Third Sunday of Advent
What does God give you that no one else can or will? I could ask what does God give “us?” I might say ‘eternal life.’ No person, no matter how much they love me,
can offer that. I might say, ‘complete
forgiveness of sins.’ A friend can
forgive me when I hurt him. But only God
can wash away all the stains my sins leave on my life. In Jesus God does exactly that. I could offer any number of things that God
does for all people – these categories are universal. Everyone needs them and only God meets these
needs. Salvation, forgiveness, eternal
hope, unfailing truth, a sense of purpose: these are all examples of what God gives us.
What
does God give you? This is seriously
personal. Focus on your walk with God in
Jesus. Imagine the entirety of your life. What does God bring that no one else could
give and that makes you who you are? What
are the specific reasons in your life for praising God?
Psalm
146 begins a series of ‘Hallel’ Psalms, the final five Psalms of the book, and
all are praise songs. I was filled with
joy this past week as I went through the phrases of Psalm 146 and imagined the
specific ways Jesus’ lived the attributes named. We will put these on the screen so if you
want to, you can look up each passage and read it alongside the words of Psalm
146.[i]
Verse
5, “the Lord God of Jacob blesses everyone.”
God chose Israel, but not in a way that cut the rest of the world
off. Israel was to draw the world to
God. All that is promised to Israel and
through Israel is fulfilled in Jesus.
Matthew’s Gospel, quoting Isaiah, declares Jesus “the hope of the
nations.” All people, Jews, Gentiles,
everyone is blessed by God’s appearing in Jesus.
Verse
6, “God made the Heaven and the Earth.”
Chapter 1 in John’s gospel and chapter 1 in Colossians both affirm the
central role of Jesus in creation of all that is. A few phrases later in Psalm 146:6: “God
always keeps his word.” John 14 – Jesus
is the truth. And John 17, there is but
one true God and Jesus comes from Him.
“He
gives justice to the poor and food to the hungry,” Psalm 146:7. In Matthew 19 a wealthy young man wants to
earn eternal life. Jesus responds the
only way he can is to give of his riches to help the poor and become a disciple
of Jesus. Psalm 146:8: “The Lord sets
the prisoner free and heals blind eyes.”
Luke 4:18-19: Jesus has been anointed to bring good news to the poor, to
proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.
In
the Psalm we see that the “Lord … looks after strangers” (v.9). In Luke 14, Jesus commends his disciples to
invite the poor and infirmed to dinner.
The Psalm sings of God’s care for orphans and widows even as God
destroys the wicked. In his parable of
sheep and goats in Matthew 25, Jesus extols the love of the weak and vulnerable,
orphans and widows, as love of Jesus himself.
Conversely, failure to love the needy is rejection of Jesus.
Why
do we praise? More to the point, why is
Psalm 146 a praise song for Jesus, one we sing during Advent in celebration of
His birth? The verses of the Psalm give
answer. Blessing, creation, truth,
provision for the hungry, healing for the wounded, and care for the needy; this
is what Jesus did in a way that only God could.
The Psalm praises God. Jesus is
God in the flesh.
The
Psalm also boldly identifies what we humans face. We trudge along through a world that comes up
short in the very things mentioned in the Psalm. Trustworthiness? We are bombarded with phone calls, emails,
and knocks on our doors all coming from people trying to separate us from our
money with stories of charity or products or importance. We are targeted by scammers whose goal is to
possess what we have.
Justice? Is there justice in the world? A mayor in San Diego was found guilty of
three sexual harassment misdemeanors and one felony. He could have been sentenced to as much as
six years in prison. He got three months
house arrest and probation. A felony
conviction, but no jail time for the rich and powerful. In Somalia, a woman reported that she was
raped. For doing so, she was imprisoned
for tainting the reputation of the man who assaulted her.
In
verse 7 the Psalm mentions and the hungry and those in prison, and we
understand this to be people unjustly locked in chains. Our world knows hunger and unjust imprisonment. The Psalm mentions the blind. We have no cure for irreversible
blindness. The pains that afflicted
humanity still hurt us. By saying that
God meets these hurts, the singer acknowledges the reality of these hurts.
Two
thousand years after the coming of Jesus and in a time of the second coming of
Jesus, we praise God thinking God’s gifts to us and we do this with three
things in mind. First, Jesus performed
miracles that went beyond what the original singer of the Psalm could have
imagined. He fed 5000 with a few
loaves. He made the lame walk and the
blind see. He turned a group of
uneducated fishermen into the leaders of the church – a church that would
outlast the Roman Empire. We praise God
knowing what God did in Jesus and believing that even in our scientific age,
God still works miracles through the Holy Spirit.
Second,
we praise God knowing God is at work in the world through the church. We cannot alleviate all poverty. But as God’s church, the body of Jesus
Christ, we come alongside those who are poor.
We use our hands and feet, our money and time, our hearts and minds to
feed the hungry and educate and empower the orphan and comfort the ailing
elderly. The works are not usually
unexplainable miracle, but it is God at work through us and it is cause to
praise God. Sometimes, the miracle happens.
Third,
we praise anticipating that God will bring to completion the work of his church. At the end of time, at the last judgment, God
will settle all accounts and bring full and complete redemption. Just as the promise of Psalm 146 came to life
in Jesus and comes to life in the work of the church in the world, final,
complete fulfillment is still to come.
We lay claim to promise of God in 1 Corinthians 15 – that we will live
in eternity in resurrected bodies that cannot be harmed or killed. We know the fellowship we enjoy with one
another in the Holy Spirit now is a foreshadowing of the perfect love we will
have with God in the eternal Kingdom of God.
Thus
we praise God. Advent is a season of
praise. I mentioned that Psalm 146 is
the first of the five ‘Hallel’ Psalms that close out the book of Psalms. What does ‘Hallel’ mean? Each of these Psalms, 146-150 begins and ends
with the same Hebrew word, a word often not translated. It is “Hallelujah.” These are Hallelujah
songs.
We
have explored particular themes of Jesus’ coming in the Psalms. In the first week of Advent, we thought about
Advent as a special season of worship.
Last week, we were reminded in Psalm 72 that Advent is a call to prayer,
specifically, prayer for justice. This
morning, in Psalm 146, we get intentional about raising Hallelujahs. Our praises are born out of specific acts of
Jesus in his earthly life and in his continuing presence, the Holy Spirit at
work in the world through the church.
In
your life, where does the rubber meet the road?
Where does the praise become more than something ‘we do at church?’ Where does the praise erupt in your heart
because you know God is at work, is with you, is creating and re-creating
you?
This
could be difficult. The healing, the
release, the justice, the blessing – you might not be feeling it. You might be in the middle of a storm and you
don’t see land. Your life is tossed
about, out of control, and you’d really like the final judgment and second
coming to happen right now. You want to enter
the joyous presence of Jesus immediately because your present reality is so
tough.
That’s
not everyone. Some have no trouble
citing specific praises. God wants us
all, even in rough times, to feel the blessing He has for us in Jesus. My encouragement as we conclude our thoughts
on Psalm 146 is to seek and find the praise this week. Seek God in the most personal places in
life. In the places of brokenness, meet
Jesus. Invite him to help clean the
skeletons out of the closet. Ask him into
those rooms in the heart you’ve kept locked.
Discover what it is to be forgiven, to be loved, to be a child of
God. All problems won’t instantly be
solved. But solutions will come into
view and more importantly, you and I discover we don’t face things alone. God is with us.
In
that discovery, we own the praises we lift.
We praise in church, while walking, while driving. We go to bed thinking of praising God. We wake up and a song of praise is already
playing in the heart. As we send
Christmas cards, shop, and taken in all the trappings of the season, all the
happiness of this time of year and other feelings, seek God by getting to know
Jesus and in Him discover how wonderful
it is to praise God from the depths of the heart.
Jesus
did what only God can in history. Jesus
does what only God can do in our lives.
Hallelujah.
AMEN
[i]
Matthew 12:12; John 1:3; Colossians 1:15-16; John 14:6; 17:1-3; Matthew 19:16-22; Luke 4:18-19; Luke
14:12-14; Matthew 25:31-46
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