Psalm 97:1-12 (links validated 12/9/24a)

It has often been said that worship is the church’s one most essential task and calling. Modeling for the world the honoring and praising of our God in Christ is desperately needed. As the liturgical scholar Alexander Schmemann put it in the title of his book on worship and the sacraments, the Church conducts its worship services For the Life of the World. Worship bears witness to a realm and to a reality that runs decidedly counter to the world-and-life view of so many in this world. Whereas too many people live within the shrunken boundaries of their own selfish selves or within the confines of a life seeking nothing other than money and power, worship seeks to expand people’s hearts and minds, to open them up to the limitless and infinite things of the Creator and Redeemer God. If the vision painted by Psalm 97 seems almost too good to be true and perhaps too all-encompassing to be true, reality is just the opposite. Psalm 97 reminds us that when it comes to the things of our God in Christ, we actually cannot ever get quite expansive enough.

The writer and theologian Lewis B. Smedes once wrote that when you get right down to it, every single one of us deep down longs for a day when we get noticed, when the Hallelujah Chorus gets sung for us, when a spotlight shines on one of our accomplishments and the plaudits of our peers and family and friends rush our way like some happy torrent of refreshing water. We want things to work out and deep down we want good things to come our way, to be noticed. What’s more, Smedes went on to note, people who deny that about themselves are often a little nasty (in addition to being more than a little self-deceived). It’s not that desiring a moment in the spotlight makes us vain or unduly egotistical. This is not something only the sinfully proud could ever desire for themselves. There is something normal about it, especially for people who deep down also believe in fairness and justice and a world that can see the truth about things clearly. Psalm 97 reflects something of all this, too. It’s not that the light of goodness always shines on the righteous for now. But it should. And some day our fondest desire and belief is that it will.