—Psalm 150; key verse v.6 —Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Who should praise the Lord? All who come to Him in faith. We celebrate the Savior’s great and mighty acts.
This final Hymn of Praise closes out the Psalter. The
book ends with a final call to all of creation to give exuberant, ceaseless,
loud, and submissive praise to the living God. Here, not only God’s people but
“everything that has breath” (v 6) is called to praise God with every means
imaginable.
As the Psalter closes, we are called to praise the
LORD in a way that has not yet happened in its fullness. The call is still
appropriate (we could sing this every day!) but it looks forward to a reality
that will only occur when the final chapter of God’s story has been fulfilled.
That will be when what God predicted through the prophet Isaiah has finally
come to pass: “By myself I have sworn;
from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To
me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance’” (Isaiah
45.23).
And the apostle Paul, we of the New Testament church,
confess today that we, too, look forward to that day when, “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2.10–11).
Even so, “Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22.20).
Collect for Psalm 150: Lord God, unite our voices with the praise of all creation, that we may worthily magnify your excellent greatness; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.[1] Amen -27 April 2021
Easter image copyright © Ed Riojas, Higher Things
[1] Collect for Psalm 150, For All the Saints, A Prayer book for and by the church, © 1995 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Delhi, NY
No comments:
Post a Comment