and called out his own name:
"The LORD, the LORD,
kind and full of mercy,
slow to get angry,
overflowing with love and faithfulness."

The LORD does not keep on scolding.
He does not stay angry forever.
He does not pay us back
for all the wrong things we have done.

How high is the sky above the ground?
That is how big his love is
for everyone who honors him.

Look east, to where the sun comes up.
Now look west, where it goes down.
Start walking toward the sunrise,
and the sunset stays behind you.
Walk around the whole world. (Bring a snack.)
The sunset is still behind you.
That is how far God takes our sins away from us.

A good father is tender with his children.
He kneels down when they fall.
That is how the LORD is
with everyone who loves him.

He knows what we are made of.
He remembers that we are dust.
Our lives are like grass,
like a wildflower in a field.
It blooms, the hot wind blows over it,
and it is gone,
and the field forgets where it grew.
One day each of us will die.

But the LORD's love goes
from forever ago to forever ahead,
to children, and their children,
and their children's children.

The LORD sits on his throne in heaven,
King over everything.
So David called out:
"Praise the LORD, you angels,
you mighty ones who do what he says!
Praise him, everything he has made, everywhere!"

Then he finished where he began,
with his own soul, wide awake now.
"Praise the LORD, my soul!"

David sang that God carries sins as far as the sunset,
but his song never said how.
At God's altar, priests offered lambs for sins,
year after year,
and the sins kept coming.
And David, like the grass, grew old and died.

For hundreds of years God's people sang his song,
waiting for someone strong enough
to carry the load the whole way.

Then God's own Son was born into David's family,
made of dust like the rest of us,
a man the hot wind could blow over.
He carried every wrong thing to the cross.
He died there, and they laid him in a tomb.

On the third day, as the sun came up in the east,
God raised him from the dead.
Jesus was alive, facing the sunrise.
And the sins he had carried
stayed behind him, as far away as the sunset.