Psalms in Lent: Psalm 57 Mothers Day Plus

This amazing Psalm begins with the experience that we have all known as the Covid-19 pandemic: disaster barrels through in the manner of a great storm.

For peoples across the world there is nothing new about this, natural disaster, famine, plague, war and ethnic persecution.  For the people of the early/mid 20th century in the UK it came in the form of World Wars.  Yet for people in my generation in the West the coronavirus pandemic has introduced us to the experience this psalm begins in - helplessness in an incoming storm.

The remedy the Psalmist enjoys is the shelter of the wings of God, a motherly picture for Mothering Sunday.

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,

    for in you I take refuge.

I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings

    until the disaster has passed. (1)

How cosy is that?

But this Psalm is far from finished.  It unfolds a view of God which is infinitely greater than the mother bird's wings, ending (10,11):

For great is your love, reaching to the heavens;

    your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;

    let your glory be over all the earth.

What kind of God is above the heavens and underneath the storm at the same time?  What kind of God can shelter me personally, but also dwarf everything?

The God of the Universe who is the God of the Cross.