Words of Encouragement
from the Rector
September 23, 2020
For the past month, Sunday morning worship has meant liturgies at eight, nine, and ten, outdoors on the playground alongside Wydown Boulevard. We have tried to worship as we have, indoors in the church, in the past, but the challenge of squeezing three liturgies into a morning means that not everything has come outdoors with us.

One of the most important things we’ve left indoors are the psalms. A psalm is usually recited between the Old Testament Lesson and the New Testament. We’ve taken the psalm out of our outdoor Sunday morning so that we can fit three services into a morning.

Yet every Sunday morning I miss the psalms when they are not said.

Nestled in the Old Testament, the Psalms are among the hauntingly beautiful hymnal of ancient Israel’s worship. As an anthology of 150 gems the Psalter is a thing of beauty. C.S. Lewis once said, ‘The most valuable thing the psalms do for me is to express that same delight in God which made David dance.”

All the Psalms aim to glorify God. They were sung in the Temple, in synagogues, and in Jewish homes. Today they are used by both Jews and Christians, uniting us in praise. The Psalter is the hymnal of the universal Church. The Hebrew poets took their trials, temptations and tribulations and cried out to God in song. The Psalms are poems intended to be sung. The Hebrew title which we translate as “psalter” means ‘Songs of Praise.’ But the inspired poets of Israel reflect more than their own experience. Singing to God, the singers are transformed by the one to whom they’re singing. As there is no hymnal in the New Testament corresponding to the Book of Psalms, the Psalter belongs to both the New and Old Covenants and forms a bridge linking the Old and New Testaments. As a bridge, the Psalter is a symptom of the unity of the Bible. In the psalms we find the continuity between Israel’s confession and the Christian message.

The Bible isn’t just a history lesson; the Bible gives us a song to sing. And that is what the Psalmists did. The whole history of God’s encounter with humanity as recorded in the Old Testament, from the creation of the universe through the Babylonian Exile, is put into poetry by the Psalmists. Psalm 136 looks back to the Babylonian Exile as a thing of the past.

And as a disciple of Jesus, to read the psalms is to see Christ is anticipated in these songs the people of God sing. There are psalms that look forward in hope to a future king who will restore the kingdom. There are also enigmatic passages that refer to someone who will undergo suffering and die on the cross. We say Israel’s psalms through the lenses of the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

Looking back through the lens of the cross and resurrection, the psalms tell the story of Jesus. The psalms are tangible continuity between Israel’s confession of faith and the good news of the Gospel.

Luke tells the story of two travelers who had been followers of Jesus despondently leaving the city of Jerusalem following Jesus’ crucifixion.

The risen Jesus then appears along the road and walks with them, but they don’t recognize him. He asks them, “What are you talking about?” and they say, “Oh, we’re very sad and hopeless because Jesus, who we thought was a great prophet, has been put to death by the Romans and the Jewish authorities. We had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel, but in fact, obviously not because he was executed.”

Jesus then says, “Oh, foolish and slow of heart to believe the Scriptures,” and he explains how Moses and all the prophets bore witness to the fact that the Messiah must suffer and be raised. It’s only then that they finally arrived at their destination in the little town of Emmaus and sit down in a table together, and break bread together that their eyes are opened and they recognize him.

The Psalms are like that. Israel’s story is set to music whose melody which we can see Christ’s triumph over sin and death and our salvation.

For me the psalms are so valuable because they are constantly challenging me and my assumptions. The psalms are always asking, “How does the world really look?” “What is really going on here?” The praise and plaintive cries the psalms offer us God’s perspective on the world. For the psalms always assert that it is God, not nations, not markets, not technology that rules the world. The psalms remind us that God’s kingdom transcends Caesar’s and that the main political task of the church is the formation of a people who see clearly the cost of discipleship and are willing to pay it.

In this season of the pandemic we have foresworn the psalms for the sake of time. I look forward to their return.

Andrew +

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  • Sunday services are on the playground and parking on Wydown is encouraged.

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