Steadfast Love
…[F]or [God’s] steadfast love endures forever.
Psalm 136:1b
I came across Psalm 136 in my reading a few weeks ago. As I read it with its repetitive responses, a sense of “déjà vu” came over me. I remembered reciting it as a young girl, back in the days when there was corporate recitation from the Psalter each Sunday, quite frequently done as a call and response between lay reader and congregation. I recollected that my sisters and I giggled our way through the repetitive refrain of the psalm’s 26 verses, worded in “The Book of Common Prayer” (BCP), 1982 version, as “for his mercy endureth forever.”
This is one of the reasons why Mr. Eby, who sat in the pew in front of us, frequently turned around and gave us the international symbol of the one finger held over the lips for “BE QUIET!” Perhaps if the BCP had used the wording above from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible we would have been better behaved. After all, love is probably more easily understandable to children than mercy.
Yet, in rereading this psalm, I fell in love with God’s Word. This is one of the psalms identified as a “historical psalm;” one that details God’s active involvement in God’s creation and God’s sovereignty in past events. These psalms not only speak of God’s faithfulness throughout the events of Israel’s history but remind us of our need for ongoing hope and gratitude, including our need for obedience. In 26 verses, the psalmist provides evidence of God’s goodness and it is our spiritual obligation to give God praise and thanks for that very goodness so in evidence in our lives by proclaiming, “For his steadfast love endures forever!”
As I read, I began to think of the events in my life that could be substituted for the evidence the psalmist provided in Psalm 136 of God’s goodness, mercy and faithfulness. From an uncomplicated birth through a charmed but quirky childhood and then the sometimes wearisome “changes and chances”[1] of an uncomplicated but graced adult life, I began to rewrite the psalm to reflect my own story, my history, ending each milestone or transition with “For his steadfast love endures forever.” Some of my entries could be seen by others as defeats or losses. Yet, from the perspective of time, I could easily add “For his steadfast love endures forever” to every event.
How about you? How would you look at your life and recall the evidence of God’s mercy and love in your life? Maybe you are in a challenging season right now. If so, the tangible promise during the Advent season is that our hope in God is not in vain. Perhaps this time of your life may one day easily elicit the response, “For his steadfast love endures forever.”
[1] Phrase is from one of the closing prayers in Compline, “The Book of Common Prayer,” page 133.
