Loving God, you have created us, redeemed us and sanctified us - making us your own through Jesus Christ.  Help us this day to recognize your goodness and join in songs of praise, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    You may have discovered, somewhere along the line, that there are all different kinds of Psalms in the Bible.  There are laments and hymns of praise.  There are prayers for help and songs of quiet trust.  There are wisdom psalms and hymns of thanksgiving.  No matter what you are experiencing in your life or what mood you are in, there is most likely a Psalm that goes with it.  As it happens, today’s Psalm is a hymn of praise.  It is an invitation to make a joyful noise and to worship and to sing and to give thanks.  And, if you’re not feeling particularly joyful, next week you can come and lament.

    Today, though, it is good to have a Psalm of praise as we celebrate Holy Baptism for Sadie and also celebrate the Holy Trinity.  I remember seeing a quote somewhere saying that the Trinity is meant to be praised and not to be dissected and explained.  And surely Holy Baptism is always an occasion for praise!

    The thing about today’s Psalm, though, is that it has a certain rhythm to it.  It goes back and forth between invitations to come and worship and praise, and telling us about God’s character (in other words, giving us reasons to praise).  In fact, one Biblical scholar talks about how this Psalm (and others like it) form a “sacred canopy” under which we live our lives (workingpreacher.org).  What he means is something like this:

    The Psalm expresses the faith of Israel - the faith that God created us and loves us and cares for us just as a shepherd cares for the sheep.  The Psalm also proclaims that the Lord is good.  God’s steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.  And so, as we live our lives in this world, we do so under the canopy of God’s goodness and steadfast love and faithfulness.  We live knowing that God created us and cares for us and that we belong to God.

    When we are able to live with a sacred canopy like this, it gives us a basis for making sense of the world around us.  Rather than descending into fear and despair, we can live in the faith that we belong to God, and that God is faithful.  Rather than deciding that God has caused all of the evils in the world, we can live in the faith that God is good.  Rather than simply looking out for number one, we can live knowing that God is our Creator and our Shepherd, and that we belong to God and not to ourselves.

    It also strikes me today that this is the same kind of sacred canopy that we strive to give to little ones like Sadie as they grow up.  As she learns that God has created her and that God is good and that God cares for her just like a shepherd cares for the sheep, that becomes an important part of how she makes sense of the world.  It changes how you view yourself and how you view other people when you are aware that all of you are created by God and loved by God.

    As most of you know from experience, though, there are things that happen in this world that sometimes make it hard to believe in God’s goodness and love.  In fact, there were things that happened to the people of Israel all along the way that made them question God’s goodness and love.  And so, throughout the Psalms, we find a recurring refrain: “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever” (Ps. 100:5; cf. Ps. 106:1; Ps. 107:1).

    This refrain appears frequently for at least a couple of reasons.  First of all, it is a proclamation of God’s character.  This is the God of Israel, the God whom we worship.  At the same time, though, this refrain is like a constant reminder to all those who worship.  The people of Israel needed to keep reminding themselves of God’s goodness and steadfast love.  We, too, need to keep reminding ourselves of God’s goodness and love, especially in the midst of scary or trying circumstances.

    In fact, the ultimate reminder of God’s goodness and love shows up in the gospel that we heard today.  “The Word became flesh and lived among us,... full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14).  God is not way out there somewhere, watching, but right here with us and among us.  It is Jesus who came and lived among us and shared in all that life on this earth brings with it, both the good and the bad.  It is Jesus who lived out God’s goodness and love and who was a living, breathing reminder of God’s faithfulness.  It is Jesus who came bringing grace and truth, and who continues with us now through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

    This is God’s response to the evil in the world – to come and to serve and to love and to heal, and even to suffer and die.  God conquered evil with goodness, death with resurrection, and hate with love.  Even when things look their worst, like they did on the cross, we learn through Jesus that ultimately, God is in control, and offers us forgiveness, healing and eternal life.

    It is for these reasons that praising God is a good thing to do.  We do not praise because God somehow needs it from us.  Rather, when we praise God it reflects a right relationship with God, and it is a means of giving ourselves to God.  Praising God is also a witness to others – a witness to who God is and what God has done.

    You might also notice in the Psalms that human beings are not the only ones who are invited to praise God.  In Psalm 100, “all the earth” is invited to make a joyful noise to the Lord, and in many other Psalms it is all creatures and even all of creation that praise the Lord.  Let us, then, join in the song, “For the Lord is good; [God’s] steadfast love endures forever” (Ps. 100:5).  Amen.

Holy Trinity (NL summer)                            Psalm 100
June 11, 2017                                John 1:14-17
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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