Prepared for Psalms Group, August 9, 2020
Overfamiliarity may rob these two vibrant psalms of creation of their energy, their ability to describe and create experiences of the glory of God in God’s creation. May the Holy Spirit fill us and the words of these psalms with Life-giving grace as we read, reflect on, and receive these hymnic psalms as spiritual nourishment.
Let Us Kneel Before Our Maker
Let Us Sing Songs of Praise
This is a hymn – enthronement Psalm.
Hymns extol the glory and greatness of God as it is revealed in nature and history, and particularly in Israels’s history. Hymns praise God in general terms for his power and faithfulness as creator of the cosmos, ruler of history, and creator/redeemer of Israel to bring blessing to all the world. Israel’s hymns stress God’s active involvement in the life story of Israel. Hymns typically demonstrate motives for worshipping and praising God. A clear example is Psalm 117, the shortest psalm, just two verses:
1 O praise the Lord, all you nations; *
praise him, all you peoples.
2 For (= Hebrew ki) great is his loving-kindness towards us, *
and the faithfulness of the Lord endures for ever.
Praise the Lord.
Hymns were used for exuberant worship in the temple and the synagogue. The people of God before the Incarnation invite us to celebrate and praise with them in hope of the kingdom of God and his Messiah. Hymns, like all psalms, show Christians how to praise God who has acted in creation, in revelation, and in redemption, and who is acting decisively in establishing his kingdom on earth. They do not ask anything; they simply rejoice in God’s presence.
Examples: Psalms 8, 19:1-6, 33, 66:1-12, 100, 103, 104, 145-150, and others
Some of the hymns in the Psalter are called “enthronement psalms” because they focus on the theme of God’s kingship. His throne is established from an immeasurable past time, and his kingdom will be everlasting. In the Temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, God became present to his people in worship. God did not literally dwell/live in the Temple but his people experienced his “tabernacling presence” there as they worshipped. He was enthroned in the praises of his people. His kingship may also have been celebrated in a ritual enactment of enthronement, a drama of God ascending his throne amid shouts of acclamation. God is enthroned triumphantly over powers that threaten to plunge our lives into meaningless chaos and disorder. Christians read these psalms in the context of the good news that God in Christ has inaugurated the divine kingdom by striking a decisive blow against all powers of oppression, darkness, chaos, and death. We pray the enthronement psalms in the spirit of the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10)
Examples: Psalms 29, 47, 93, 95-99
Heb. 4:1-12
95
Venite, exultemus
1 O come, let us sing unto the Lord; *
let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation.
2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *
and show ourselves glad in him with psalms.
3 For the Lord is a great God *
and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are all the depths of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are his also.
5 The sea is his, for he made it, *
and his hands prepared the dry land.
6 O come, let us worship and fall down, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
7 For he is our God, *
and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
8 Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts *
as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness,
9 When your fathers tested me, *
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my works.
10 Forty years long was I grieved with this generation and said, *
“It is a people that err in their hearts, for they have not known my ways,”
11 Of whom I swore in my wrath *
that they should not enter into my rest.