Psalm 150 What a racket!

Psalm 150

Finally - the end of the book of Psalms! Wow, this has taken a while....

The book of psalms ends with a bang, not a whimper.

Praise the LORD.
Praise God in his sanctuary, praise him in his mighty heavens.
Praise him for his acts of power, praise him for his surpassing greatness.

So, the question I ask myself is - does God deserve this praise?
looking through the book of Psalms, we run the range of human experience, from being protected by God, abandoned by God, resting in God, being known at the deepest level by God, where does that leave us? 

I think I have to say probably I am in awe of God - the God who knows what I want to think before I even thunk it,

Lets look at the end of the book of Psalms - 

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, 
Praise him with the harp and lyre, 
Praise him with tambourine and dancing, 
Praise him with the strings and pipe
Praise him with the clash of cymbals
Praise him with resounding cymbals
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD

Praise the LORD.

As a trombonist I think they almost got the first instrument right! Though the valve trumpet that can play a full scale is a relatively recent development - so the trumpet was more volume than tune and probably based on the Zophar or rams horn (I tried playing one once, did not get very far, if truth be told!)

Some time ago I was playing in a music group for a service attended by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, who is a man of God I have a lot of respect for.
Anyway it is well known that Archbishop Sentamu likes to play drums in services, and this one was no exception, the Archbishop started joining in on the African drum, but not quite in the same time or rhythm as the rest of us! The fact is that this did not detract from the music, the joy and exuberance actually added and the timing worked itself out.
The list of instruments listed here make a terrible orchestra - harps take forever to tune up, and then are not very loud!

It is interesting that percussion is mentioned twice - clashing and resounding cymbals.

Perhaps the instruction for everything that has breath to praise the LORD is just an attempt to drown out the cacophony of the band (or, if you are feeling traditional, organ!)

Psalm 149 With a song and a sword?

Psalm 149

Well, we are nearly at the end of the longest book of the Bible, with both the longest and shortest chapter in the Bible.

Anyway, I'm not so sure about this psalm as you might tell from the title!

Having said that, shall we dive in?

Praise the LORD (again literally Hallelujah)
Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of his faithful people.
Let Israel rejoice in their Maker, ket the people of Zion be glad in their king.
Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp.

Have you ever seen the movie "The Blues Brothers?" it is an amazing film, well ok, it has lots of really good music and car chases, what more is needed in a movie really?
Anyway there is a scene in the film where the Blues Brothers (Jake and Elwood) are told to go to the "Triple rock Baptist church" and listen to the sermon (Delivered by blues legend James Brown)
In the church there is some amazing music and the congregation start dancing.
This description here puts me in mind of that totally over the top service!

Back to the Psalm, 
For the LORD takes delight in his people, he crowns the humble with victory.
Let his faithful people rejoice in his honour and sing for joy on their beds.

It is impressive that God's pleasure is not in the rich or arrogant, or even those who sleep well at night! 

Now we get to the bit I find difficult.
We used to sing a song based on this back in the 1980's "With the high praises of God in our mouths, and a two edged sword in our hands, we'll march right on to the victory side, right into Canaan's land."

May the praise of God be in their mouths, and a double-edged sword in their hands, to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples.
To bind their kings with fetters, their nobles in shackles of iron.
To carry out the sentence written against them

As a teenager, I used to like this song, these days it kind of makes me cringe!

This is the glory of all his faithful people.
Praise the LORD.


Should Israel, or any other nation, take it upon themselves to judge other nations? 
Where can we find God' s written sentence? 

Psalm 148 Natural praises

Psalm 148

This is a rather upbeat psalm really,

Praise the LORD, Praise the LORD from the heavens, praise him in the heights above.

Ok so that's one way to pass a long flight! however doing that out loud may cause concern and annoyance with some of the other passengers.

The psalm goes on to exhort the angels and armies of heaven to praise God along with teh shining stars.

Why?
Because he made them.

Ok, let's talk briefly about the old creation vs evolution argument.
The universe along with space and time was created in the big bang some 14 billion years ago.
In fact the very expression "big bang" was coined by sir Fred Hoyle, an astrophysicist who did not agree with the theory.
First of all there was nothing, which exploded and then there was everything.
If we can accept this, why can we not accept that there was some reason for it? 

Evolution is another theory that some people tell me that I'm not allowed to believe, nor that the universe is above 6000 years old - that some people seem to have picked up from some ultra literal reading of the Bible.

I personally don't have a problem reconciling science with faith - nor if it comes to that do a large number of extremely eminent scientists.

The weather and animals and plants are, along with kings, princes and old and young men and women, let them praise the name of the LORD.

The Psalm ends with 
The praise of all his faithful servants, of the people close to his heart.

Praise God.

Psalm 147 The god of nature

Psalm 147

The Psalm begins with a hebrew word "Hallelujah" which literally means "Praise the LORD".
It is a word that inspired the late great Leonard Cohen's famous song.

The psalm continues - How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him.

God builds up Jerusalem, he gathers the exiles of Israel.
He heals the broken-hearted, and binds up their wounds.

The next verse is a bit of an interesting thematic jump
He determines the number of the stars and calls each by name.

Great is our LORD and mighty in power, his understanding has no limit.

It is interesting that we are constantly discovering things like sub atomic particles and even galaxies, yet God has unlimited understanding.
One of my favourite verses in the Bible is found in the book of Proverbs (Chapter 25 verse 2) It is the Gory of God to conceal a matter. To search out a matter is the glory of kings.
I think that research and science are part of the glory of mankind - searching out the heart of the universe and God.

The LORD sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.

Why? given the vastness of the universe, why should God care about the humble and the proud and the hurting? 

Sing to the LORD with grateful praise, make music to our God on the harp.
I have to say I don't play the harp, and I am not that good at singing for that matter!

In the Psalm God is responsible for clouds and rains to make the land fertile and sustain ecosystems, both man made and natural.

God does not take pleasure in the strength of the horse, nor the legs of the warrior.
The LORD delights in those who fear him and put their hope in his unfailing love.

Perhaps here is a clue to why God cares? Love!

Psalm 146 Put not your trust in princes

Psalm 146

Reading this psalm today, with all that happened last year, the prime minister's speech this week (January 2017) and yesterday's inauguration of the new president of the USA, it would be far too easy to let rip - perhaps later?

So I'm going to try to be positive and try and read the psalm for what it says and what it says to me.

Praise the LORD (literal translation of the word Hallelujah)
Praise the LORD my soul.
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

Do not put your trust in princes, 
In human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground.
on that very day their plans  come to nothing.

Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
Whose hope is in the Lord their God.

He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them 
he remains faithful for ever.

He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.
the LORD sets prisoners free, the LORD gives sight to the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down.

The LORD loves the righteuous.
The LORD watches over the foreigner, and sustains the fatherless and the widow.
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

The LORD reigns for ever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Praise the LORD.

I think that I will let the psalm speak - better to trust in God eh?

I mean I hope and pray for the leaders of the nations - however they go the job.
I hope and pray that they will work for peace and the best interests of their countries, peoples and work together to leave office with the world in a better state than when they took office.

You know what? I think God is probably the only supreme being who is capable of pulling that one off!

Psalm 145 Endless praise

Psalm 145

This Psalm is titled "A psalm of praise. Of David" - I think the King James version it is titled "David's Psalm of praise" - in which case this would be like "The Archbishop's best sermon"

As you might guess from the title, it is quite upbeat!

I will exalt you, my God the King; 
I will praise your name for ever and ever.

It is interesting that David (king of Israel) acknowledges God as his King.
As I've mentioned before, one of the people who inspired me to start this blog is a Jewish agnostic journalist who tried to live according to all the laws in the Bible for a year - the book is called "My year of living biblically" 
One of the lessons AJ Jacobs says he learned was to be thankful and live with an attitude of gratitude as it were. 
The Psalm continues in this vein

Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever
Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise, his greatness no one can fathom.

One generation commends your works to another, they tell of your mighty acts.
The speak of the glorious splendour of your majesty - and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
They tell of the power of your awesome works - and I will proclaim your great deeds. They tell the power of your awesome works.

Sometimes I worry that churches are filled with a lot of elderly people (at least in the UK) - there was an old hymn that had a chorus "Tell me the old, old story....of Jesus and his love".
Perhaps the church has not been as good at telling the story of the works of God to the next generation?

God, the God of David, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not a wrathful or vengeful deity who has given loads of restrictions on fun and basically waits, thunderbolt in hand to smite the wicked - the psalm goes on 

I will proclaim your great deeds. They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.
The LORD is good to all, he has compassion on all he has made.

The God of David is described in the Psalm as
Trustworthy in his promises and faithful in all he does
He upholds those who fall, and lifts those bowed down 

The Psalm ends with a promise  
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfils the desires of those who fear him, he hears their cry and saves them.
The LORD watches over all who love him.

Please note - I've found that the desires that God grants generally don't include winning the lottery! God would prefer us to desire knowing him better than riches.

Psalm 144 A Brexit Psalm?

Psalm 144

This is another Psalm of David, but marks a change in tone.

The reason I titled this Psalm with one of the worst portmanteau words (one that I personally detest and am fed up to the back teeth with constantly hearing!) is the following phrase appears not once but twice in this Psalm

"rescue me from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful" 

I'll come back to this in a bit.

Praise be to the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.
He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge.

These days it seems that talk of war and battle and training is inconsistent with teaching of a loving God - yet here in this Psalm we have this rather odd mix of loving with military ideas.

The next bit of the Psalm is often read at funerals and there is a note of wonder about it.
God has made David king of Israel and he has many subjects and people he leads.
Then we get the question "LORD, what are human beings that you care for them, mere mortals that you think of them? 
They are life a breath; their days are like a fleeting shadow."

The wonder of it all is that we believe that God does care for us, and has planned the whole of evolution, chemistry, physics so that you can be here reading this! 
Of course you could just be here by pure chance, but to me the odds are longer than winning the lottery! 
If you want to explore, my inspiration for this is the Bill Bryson book "A short history of nearly everything" which explores the history of science and how we know what we know. It also touches on the known unknowns and unknown knowns (to riff off Donald Rumsfeld) 

David prays to God to "part your heavens and come down" 
"Touch the mountains, so that they smoke.
Send forth lightening and scatter the enemy; shoot your arrows and rout them.
Reach down you hand from on high; deliver me and rescue me from the mighty waters, 
from the hands of foreigners...

Right - lets talk about this.
It may come as a bit of a shock, but David was not British, neither is Jesus, God or any of the characters in the Bible!
The Garden of Eden is not in Kent, nor is Yorkshire God's own county - though it is very pretty, dramatic, and all the other things that I enjoy living here.
In terms of the Psalm foreigners includes those who are not Jewish - like me?

In June 2016 a referendum was held about the British membership of the European Union - the propaganda (sorry referendum campaign messages) talked about us regaining sovereignty and stop being slaves of an uncaring and unfeeling European tyranny that would make us more like the Dutch or, heaven forbid, French.
The message was also that they forced us to take in millions of Polish, and other EU citizens and we were "powerless" to stop this inrush of immigrants and asylum seekers (as though the 2 are not separate issues) I find it odd that nobody questioned why people want to live here, unless it is the weather and cuisine!
Personally I am worried about the rise in race intolerance in the country and particularly the government (who have, for instance, barred non UK academics from contributing to government studies on the future relationship with the world) 

I will sing a new song to you, my God;
on the ten stringed lyre I will make music to you, to the one who gives victory to kings.
New music (particularly in church!) is a bit of a contentious issue that people have been moaning about for literally hundreds of years 

The nation blessed by God will have healthy children, sons like well nurtured plants, daughters like pillars in a royal palace.
Barns (today perhaps Supermarket shelves?) will be filled with every kind of provision, fields and pastures safe and fruitful.

Blessed is the people of whom this is true;
Blessed is the people whose God is the LORD.