The Lord is with us! One hundred psalms. It’s been quite a trip so far. We’ve traveled through every imaginable expression of emotion and seen our authors take nearly every conceivable circumstance to God along the way. We’ve lamented, expressed sorrow for our sins, praised God’s goodness, thrown ourselves on His mercy and asked Him to right the wrongs in our lives. We’ve seen prayers for blessing and prayers that contain cursing. As Gary and I have written over and over, the Psalter is, in many ways, the most authentic expression of humankind’s relationship with God found in the Bible and it offers us a prayer for every time and season in our lives. Psalm 100 is a short psalm of thanksgiving and the last in the series of praise and worship hymns we’ve been looking at for the past few days. Beginning with the theme of joy, it pulls together the ideas of praise, worship, faithfulness and God’s goodness on loving-kindness. It is a lovely refrain that the follower of the Way might do well to memorize and “sing” each day while going about his or her business. In this way, one might be able to follow the Apostle Paul’s instructions to “give thanks in all circumstances”, “be joyful in all things” and “pray without ceasing.” But what I’d like to write about in relation to this psalm is the idea that it might be the basis of one of our Lord’s teachings found in the gospel account of John. In the tenth chapter of John’s account Jesus related two of His famous “I Am” statements: “I am the Good Shepherd” and “I am the Gate for the sheep.” In all of the “I Am” statements, Jesus both involves a version of God’s eternal name, “I am that I am”, but He also ties that name to something from the history of the people of Israel. An example of such a tie-in would be Jesus’ claim, “I am the Bread of Life” and then discussing that in conjunction with God’s giving of manna to the nation in the wilderness. In this case, I think that Jesus’ “I am the Gate for the sheep” reference refers back to Psalm 100. In the psalm, the worshipper sings a desire to enter into the place of God, His gates and courts, in order to give thanks and praise. This immediately follows the recognition that the worshipper is a sheep of God’s folk and His pasture. In verses 10:1-10 of John’s gospel, Jesus makes the exact same identification in the exact same order. He calls the people who know God the sheep of His fold and He identifies Himself as the Gate through which all may enter. In my mind, there is no question that the priests, Pharisees and other devout Jews who were listening to Jesus’ words would have understood the association. In this association then, one finds that the relationship Jesus promises His “sheep” is one of fullness; fullness of joy, of gladness, of thanksgiving and of love. He doesn’t offer them riches or material wealth as His sheep. He doesn’t offer them an “easy” life. He doesn’t offer them a beautiful spouse or lots of children or many of the other things their (and our) society had come to associate with a full life. He comes to offer them a life with God; with Him. As we approach Lent and the identification of our lives with Christ’s time in the wilderness before He set out on His earthly ministry, I think that this is a thing we should take note of. While Lent is certainly a season of reflection and self-examination which often should lead to repentance, it should be remembered that the goal of this time, as it is with all of our activities, is to have life with God. And that life with God will be filled with all the good things He faithfully promises. And as much as we need to repent for the things in which we fall down, we must also remember the joy God brings and give thanks for it. Grace and Peace. In Him, Chad Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; Know that the LORD is God. Enter His gates with thanksgiving For the LORD is good and His love endures forever; Psalm 100
A psalm. For giving thanks.
come before Him with joyful songs.
It is He who made us, and we are His ;
we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.
and His courts with praise;
give thanks to Him and praise His name.
His faithfulness continues through all generations.
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