I finished writing this sermon this morning just as it became clear that the season's biggest Winter Storm was going to mean we had to cancel services. The sermon is here in its entire, unpreached form.Click here to see the entire order of service.
Ash Wednesday
Lenten Midweek: “Psalms for Worship, Psalms for Lent”
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Our Lenten Midweek series, “Psalms for Worship, Psalms for Lent,” highlights six psalms that reflect different parts of a worship service while also having some themes in them that will help our meditation during this Lenten season. After each Wednesday, I’d encourage you to make that night’s psalm the focus of your personal devotions during the week. The order of service for these Wednesdays is constructed around those six psalms, and each week we’ll look at one psalm, its place in the worship service, and where it shows the Lenten theme of repentance. Each sermon in this series will have two parts: first, a brief explanation or study of the psalm, and then second, a poetic, worshipful expansion of the psalm. It’s like my high school band director used to say about jazz: first you have to learn the basics, and then you can let loose with improvising. Tonight we’ll explore Psalm 92 which is used for our Call to Worship. First, we’ll learn the basics, and then we’ll let loose with seeing how this psalm calls us to worship.
Some of the psalms have superscriptions, a little explanation or instruction given in the ancient Hebrew text before the psalm itself starts. Psalm 92 is a natural choice for a Call to Worship since the superscription says: “A song for the Sabbath,” meaning it was written specifically for use in the Temple worship on the Sabbath.
Psalm 92 is written in the first person singular—“I sing for joy” or “You have made me glad”—which might make us think this was a personal psalm, a song written by one person and meant to be used in a personal way. But the way the psalm is constructed, the way each verse has two parts which echo each other, say the same thing in a very similar way, makes it ideal for a use by a leader and congregation. The leader sings or speaks the first part of a verse, and the congregation responds with the second half.
Our worship services always begin with the Invocation—“In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—which is often followed by the Opening Sentences—what was traditionally called the Opening Versicles—what I’ve called here in tonight’s service the Call to Worship—which also has the spirit of the traditional Introit. No matter what we call those opening words of the service that occur after the Invocation, whether Opening Sentences, Opening Versicles, Call to Worship, or Introit, the basic idea remains the same: verses from Scripture are read responsively by the pastor and congregation as a way to focus our attention on worship, highlight the theme of the service, and see that worship doesn’t begin with our action—but rather begins with the action of God who gave us His Word.
One writer talks about the use of verses like these saying: “[They’re] an appeal darted swiftly forth to God, a cry from the heart uttered by the [leader], in which the [congregation joins] by making the response,” (Cabrol, see endnote). “An appeal darted swiftly forth to God,” a prayer that goes quickly to God, a prayer with brief phrases that echo what goes on in our hearts.
When we cry, when we’re overwhelmed, we don’t talk with long sentences, complicated paragraphs, and sermons. We cry out with short bursts, blurting out about our needs and wants and hopes and fears.
Psalm 92 blurts out its thoughts about God—not so much because of any distress but more out of being overwhelmed by the goodness of God. That’s what makes it an ideal example of how we start of worship service. We call out in short bursts, short phrases that remind us of just how wonderful our Lord is. We’re eager to be in God’s presence, although we’re also timid about approaching God. We’re excited to hear about God, but we also want to hear about His love, graciousness, and forgiveness which make us confident about being here.
Please turn in your bulletin to the beginning of tonight’s service where we have the Invocation and Call to Worship.
The Invocation is always a reminder of our baptisms, the Word of God said at our baptisms that gave us God’s Name and made us part of His family. Psalm 92 as a Call to Worship immediately picks up on that theme in that opening verse—“O Lord, it does us good to give you thanks,/to fill our lungs with the name of the Most High.” “To fill our lungs” with His Name. Worship is about God’s Name, celebrating who He is, and speaking His Name gives us a kind of joy that we can’t find in any other way. It’s the joy of a child seeing a parent and calling out—“Daddy” or “Mama.” It’s the joy of seeing a spouse after a long absence and calling out their name. It’s the joy of knowing we are in God’s presence in this place.
Our Call to Worship from Psalm 92 continues, showing that this joy doesn’t just have to be limited to our time here. The psalm says that it is good “to start the morning off with good news of your love,/and to close the day with thanks for your faithfulness.”
Knowing what we do about Christ and what He has done for us changes how we understand the next phrase, “You made us find joy in what you have done, O LORD./We will sing joyfully about the works of your hands./How spectacular are your works, O LORD!/How very deep are your thoughts!” More than just celebrating God’s Creation of the world, more than just celebrating God’s work in the historical record—the ways He helped the people of Israel, now that we know about Jesus Christ dying on the cross, rising again, and promising to give us life after death, now when we say we find joy in the Lord’s work, now we know that our highest joy comes from the work of Jesus.
Which shows that more than just being a Psalm for Worship, Psalm 92 can also be a Psalm for Lent. For your Lenten meditations on this psalm, turn to the full psalm and notice there in verse 7—“ When the wicked spring up like grass,/And when all the workers of iniquity flourish,/It is that they may be destroyed forever” (NKJV). It’s a stark reminder of our need for repentance, our need to admit just how lost we’d be with God, how we are the wicked, workers of iniquity, workers of sin who should be destroyed forever.
Thanks be to God, though, that His thoughts are very deep, including His mercy which is beyond our understanding. Because of His mercy, because the Lord sets up with the righteousness of Christ, then we can confidently speak verse 13: “Those who are planted in the house of the LORD/Shall flourish in the courts of our God.” The Lord has planted us in His house, the Lord has planted His Spirit in our hearts, so that we will flourish, we will prosper in eternity, we will have life after death.
Psalm 92 calls us to prepare ourselves for Easter in repentance during Lent, which is similar to how the Call to Worship is used in our worship tonight and on future Wednesdays. Psalm 92 calls us to worship the Lord, giving thanks, but when we realize how good He is, we are quickly ready to turn to the next part of our service, Confession and Absolution, admitting how bad we are compared to the Lord’s goodness. That’s what we’ll explore next week, but I just wanted you to see that even Psalm 92 has that movement—from celebrating God to seeing how much we need God’s mercy.
With all of that as explanation, now let’s turn to the poetic, worshipful expansion of the psalm. We’ve learned the basics, and now we’re ready to let loose with Psalm 92’s Call to Worship. Here’s what’s going to happen. First, I’m going to ask you to read the Call to Worship responsively again, so turn to the opening page of the worship. I’m going to ask you to put your heart into what you’re saying, responding loudly and with genuine passion. After that, I’m going to improvise a bit, let loose and expand on those ideas, and then when I signal you, stand and say the Call to Worship one more time. Fill this space with sound, knowing that the Lord who has gone to the cross for you has invited you to be here tonight, to be in His presence.
Pastor: O Lord, it does us good to give you thanks,
People: to fill our lungs with the name of the Most High,
Pastor: To start the morning off with good news of your love,
People: and to close the day with thanks for your faithfulness,
Pastor: You made us find joy in what you have done, O LORD.
People: We will sing joyfully about the works of your hands.
Pastor: How spectacular are your works, O LORD!
People: How very deep are your thoughts!
You made man with the breath of life, (and)
Speaking Your Name is a new breath of life.
We sing, make music and move in You—
Morning, noon, and night.
24/7/365
The doors are never locked at the 7-11
And they’re never locked on this kind of joy.
We celebrate the world You’ve made.
We celebrate Your Creation.
Snow, sleet, and rain,
Earth and all stars,
Rocks—hills—fields and floods
All resound with the sound of joy.
But even more than that,
We raise our hearts
With this profound—joy we’ve got.
Profound.
Astounded.
Bowed down.
Heaven bound
Standing on holy ground.
The cross is so far beyond
Any thought we might have had.
Can’t be topped by a new age guru,
Can’t be bettered by a self-improver.
It’s so spectacular.
Supernatural.
Death on the cross for me.
We’ve got
Ashes on foreheads,
Crosses made of ash, ’cause we need a bath,
A baptism bath,
Washing us clean by water and Word,
Washing off the sinful stains.
The Lord, my God, be praised,
My light, my life from heaven.
What comfort this sweet sentence gives:
I know that my Redeemer lives—
Lives by God’s own incredible work.
It’s a very deep thought indeed.
Pastor: O Lord, it does us good to give you thanks,
People: to fill our lungs with the name of the Most High,
Pastor: To start the morning off with good news of your love,
People: and to close the day with thanks for your faithfulness,
Pastor: You made us find joy in what you have done, O LORD.
People: We will sing joyfully about the works of your hands.
Pastor: How spectacular are your works, O LORD!
People: How very deep are your thoughts!