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Psalm 147 1 Hallelujah! How good it is to sing praises to our God! 2 The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem; 3 He heals the brokenhearted 4 He counts the number of the stars 5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; 6 The Lord lifts up the lowly, 7 Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; 8 He covers the heavens with clouds 9 He makes grass to grow upon the mountains 10 He provides food for flocks and herds 11 He is not impressed by the might of a horse; 12 But the Lord has pleasure in those who fear him, 13 Worship the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion; 14 For he has strengthened the bars of your gates; 15 He has established peace on your borders; 16 He sends out his command to the earth, 17 He gives snow like wool; 18 He scatters his hail like bread crumbs; 19 He sends forth his word and melts them; 20 He declares his word to Jacob, 21 He has not done so to any other nation; |
Praise
More than a week before Christmas, I drove past a billboard telling folks where to recycle Christmas trees. It reminded me how hard it is for us to live in the present moment. We’re always thinking about what’s next. After breakfast, I wonder what I’ll have for lunch. Before I finish a project, I wonder what I’ll work on next. As new year approaches, I wonder how I’ll navigate 2025.
Being present to the moment is a spiritual growth opportunity for me. I can spend a lot of time revisiting the past, especially those things I would have done differently. I can fret about the future. That may be the reason that the liturgical seasons are important.
Specifically, that’s why it’s helpful to speak of Christmas as more than one day. It’s a season to savor, without rushing to figure out how to recycle the tree. The psalm heard in church yesterday (reprinted in this email) can help. Like many of the psalms that come at the end of that collection in the Bible, it’s a call to offer praise, to let that be our focus in these twelve days of Christmas.
I encourage you to read over that psalm and reflect on why praise is the order of the day, a theme for this Christmas season. The psalm speaks of a transcendent God, source and sustainer of all creation. At the same time, the psalm speaks of a God who is very much down to earth. We meet that God in Jesus. Like shepherds and magi, we are invited to let our focus be gratitude and worship, awe and praise.
With two Sundays in the season of Christmas, we’ve had the chance to sing about all this in worship: O come let us adore him. Glories stream from heaven above. Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia. Come adore on bended knee. Let heaven and nature sing. Gloria in excelsis deo.
And carols aren’t only for Christmas Eve. I know a rector who would schedule “Joy to the World” in the middle of August, just a reminder of good news. Another friend worked with me, planning her mother’s funeral. She requested “Joy to the World,” even though Christmas was months away. A posture of praise need not be limited to the end of December.
There’s no need for the spirit of those carols to be limited to song. In our actions, not only with our lips but with our lives, we can offer praise of the God who, according to the psalm, gathers the exiles, heals the broken-hearted, binds up their wounds, lifts the lowly. What better act of worship of the God who does such things than for us to find ways to do the same. Those opportunities surround us.
My 5-year-old grandson asked me last week if I would be celebrating my birthday in heaven. I confessed that I hadn’t thought about that. I said it was a good question. It caused me to imagine a wondrous timelessness in heaven, when we eternally live in the moment. Christmas may well be that time when we glimpse such wonder here on earth. Maybe it’s what Christina Rossetti had in mind when she wrote the poem: Love came down at Christmas. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar said that Christmas was more than an event. It was invasion of time by eternity.
Such wisdom might tell us to pause the plans for recycling the tree. That day will come. Such wisdom might tell us to experience the invasion of time by eternity, reflected in the story of Christmas. Such wisdom might lead us to live in the moment by responding with a posture of praise. Such wisdom might invite us to think this Monday morning about what causes us to lift our hearts in praise of God from whom all blessings flow.
For many folks, this Christmas season has its own timelessness. School’s out of session. Work schedule is different and for some, quite light. Some might ask: What day is it? This time can be a gift to be present with a focus on praise. How might you do that in the remaining days of this Christmas season, as we hear heaven and nature sing? What blessings have flowed your way? What leads you to praise in this moment?
-Jay Sidebotham
