Thanksgiving - Psalm 100
Thanksgiving Pt 1
Psalm 100
Lord God, through this reading and addressing of Psalm 100, come and ease
the grief or worry or fretting or distractions that may be ransacking our
hearts, and fill us with your joy by the Holy Spirit and through the presence and
mediation of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen.
Before
the Turkey is cooked and eaten, before the family blows in and blows right back
out, before the perspiration trickles down and stings your eyes, before the
refrigerator gets stuffed with leftovers, it’s good to remember “Thanksgiving”.
This is a good time to reflect on Thanksgiving, on real, genuine thanksgiving,
not just as some annual time of panic and pressure. And it is a great time to
ruminate over what we hopefully will do in the midst of all the hustle and
mayhem. To guide us, we are going to delve into Psalm 100 – “A Psalm for Giving Thanks.”
A
pattern: Before we
jump into the Psalm, we should see that there is a pattern to it. First, verses 1b-3 are paralleled in verses 4-5. They
follow the same path, side-by-side. There is a second pattern that goes like
this: verses1, 2 and 4 tell us what we’re to do, while verses 3 and 5 show us
what we’re to know about God. This second pattern is the one we will loosely follow.
Who
is to give thanks (1): “Make
a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!” kal ha Aretz-the whole earth,
all creation, creatures and clans! This Psalm calls all creatures and all the
cosmos to come in thankfulness to the Lord. But this universality of
thanksgiving is looking forward. As some Jewish authors have noted:
“Our Sages
instituted this Psalm in our daily prayers as an expression of thanks for the
many unrecognized miracles God performs in our behalf every day. S.R. Hirsch
sees it as a song of gratitude that will be sung to God in the Messianic era,
when the world attains its ultimate perfection” (The Metsudah Interlinear
Tehillim, 211).
The
day is to come, and is already erupting, when the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world, is the one who has been lifted up on the cross and is
drawing all people to himself (John 12.32). When the One who humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the Cross, is the
very One whom the Father has highly exalted and given a name above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue should
confess is Lord, to the glory of the Father. So that now, “the battle is not
done;” yet “Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be one”
(Trinity Hymnal #111 verse 3).
How
we are to give thanks
(1-2 and 4b): Here we move to the “what we’re to
do” sections, and we see that there are 7 directive-statements in this Psalm,
all told. These are the “do this; do that” comments. It becomes quickly obvious
that Psalm 100 is a very busy, boisterous, raucous, riotous Psalm. (1) “Make a
joyful noise to the LORD….!” The idea in the Hebrew is loud and ear-splitting, “Shout
joyfully to the LORD!” (2) “Serve the LORD with gladness.” The word serve is used both of the priests in the
temple and those working in their vocations. Worship and work are pulled together
as a joyful offering to God, much like Paul’s sentiment, “I appeal to you
therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not
be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and
acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12.1-2). To “serve the LORD with gladness” (worship
and work) comes forth in poetic fashion in George Herbert’s poem where he prays,
“Teach me,
my God and King, In all things thee to see, And what I do in any thing, To do
it as for thee” (“The Temple,” Elixir). (3) “Come into his
presence (to his face) with singing!” God desires us to draw close, and will be
present as we do so. “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” (Jas 4.8).
(4) “Give thanks to him” tells us that there is a specific direction for our
thanksgiving. Unlike a highly secularized age that coaches us to “just be
thankful” with no one to be thankful to, this Psalm informs us to be specific –
to give thanks TO him (4b). (5) “Bless his Name” (4b)! This is a synonymous
phrase with the previous. To bless God’s name, is how Jews began their prayers,
“Baruch atah Adonai elohaynu melech
ha'olam” [Blessed are you Lord our God, King of eternity]. It’s how Paul began
his prayer in Ephesians 1.3 and how Peter began his in 1 Peter 1.3 (“Blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”). As good Jews, they started off
many of their thankful prayers this way. These are 5 of the seven direction
statements that guide us in how we should give thanks to the Lord. There are 2
more that explain,
Where
we are to go to give thanks
(4a): (1) “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and
his courts with praise!” We are pointed in the direction of entering into his
place of public worship. Both “his gates” and “his courts” are temple language,
where the public worship of God climaxed. It’s right and fitting for us to give
thanks in our homes, when the family has gathered around the dinner table. But
we should make the high point of our season of Thanksgiving God’s public
worship where we gather in the company of God’s people, openly declaring God’s
praises and identifying ourselves as worshipers of this God. It would be very
fitting, wherever you may be during this Thanksgiving season, to invite all of
your guests to attend with you a public worship assembly, explaining to them
that this is the climactic high point of your thankfulness. (2) And as
Christians we can, and should desire, to do this knowing that we are being brought
by Christ and made fit by Christ (Col. 1.15-23; Heb. 10.19-22). This point then
moves us along to hear,
What
we are to know to give thanks
(3 and 5): (1) “Know that the LORD, he is God!”
The LORD is God alone. That exclusivity is clearly laid out in this statement.
It doesn’t say, “The LORD is God among a host of other gods” but that he IS
God! We must know and remember that there are no competitors, he is God alone. (2) We then should recall that “It is he who
made us”. Yes, he made us by creation, but as Christians we ought to know that
he has remade us through re-creation (2 Corinthians 5.17). And “we are his”.
What a great truth to recall! Our identity is wrapped up tightly in him, not in
our circumstance, not in the violence or shameful things done to us, not in our
previous addictions or catastrophes. He has (re)made us and we are his! Surely
this evokes gratefulness and thankfulness! (3) What else are we to know in
order to give thanks? “We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” He
daily cares for us. I hope that as you hear this last statement your mind went
to another Psalm, because it goes here beautifully,
“The LORD is
my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads
me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of
righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your
staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my
enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house
of the LORD forever” (Psalm 23).
He
daily cares for us, he is our Shepherd and we shall not want! Give thanks!
But
there’s more we need to know, and it’s down in verse 5. (4) “For the LORD is
good”. Sometimes we doubt this, especially when going through the dark and
dreary times of life. Sometimes we slip into a pagan mindset with our
ancestors, and think that the LORD is just like Jupiter, Zeus, Pluto or Poseidon,
sitting around rubbing his hands gleefully, waiting to strike us down, to crush
us. But no! “For the LORD is good” and we must know that to give thanks! (5) “His
steadfast love [hesed] endures forever”. The LORD’s love is
steadfast, unwavering, unswerving, staunch and sturdy. And as Christians we
should know this, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5.8). (6) “And his faithfulness to all
generations.” His trustworthy loyalty is undying and undecaying. He is loyal
and faithful, first to himself. If he has promised, he will show his integrity
by honoring his promise; and if he has promised us, he will keep his word to
us: “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is
through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory” (2 Corinthians 1.20).
All
of this is clearly paraphrased and described in the words of the Isaac Watts’
hymn we sang earlier: “Wide as the world is Thy command; Vast as eternity
Thy love; Firm as a rock Thy truth shall stand, when rolling years shall cease
to move” (Trinity Hymnal #65 verse 5).
So,
as we wrap this up, keep in mind four things:
1st-If
you find it hard to give thanks because the dump truck of life has back up to
your house – career – body – or whatever, and piled it on; or on the other
hand, prosperity has come and plundered your heart; do as the Sacred Songwriter
directs us to do, look to God and recall who he is, recall what he is, and recall
what he has done! Search out reasons to be thankful TO him, by searching him
out.
2nd-When
giving thanks, use every linguistic, creative and musical means and talent in
your possession to assert your gratitude. “Now thank we all our God, with heart and
hands and voices, Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way With countless gifts of
love, and still is ours today” (Trinity Hymnal #98 verse 1).
3rd-[This
is more for the Sunday after Thanksgiving] Even if you have to drag your
limping, lame, lumbering soul along, bring your burdened, troubled, exhausted
self into the public place of God’s worship and recount your reasons to be
thankful.
4th-Finally,
as you give thanks through the new the living way opened up by YeHoshua ha Mashiach (Hebrew for
Jesus the Christ), know that you are exhibiting that the Messianic era has
begun, that the new heavens and new earth are exploding into the present!
Rejoice with a grateful heart!
Comments
- Natalie