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An Easter Psalm or, The Power of Praise a sermon on Psalm 30 by David C. Mauldin Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama

Simple things are often the most important, and things that are both simple and important make all the difference. Consider a few examples.

Water. Few things are more basic to human life than water. Our bodies are made mostly of water. A person deprived of water for more than a few days dies. When you are thirsty it feels good to drink water. Thank God, all of us can take clean water for granted—although, we never should. We should thank God for it. Our synod has a mission called “Living Water for the World,” providing water purification systems to people in third world countries who have no clean water. A reliable source of clean water decreases infant and childhood mortality and makes people healthier, among other things.

That is a physical example, but the same principle holds for our emotional health too. I have mentioned before the difference one loving person can make in the life of a child. Ideally a child has a mutually reinforcing, interconnected system of support: home, family, church, school, and friends. But consider an at-risk child without good support. The difference between one loving person and none is all the difference in the world.

This is true for grown ups too. The difference between five good friends and six is negligible. The difference between zero and one is enormous.

Simple things. Important things. Making the difference between health and sickness, wholeness and brokenness, life and death.

Praise is one of those simple yet important things in our spiritual lives. God created us with the capacity to know and enjoy him. We were made for praise. When we praise God—in our hearts, our words, our singing—we are fulfilling our destiny. Praise gives meaning to our existence. It fulfills us at our deepest level as nothing else can. To praise God is to breathe in his goodness. It is to drink of his love. We nourish ourselves with God’s glory and power when we praise him.

Be careful. I fear I am misleading you. Our tendency as humans is to make everything about us. Do not get the idea that praise is like exercise, something you do in order to enjoy its benefits. Praise is not like that. It is not about you at all. It is about God, from first to last. The moment it is about you (or what you get out of it), it ceases to be praise. Yes, praise has some excellent side effects, but that is all they are, side effects. To praise God properly you must set yourself aside all together. You must lose yourself as you focus your heart and mind exclusively on God.

Praise is the exuberant celebration of God—his goodness, faithfulness, justice, mercy, love, power, glory, and all the rest. Praise is possible because (a) God is good, faithful, just, and so on; and (b) because he has proved it to us by the amazing and mighty things he has done.

This sermon is about praise. The one main idea in it is this: Praise is the goal of salvation. The reason God created us, the reason he redeemed us is so that we can praise him. He sent Jesus; Jesus died on the cross; his Father raised him from the dead to give us eternal life, so that we could join the angels in the eternal praise of God.

If you do not understand God or what it means to be human, you will hear that and get the idea that God is some sort of egomaniac. That like some tyrant, all he wants is to be worshiped. You may remember Saddam Hussein and how he put statues and pictures of himself everywhere and had poets write songs about how great he was. Am I saying God is like that? Not at all! Nothing could be further from the truth. If you want proof, all you need is the cross. What tyrant ever loved like that? No, praise of God is different. Unlike the praise of anything or anyone else, praise of God nourishes the one giving praise. To understand this, you need to understand the relationship between creature and Creator. So let’s look at praise first from our side and then from God’s.

From the human side, praise fulfills us because we were created to enjoy God. We were designed with the capacity to appreciate and respond to God’s goodness. When we experience his love and salvation, we do enjoy him. We know his love. We then have joy and peace because we know God is faithful, just, powerful, and so on.

When Paul and Silas sang hymns of praise in the Philippi jail, they were neither grudgingly paying a debt they felt they owed God nor using praise for the selfish purpose of bolstering their spirits. Instead, even in those circumstances, they knew God’s love and power. Because of those circumstances, they were glad to know God’s love and power. So they praised him. And on that occasion God demonstrated his power.

From God’s side, God enjoys us. He loves us, and so he enjoys our peace, joy, holiness, and love. Because he loves he delights in us. He created us and redeemed us because he wanted to—no other reason.

God is triune. He is one God in three persons. One God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God’s own life is characterized by love and delight. The Father loves the Son and delights in him. The Son loves the Father and delights in him. The same with the Spirit. Consider this carefully. What God does is invite us to share his own life of love and delight. God loves us and delights in us. We love God and delight in him. God’s love takes the form of creating us, sustaining us, and saving us. This includes the cross and resurrection especially. Our love takes the form of praise, celebrating who God is and what he has done.

Our scripture reading this morning is a psalm of praise and a perfect one for Easter. “You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.” That’s the Easter experience. It describes Jesus’ friends who were shocked and overjoyed when he appeared to them alive again. “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” It did. It does. This Psalm could be about Jesus. It could be about Mary Magdalene and Peter and the others. It could be about any of us who believe in Jesus’ resurrection, look forward to our resurrection, and in the meantime live resurrection. Weeping gives way to joy. Mourning turns to dancing. That’s Easter. That’s God. That’s the Christian life.

Two things are worth mentioning here. The first is how the psalm acknowledges the reality of weeping and mourning. Whoever wrote this psalm went through some bad times. It has certainly resonated in the hearts of people going through bad times.

You may not have noticed it, but Psalm 30 has a title. Modern Bibles often add titles to psalms that describe their content. Those are not original but added by modern editors. The superscriptions above some psalms, however, are in the Hebrew. This one says, “A psalm. A song at the dedication of the temple. Of David.” We do not know the original circumstances behind Psalm 30, but according to Jewish tradition, it was used when the temple in Jerusalem was rededicated by the Maccabees.

If you were here for the sunrise service last week, I explained how resurrection hope first arose under the pressure of persecution. God’s people were under the control of pagan conquerors. One of these, Antiochus IV, decided to stamp out Judaism and get everyone in his kingdom to worship him. Jews resisted, and he persecuted them horribly. They revolted under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus and won their independence. Antiochus had defiled the temple. Psalm 30 was sung when the Maccabees rededicated the temple in 165 b.c.

Imagine that ceremony. God’s people had been on the ropes. Hope appeared lost. They were suffering, mourning, weeping. And then … a new beginning. Have you ever had a new beginning? It is a moment for praise. When God picks you up and gives you a second chance, you learn something about God that perhaps you cannot know in any other way. When God saves his people, they praise him; and to them it feels like water to a thirsty throat.

By the way, resurrection hope arose because it was the only way God’s people could account for God’s justice and power on one hand and suffering and evil on the other. They knew God would make things right. They knew it didn’t often happen in this life. So they hoped for something more. It was just a hope, but it was rooted in God’s justice and power, and he confirmed it by raising Jesus from the dead.

The lectionary also does something interesting with this psalm. The lectionary is a list of suggested scriptures readings for each Sunday. It tries to choose a psalm that echoes the theme and mood of the Old Testament reading—except in the Easter season. In Easter, all the readings are from the New Testament. What, then, does this psalm echo? The conversion of Saul, a.k.a Paul, in Acts 9.

Saul, as you know, persecuted the church. He hated Christians. He made it his mission in life to round them up and throw them in jail. He was there when Stephen was murdered by a mob. He was on his was to Damascus to hunt Christians there when Jesus appeared to him. He went on to become the greatest Christian missionary ever and to write half the New Testament.

I think Psalm 30 is well chosen to describe his experience. Look at verses 6-7: “In my prosperity I said, ‘I shall never be moved.’” That was Saul. But then, “You hid your face; I was dismayed.” He thought he was right. He thought he was doing God’s will. Then in a flash it hit him, he wasn’t. Think about the three days Saul sat in a room in Damascus, blind, not eating, not drinking. There’s your sackcloth and weeping. Then God sends Ananias to restore Saul’s sight and explain the gospel to him. “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy come with the morning.” Saul learned that God’s anger is but a moment while his favor lasts a lifetime.

Some of you may know how Saul felt during those three soul-searching days. You reach a point in your life from which there is no direct and easy way forward. To move at all means painful change and a new way of living. When its dark outside and your sackcloth begins chaffing, remember that God saves and joy comes in the morning.

“O Lord I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you brought me up from Sheol [in the Old Testament, Sheol was the abode of the dead], restored me to life from among those who have gone down to the Pit.”

Through the centuries this Psalm has found a home on the lips of many people, from the Maccabees to Saul to recovered addicts to congregations celebrating the resurrection. It celebrates that hinge moment in life when God reverses our fortunes and weeping turns into praise. That’s the other thing worth mentioning, the praise. Psalm 30 is honest about suffering and death, but it also knows God saves. God has the last word. Weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning. God is angry for a moment, but his favor lasts for a lifetime. It invites us to acknowledge this divine order of things. Sorrow and defeat are not permanent. We can be honest about them because they do not last. And they do not last because God loves and saves his people.

On the basis of our salvation, Psalm 30 invites us to praise God: “Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.” Later it says God takes off our sackcloth—which was traditionally worn by those in grief and despair—and clothes us with joy, “so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.” The goal of salvation is praise. In love God rescues his people. In love they praise him.

There is one line here makes praise seem like a bargaining chip. In verse 9 the psalm asks, “What profit is there in my death …? Will the dust praise you?” The idea seems to be that God should save this person because if he does, then the person will praise him. If he doesn’t, well, less praise. That is not a good way to pray. We can never bargain with God. The reason is simple, we have nothing to offer. Not even praise. God doesn’t need our praise. And he doesn’t want it if it is given grudgingly or for selfish purposes. Instead God wants us to know the wonder and beauty of knowing him. Once you taste God’s mercy, praise flows freely. It is not something you have to do, it is something you get to do.

Verse 9 is not giving us a model to follow, but it does accurately reflect the prayer of a desperate soul. And that’s all it claims to do. Look back to verse 8: “To you, O Lord I cried …” And the prayer of this desperate soul follows, and sometimes when we are desperate we foolishly try to bargain with God. Ask any parent whose child has been seriously ill. Even atheists have been known to turn to God in prayer like this. It is a natural human response.

God, however, is not moved by any bargain we offer to strike. He saves because he wants to. He saves because he loves us. He takes joy in us, and by saving us he gives us reason to delight in him.

What about those he does not save, you ask? What about the child who doesn’t recover? That questions leads us off our main topic of praise, but it is not irrelevant. We do not have time for a full answer, but I would point you back once again to God’s justice, power, and love. We live in a world in which tragedy happens. Why does God allow it? I do not know. But I do know that God would never allow anything to happen that he could not redeem. There will never be a night of weeping that he cannot turn into a joyful morning. There will never be mourning he cannot turn into dancing. There will never be sackcloth he cannot replace with joy. We know this because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. How God can do all this is beyond the power of my imagination, but I am convinced he can do it. And that, too, makes him worthy of praise.

This leads to last thing I want to say. Because we know that God can do it—and will do it—we do not have to wait until he does to praise him. Paul and Silas sang in the jail. They didn’t wait until they were safely on their way to the next town. We do not have to wait until God raises us from the dead at the end of time to praise him. We know his plan. We know his character. We know his heart. Over and over again he has proved his love and demonstrated his power. So what are we waiting for? What more would he have to do before we drink in his goodness and praise him? With a God like ours, circumstances become irrelevant. Praise him anyway. It will do you good. It will remind you of all that God is and all that he has done.

There is strength in praise. Praise is a strong shield amid the pain of life. So sing God’s praises. Pray them. Speak them. Feel them in your heart. Think them in your mind. Praise God always and everywhere.

Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Amen.

rev_mauldin@yahoo.com
April 15, 2007

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