September 20, 2020
I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless you,
and praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
his greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall laud your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts.
On the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed,
and I will declare your greatness.
They shall celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness,
and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
You draw a bath before you slide into the tub for a luxurious soak.
You cook and taste before relishing a gourmet meal.
Collectively we hear a musical prelude before we enter into singing, praising, worshipping God. Preludes are those things that happen before we get to the main event. Preludes set the tone for what is about to happen. I usually think of preludes as a positive, yet movie trailers are preludes to the main feature, yet elicit many responses in the hope to get you to say,” Oh I want to see that!”
Our Psalm today is a prelude to the final part of the Psalter, the concluding hymns of praise, psalms 146-150. One commentator writes, “Through its rhetorical brilliance and carefully constructed affirmations, Psalm 145 offers an important prelude to an unmatched symphony of praise at the end of a biblical book” (Feasting on the Word, A4, p.81). No less than 38 times are we urged to praise or praise erupts from our hearts as we praise, rejoice, sing in these last five psalms. We praise the Lord because he heals the brokenhearted, sets the prisoners free, takes pleasure in us, as God’s people. These poetic and rich psalms end with the profound declaration, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!” As we breathe deeply again, for the first time in weeks, we praise the Lord with new fervor and deep breathes.
But I almost did not focus on this psalm because it is pure good, no conflict, no struggle. This usually doesn’t make for a good story. But a few verses later we are reminded that God, “upholds all who are falling” (v. 14), and “hears their cries, and saves them” (v. 19). Yet right now, these eight verses of praise are what we need more than anything. What we need is praise, good, gratitude and love. We don’t need another conflict, just peace of mind and faith in God. I say this not to be Pollyanna but offering us an opportunity to bath in the character of God and the joy we have in worshiping the divine. Which brings us to this prelude of praise, Psalm 145!
The psalmist declares, I will extol, bless, praise God forever! Exuberance for praising God! It starts out as an individual and then moves to corporate praise, but each and every breath is filled with praise!!! Buried in the very structure of the psalm is a pattern, a rubric, for helping people to remember how to recite it. These are called acrostics and were used as memory devices. Each line starts with the subsequent letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Starting with aleph and moving all way to tav: we would say A to Z. Adele Berlin says this about Psalm 145, “The poet praises God with everything from A to Z: his praise is all-inclusive. More than that, the entire alphabet, the source of all words, is marshaled in praise of God. One cannot actually use all of the words in a language, but by using the alphabet one uses all potential words.” (Working Preacher, Sept 14, 2014) If I were to write an acrostic poem today I might say…
Always I praise the Lord
Before my feet touch the ground, my heart sings praise to my God.
Comfort comes from worshiping and singing God’s praise!! You see the A, B, C pattern….
You can see how that would help you remember this praise. So I ask you what are you reciting these days? Are you worried about the fires, the air, the elections, the Pandemic? It is so easy to recite the things we are dealing with. Let us pause and wonder about what we are reciting. Is it gratitude and praise or are you recounting the news and living in anxiety? Are our conversations filled with fear or praise? I think we all struggle with keeping our focus on God, on the gifts our Creator blesses us with! Maybe you could write your own acrostic praise poem to help focus your heart and mind each morning upon our divine and gracious God, allowing your heart to sing with praise!!!
Our prelude of praise also has substance, three “M’s” I want to draw your attention to.
Mystery is the first m. The mystery found in our loving God. “God’s greatness is unsearchable” which reminds us that we can never fully know God but we can humbly revere God’s holy name. We can gaze up at the stars and feel God’s majesty, we can stand next to a waterfall feeling the mist on our face and be grateful for the water and beauty. We can ponder the incarnation and trust that God being embodied in Jesus means our sins are forgiven and God’s love is made real!
We will never fully know God, but we can revel in the mystery of how amazing and gracious our Lord is. Appreciating the mystery of God helps us to praise God more fully.
“I will meditate” on God’s wonderous works – meditation is the second m. Praise can be tricky when we are feeling isolated and alone in our homes. As this time continues, we get to find ways to help make connections. Speaking with someone this week they expressed a desire to meditate more. She said, “I want to meditate more, pray more, so that I do not feel so all alone.” Meditating on God’s wonderous works in the world and in our lives is a great way to feel connected. Maybe we could write our own gratitude list using an acrostic pattern. I am grateful for Air – clean and fresh, Blessings of my sons, Capacity to work, days of rest. You get the idea. 22 more letters to go. What will your gratitude acrostic look like? Maybe we can share them in the Newsletter.
Finally, the third m is Merciful Monarch. God is king- “I will extol you my God, the King!” God is not one of many, but our one true God who reigns in our hearts! God is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (v 8). Hesed is the Hebrew word of steadfast love and rooted in the Old Testament as the foundation of who God is. One commentator writes, “With hesed as a defining characteristic, God does not respond to (us) according to (our) behavior, but according to divine mercy (Feasting on the Word, A4, p. 83). That fact makes my heart want to praise God. Psalm 145 encourages us to meditate on God’s wonders and mystery, while praising God for hesed, the steadfast love that God lavishes upon us!!!
We are in a prelude right now, the preamble of how our life will be when we are able to resume our lives fully, post COVID. The question is what kind of prelude are you creating? Can we see the beauty of this slow down, as a time to meditate more, to work on home projects, to reach out to friends? Can we be filled with gratitude fostered by our acrostic gratitude list? Can we praise God with every breath we take? I know we all want to get to the time we can hug our family and return to singing in worship, but are we making the most of this time right now?
We will soon break bread together, the tradition of sharing a meal that reaches all the way back to Jesus’ time on earth. Our brothers and sisters in Christ have broken bed in much the same way, all anticipating a time when we will be reunited with Jesus in God’s heavenly kingdom. This sacrament is a prelude to our heavenly time with God. It is a foretaste of the meal we will share with the God we praise, with the Christ who died for our sins, for our companion Jesus who walked this earth so that we could experience God’s love. As we break bread, may we honor this sacrament as we praise God for the gift of physical life and spiritual food.
Psalm 145, the prelude to the conclusion of the book of Psalms ends with this personal promise, “My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh will bless God’s holy name forever and ever.” Amen.
