It's All New

Text: Psalm 103

How rich the Psalms become when viewed from a resurrection perspective! The mighty acts of God were indeed celebrated in the literature of the Hebrew Bible. How much more the very words and phrases jump out with the reality of Easter brought afresh to our awareness, particularly after the Lenten period of reflection and repentance.

In the words of the psalm for today, hear these phrases from this side of the empty tomb: "Bless the Lord . . . who redeems your life from the pit, . . . has not dealt with us according to our sins, . . . knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust."

These words, now renewed yet again, are given to us in a call for God's praise to be brought forth from all quarters. Unlike so many of our present day summons to praise, it is not for granting us good homes, good jobs, political freedom, healthy children, or any of the blessings we may or may not experience in this life. Perhaps we have unwittingly become victims of the very consumerism we hope to escape in our culture, when our praise is a matter of giving God the credit for our possessing of the very same goods the rest of the world is chasing. We're often somewhat puzzled when we don't share in them.

But the call to praise is for so much more than these things, all of which perish with us or even before us. It is for the crowning achievement of God's grace--the provision of redemption from the very decay which claims soul, body, and all of the goods we attach so closely and carefully therewith. And it frees us to live with an eye to God and how we might reflect that glory in whatever circumstances we find ourselves caught up in.

With so many asking why God, if He exists, does not do something about our many troubles, the word must come from His praising people: Oh, but He has and He is! He has answered evil in Christ by taking it onto Himself; and He is in the process of making the redemption effective through the most unlikely of assistants--us, with all of our brokenness, now made to be partakers of and witnesses to so great a salvation!

Yes, bless the Lord, oh my soul.