Praise the Lord
Praise the Lord
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.
From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD. May your hearts live forever!
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.
For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations.
To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord,
and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.
(Psalm 22:1, 23-31)
Psalm 22 (vv. 23-31) calls God’s people to praise. Although the psalm opens as a lament, after eighteen verses of complaints, the psalm turns in to a call to praise God. How could one praise God in the middle of suffering, especially before any experience of deliverance? While the question sounds very logical, the people of faith over the centuries have demonstrated in words and actions differently. We might not be able to give thanks for the difficulties with which we must endure but somehow, hardship does not deter us from praising God. What an act of praising God the psalmist puts forth! How inclusive is the psalmist’s congregation! From the cry of an individual in distress, the psalmist opens his world to a wider context to include the people who “fear” God, the covenant community beginning with Abraham. The call to praise God then extends to an even wider context to outsiders even to the dead and the future generations. The effect of praising God does not stop there, however, but eventually overflows to all nations.
As we move into the fourth week of Lent, following Jesus on his journey to the cross, we prepare our hearts and minds for the mystery of God’s work on Good Friday and Easter morning. Therefore our focus on the redemptive work of God in Jesus does not stay within the Christian community alone but for the life of the world.
For the Chapel Hill family, I find this Psalm so instructive and hopeful. Let us together with the Holy Conversations team continue to seek new ways to live out our praise in sharing the good news of God’s redemptive work to others as the needs of the community keep on changing.
See You on Sunday,
Mai
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