Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-048 Sunday 09 Mar 2003

Reading: Psalm 150 – PRAISE: THE FINAL WORD

What does praise and gratitude add to the experience of something done excellently? ‘We praise you, Lord!’

Is it possible to praise in a world full of groans and cries; when there seems so little evidence of God’s holiness and his mighty works, but everywhere pollution, starvation, greed, war, predation? Is music a luxury in face of the sighs of the lonely, the laments of the bereaved, the stertorous (noisy and laboured) gasps of the dying?

The final editor of the psalms acted deliberately when he placed these five songs at the end of his hugely varied collection of 150 psalms; he knew that they mirrored every mood of the soul, and his intention was that praise should have the last word. The dog in the manger, the enemy of souls, was not to have the last word. Even in the midst of overwhelming difficulties, the song of praise rises to God – as from the gaol at Philippi (Acts 16:25); and as the hallelujah song rises amid the roaring waters and loud thunders of Revelation.(Rev 19:6)

So the psalmist calls all living things (v 6) to articulate their praise. Let us also praise God for all that he is and all that he does. We have deeper and wider reasons than any Old Testament writer for doing so. Let us praise him on every sort of occasion, in every sort of circumstance, with grand public celebrations (loud trumpets, crashing cymbals) and with smaller festivities, with guitars and dancing and just a few quavering notes on a pipe – strings, wind, percussion, every instrument is appropriate. Let whales sing and owls hoot, lions roar and dromedaries dance; let the skylark pour out his ‘profuse strains of unpremeditated art'(Shelley) and ‘We, shall we be faithless? Shall hearts fail, hands hang down?'(Plumptre)

List some aspects of God’s character and some of his mighty works for which you wish now, today, to give him personalised praise.

– Howard Peskett

Copyright Scripture Union, 2003

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