Psalm 150 * June 7, 2009 * Trinity Sunday * Pastor Pagels
In the name of our Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, dear friends:
There are some weeks when pastors struggle with their sermons. They study the text. They wrestle with the text. They ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom and guidance. But no matter how much they pray, no matter how many commentaries they consult, no matter how hard they try to make their creative juices flow, it can be a struggle to come up with a theme that is drawn from and leads to a deeper understanding of the text.
This is not one of those weeks. As soon as I sat down to read Psalm 150, the theme literally jumped off the page. The same word is repeated thirteen times in six verses, and the same phrase is repeated at the beginning and at the end of the psalm.
In Hebrew the phrase that bookends Psalm 150 sounds like a single word, a word that you are sure to recognize, Hallelujah. A simple translation of that word, and an obvious theme for this sermon, is this command…
PRAISE THE LORD!
“Praise the
LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens” (1).
When you came to church this morning, you passed through several sets of doors. Most of you walked under a “Worship Entrance” sign and proceeded through two sets of wooden doors. Eventually you took a right and walked past another set of wooden doors that brought you to the back of the church. Then you went through one of three doorways to get to the pew where you are sitting.
As soon as you walked into the building you were technically in the church, but where you are now is a special part of the church. It has even been given a special name. It is called the sanctuary, and roughly translated it means “holy place.”
For the Israelites the “holy place” was the temple in
For similar reasons we sometimes refer to church as God’s house. This is where we come to worship God. This is where God comes to us in his Word and sacraments. That’s what makes this place a holy place. That is what makes this place God’s sanctuary.
But you and I and the psalmist all know that God cannot be contained in a box, even a really big box with beautiful stained glass windows. God fills the heavens. The heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1), and God wants his people to do the same. The Lord wants his people to praise him wherever they are, in heaven and on earth and every place in between.
After telling God’s people where to praise God, the psalmist
continues by addressing another important question: Why? Why should we praise God? “Praise
him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness” (2).
Read through the Old Testament and you won’t have any
trouble finding examples of God’s power.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In response to man’s wickedness God destroyed
the world with a flood. In Egypt God
turned the
The gods of the Egyptians couldn’t do any of those things. The gods of the Canaanites couldn’t match that kind of firepower. Neither can Allah. Neither can American ingenuity. Neither can the power of positive thinking. No man-made religion, no human philosophy, no person dead or alive even comes close to the surpassing greatness of the one true God.
And the greatest thing about God is that the greatest thing he ever did didn’t appear to be all that great when he did it. Two thousand years ago God the Father sent his one and only Son down to earth. He didn’t come down in a blaze of glory. He didn’t come with an angelic entourage. He came in humility. He came to serve. He came to die.
When Jesus’ body was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb, there were no signs of life. There were no signs of victory. But there was power. On Good Friday that power was hidden by the stone that was rolled in front of Jesus’ tomb, but it was revealed just a couple days later. On Easter Sunday Jesus demonstrated his power over death. It wasn’t a trick. It wasn’t an illusion. It was Jesus, and he was alive.
Do you remember how Jesus’ disciples reacted when he appeared to them? They bowed down and worshiped him. They praised their living Lord. And because he still lives, because he lives triumphant from the grave, because he lives eternally to save, we want to praise the Lord too.
But how? How do we praise the LORD? That’s a good question and this is Psalm 150’s answer: “Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals” (3-5).
These verses don’t have much to say about the outward form of worship. The psalmist doesn’t argue for or against liturgical worship. The psalmist doesn’t make the case that worship should be traditional or contemporary.
Psalm 150 doesn’t really get into the substance of worship either. If you want to have a discussion about worship forms, if you want set down biblical principles for worship, you will need to look elsewhere. But if you want to talk about the attitude of the worshiper, if you want to talk about the atmosphere of worship, this psalm belongs at the top of the list.
When a person understands what God has done for him, when he comes to the realization that he was lost and now is found, that he has been rescued from the fires of hell, that he is headed for the glory of heaven, he wants to respond. He wants to thank God. He wants to praise God. That praise can be expressed many different ways, but today we are reminded that one of the ways God’s people praise God is through music.
The first musical instrument mentioned is the trumpet, the ram’s horn that was traditionally blown by the priests. Next on the list is the harp and lyre, instruments that were commonly associated with the Levites. The rest of the ensemble, tambourines and strings and flutes and cymbals were played by the people.
As we survey this grand orchestra we see a great diversity
of musicians and musical instruments. There
are professionals and amateurs. There
are worshipers and worship leaders. There
is a place for everyone. Everyone can
praise the Lord. Every person was
created to praise the Lord. In fact, the
psalm concludes with that very thought: “Let
everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD” (6).
A few years ago my parents attended a Christmas concert at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. The concert concluded with the Hallelujah Chorus, and there was a place in the piece where the congregation was invited to sing along with the Seminary Chorus.
After the concert one of my dad’s friends (who is also a pastor) came up to my dad (who claims that he doesn’t have a musical bone in his body) and asked him a question. This other pastor asked my dad: “So, did you praise God by joining in the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus, or did you praise God by NOT joining in on the Hallelujah Chorus?”
What he said was meant to be a joke, and it was kind of funny. But I have heard the same thought expressed by other people, and they aren’t kidding. They say that they don’t know much about music. They don’t think that they can sing. They might be intimidated. They might be embarrassed. And so they don’t participate.
The devil enjoys that silence. He doesn’t want us to praise the Lord. He wants us to forget why we have so many reasons to praise the Lord. Satan doesn’t mind if we use God’s name, as long as we use God’s name in vain. He tempts us to use our voices to curse and swear and lie and deceive. And every time we do, he smiles.
But the devil dreads a singing Christian. Whenever we worship God, whenever we sing God’s praises, every time we gather in this sanctuary and celebrate the forgiveness we have in Jesus, the devil is forced to flee with his hands covering his ears because he just can’t stand the noise. So don’t be intimidated. Don’t be embarrassed. Don’t be afraid to make joyful noise unto the Lord.
Psalm 150 begins and ends with a simple command to “Praise the LORD,” but that’s not all the psalmist tells us. He tells us where and why and how we are to praise the LORD. The one thing the psalm doesn’t do is explain in any detail who God is. So let’s do that right now.
The God of the Bible is a triune God. That means he is three in one, three persons, one God. It doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense. It is a revealed, not a reasoned truth. The work of the triune God is sometimes divided into three categories. The Father is the Creator. The Son is the Redeemer. The Holy Spirit is the Sanctifier. But instead of focusing on the work of the individual persons this morning, let’s focus our thoughts on how God the Father, Son and Spirit work together on our behalf.
The three persons of the Trinity came together when Jesus
was baptized in the
All three persons were present at Jesus’ baptism, but it wasn’t just Jesus’ baptism. The triune God was present at your baptism. The God who created you was there. The God who redeemed you was there. The God who made you holy was there.
And just a few moments ago the Lord worked through the water and the Word again to make another little child his child. Even though we couldn’t see him, God revealed himself. The triune God made his saving presence known when little Zoe was baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
We have the same God. We have the same forgiveness, the same faith, the same hope. The triune God is our God. We believe in him, and one day we will stand before him. If that makes you nervous, if you are worried about what you will say when you meet your Maker, I have a suggestion.
Because God loves you, because of everything the triune God has done for you, you won’t have to make excuses. You won’t have to beg for mercy. You won’t have to say anything, but if you do my advice is that you keep it simple. Keep in mind the inspired words of Psalm 150 and then just say what comes naturally: Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Amen.