WE PECULIAR PEOPLE
Psalm 100: 1-5
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A PRESBYTERIAN PSALTER - by Pastor Max A Forsythe |
A few years ago I invited myself to visit a group of former Presbyterians who had left the liberal establishment to become charismatic. Now, like the word Presbyterian, the word Charismatic is not well understood. Certainly the particular Xenia group had a real enthusiasm for worship and they sang songs from the Charismatic edge of Christ's Church. However, they were no more Charismatic in the ecstatic sense of the word than they were Presbyterian in the liberal sense. What they had was a simple joy which they celebrated well in their godly worship.
This is the joy called for in the opening of this psalm. This joy may be understood as the believer's response of thankfulness for the gift of grace. Now, there are three words that I have used in the context of this psalm already that we should focus on to rightly understand the opening invitation of Old Hundredth.
These words are: joy - grace -gift. In the Greek language these words are more than just kissing cousins introduced together in a common chapter in Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. There are real and profound relationships between joy, grace and gift. Listen to these three words in the Greek: "chara, charis and charisma".
This fact of relationship is why I may speak to you matter of factly of a real and true Presbyterian Charisma which has been enjoyed by God's peculiar presbyterian people in this psalm for so many centuries. Why are we invited in Psalm 100 to come before the Lord and rejoice? "For why?" as the paraphrase of "Old Hundredth" well asks and answers: "the Lord our God is good, His mercy is for ever sure". His good mercy is the gift of grace through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Did you hear those three words again: joy, grace and gift. Together they give a special spiritual charisma to this most Presbyterian of all the psalms in the Psalter. If we properly comprehend that Presbyterian Charisma, we can better appreciate the emotional joy celebrated by all those peculiar people who name the Name of Christ as Savior and Lord.
And it is here in this psalm that Presbyterians are most likely to experience the intermingled gift of joy and grace. Let me try to convey to you what I mean. The tune and the paraphrase of the hymn Old Hundredth has been a very special gift of joy and grace to our reformed denominations since the Reformation. This sung psalm, as no other, defines the peculiar people, the Puritans and Presbyterians who came to the New World in search of freedom to worship and praise the God of Heaven.
For me it is difficult to sing Old Hundredth all the way through. Ever since I was small, a lump sort of forms in the back of my throat and I have to pause. One evening about fourteen years ago as I was wrestling with the decision to leave the Church of my family and come over to the Presbyterian Church in America, I turned to this psalm for devotions. My emotions were so highly tuned that evening, that for a while I could not speak. If I had tried - there would have been only grunts and groans. Does that sound unpresbyterian? Yes, it was an emotional high privately in my prayer time as encouraged by the Apostle Paul.
In the course of preaching through the Psalter, it took three times of preparation before I was able to schedule this Psalm for a Lord's Day meditation. Several times I was forced to put it aside because I was uncertain if I could speak of this psalm publicly. In the context of today's joyous celebration of two congregations I felt that this psalm was most appropriate. And I do pray that you too may experience the joyful grace given to us through this psalm.
Just as I was strengthened by this psalm to leave the Church of my youth and join a revolutionary reformed body in 1982, so too have others been strengthened. In my all time favorite movie: One Day in April, the Lexington militia gathered on the village green to await the arrival of King George's red coats. As they were nervously waiting the Parson steadied the seventy-nine militiamen with the singing of Old Hundredth. In that scene before the battle, the last verse was drowned out by the worldly drummers of the British Regiments.
And yet at the end of that long war, the last tune played by the British Army was entitled The World Turned Upside Down. By the grace of God, as Washington acknowledged it, seven times the American Army escaped disaster, and the American enterprise was finally established. How much we as Americans owe to the gracious mercy of our Father in heaven. How much ought we to accept the invitation of this hundredth psalm.
Look there at verse one, the phrase "Make a joyful shout to the Lord" is very much like the worldly battle cry, homage-shout or fanfare to a popular and beloved king or leader. "Vive La Emperor" shouted the Old Guard to Napoleon as they marched off to death in the last desperate charge at Waterloo. "Long live the King or Queen" has been the welcome to English monarch's for countless centuries.
"Make a joyful shout to the Lord" is our invitation as well as the invitation for the whole of the earth. This joyful shout is to be an indication of our gladness in the Lord's presence. "Come before His presence with singing" as we sing thankfully of His grace.
Verse three invites us to "know that the Lord, He is God." Here is the beginning of intelligent faith, because we ought to know whom we worship and as the rest of this verse instructs us, why we worship Him. We worship Him because He has made us, because we are His individually, because we are His collectively, and because we are His sheep in His gracious pasture.
Our psalm is divided here at the beginning of verse four into two portions. Once we have expressed our joy and realized who our true king is, we are invited further up and further in as C.S. Lewis teaches us. "Enter his gates". "Come on down" we might say in the joyful invitation of a popular game show of yesteryear. Come on in with thanksgiving for the gifts he has given graciously. Come into His courts and there we may give Him praise, thanks and praise!
"For why?" Doesn't that unusual connection of words in the hymn just send shivers up your spine? If they have, then you have enjoyed a charismatic encounter in a Presbyterian Church of all places! "For why?" Our psalmist gives us the answer of undeserved grace. Because the Lord is good. It is not we who deserve salvation and eternity in heaven. No, it is because the Lord is good and His love endures forever and ever.
The last phrase has special meaning to all Presbyterians who appreciate the covenantal relationship. In my family that relationship is at least eight generations old. Recently a remote relative of my Father sent us a copy of the latest genealogical report. That report takes us back to the 1715 in Ayrshire, Scotland. The covenant of grace has been experienced in my family for about two hundred and eighty years. What a marvelous gift, we have enjoyed. Even as you do, I have certainly prayed for your little ones and their descendants yet to be born. If is my fond hope and prayer, that your children's children in another century, if our Lord tarries that long, may still gather to sing Old Hundredth as they praise the God of heaven for the gift of grace. Amen.
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Resources Used: |
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Kidner, Derek. |
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Psalms. | |
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Spurgeon, C.H. |
The Treasury of David. | |
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Foundation for Reformation. New Geneva Study Bible . (1995) Thomas Nelson, Inc. New King James Version. (1982) | ||
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Psm 100b |
16 August 92 & 04 August 96 | |