PSALM 100 – Make a joyful noise to the Lord all you lands!

PSALM 100 – Make a joyful noise to the Lord all you lands!

SUNDAY 22^ND NOVEMBER 2021

CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY

1.         O shout to the Lord in triumph all the earth:
serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his face with songs of joy.

2.         Know that the Lord he is God:
 it is he who has made us, and we are his we are his people
and the sheep of his pasture.

3.         Come into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise:
give thanks to him and bless his holy name.

4.         For the Lord is good his mercy is for ever:
his faithfulness throughout all generations.

 

Imagine that you are in the vast golden courtyard of the temple when music sounds and choir of men sing out:

O shout to the Lord in triumph all the earth: serve the Lord with gladness and come before his face with songs of joy.

And you know, like the bells that ring at the start of our worship that worship is about to begin! We gather, moving toward the great fire of the holocaust altar and the bronze sea, the excitement is almost palpable. The chorus replies and with all your fellows you sing out the refrain:

Know that the Lord he is God: it is he who has made us, and we are his we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

There is a real sense of expectancy and hope, things have not been going well since last spring; there was a low yield to the barley, and two of your sheep were killed by lions. The political situation was all topsy-turvy with the Egyptians to the south and rumblings of the Assyrians to the north. The high priest and his fellow priests are tense and upset because of this prophetic activity, going on around Jerusalem.

All this pales into the background of your mind as the rest of the people join with the priestly choir and respond with heartfelt joy:

Come into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise:
give thanks to him and bless his holy name.

There is lots of movement as the crowd streams upwards and toward the singers. You murmur that ‘Yes, it is good to give him thanks.’ This where I belong as a member of the people of Israel despite the things that may have gone wrong it is still the Lord God who has rescued me and my family, and I am here to give him praise!

For the Lord is good his mercy is for ever:
his faithfulness throughout all generations.

Despite the lows of the year, and the problems we still face I can still say, ‘For the Lord is good his mercy is for ever’. And this is the chorus of all my fellow Israelites!

The joy expressed in this psalm is simultaneously derived from God and joy in God; it emanates from him and returns to him, and in that process lies the deepest meaning of old testament worship. The hymn ‘Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices’ shows that the Christian church, too, lives by this fountain of piety.

Thank you Fr Graham Alston for your weekly narrative of the psalms.