January 23, 2011

“Psalms of Thanksgiving: Living Praise”

1 Chronicles 13:1-8
Psalm 147
Matthew 19:13-15

Praise ye the Lord, hallelujah! Everybody praise the Lord! (sung, with congregation joining in)

Psalms of praise and thanksgiving are often the most popular, familiar, and well-loved of all the psalms. They are the prayers that appear most often in the lectionary and in the Christian church’s great festival Sundays. And if you flip through the book of Psalms, you’ll find a praise psalm within seconds. There are lots of them! And many of them have been set to music, so you can find lots of them in our hymn books as well.

In some ways, psalms of praise and thanksgiving are simple. They express the kind of thoughts and feelings that seem appropriate for church. They tell of God’s goodness and power and love. They say thank you to God for all the good things God has done.

Psalms of praise fit right in with our expectations of what worship should include, and they seem appropriate for all of our celebrations. We stand, we sing, we read, we sit. Praise done orderly and respectfully, just like the way we pray.

Praise ye the Lord, hallelujah! Everybody praise the Lord!

Our ancient ancestors had a different way … Read more »