Read Psalm 148.
Psalm 148 is a summons. A passionate call to the entire created world, seen and unseen, “to answer back to the one who gave them life.” Every act of creation, those personal and perennial products of God speaking powerfully, is united in a progressive intimacy of veneration. Reread Psalm 148.
Notice how the psalmist begins with the distant—from sight—divines of “the heavens,” then moves closer to the celestial bodies whose separation does not elude our gaze. Then he draws our attention to the vast edifices that mark earthliness before bringing us into the realm of breath and blood that fills the dirt and skies. Each act of creation, the first five days in Genesis 1, congregates in worship along with the sixth day’s work: men and maidens, princes and paupers. What binds us with creation, and what bonds use across extremes is a “joyful preoccupation with God.”
The psalmist could have stopped at verse 13. Having summoned us to respond to God’s creative power in the very fact that life exists at all, where else might our attention and adoration land? But the psalmist doesn’t stop at verse 13; he adds one more declaration beyond creation that summons a response from you and me. He says,
The LORD has raised up a horn for his people,
praise for all his saints,
for the people of Israel [God’s chosen children] who are near
to him.
Praise the LORD!
The same power that creates also redeems and delivers from anti-creation—that’s what “raised up a horn” means. We know God in his creating, but we are “known by God” (Gal. 4:9) in his saving. We are summoned to respond not merely because we were created—which would be reason enough—but because we are loved, set-a-part (i.e., “his saints”) uniquely so that we might be “near” in body, mind, and soul to our Creator. We are called to answer back with our tongues and our lives because God knows us and draws us near to him!
How will you, will I respond to the summons of the psalmist this week?
As a little extra, several scholars believe that Psalm 149 was composed as a reflection of 148:14, “written to enlarge on the subject which emerged only in that final verse—that special calling of Israel…” Perhaps Psalm 149 could help enlarge our response to our special calling as children of our heavenly Father too.
- Jeremy Pace