Let Us Rejoice – Psalm 118

A text – Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

¹ O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!

² Let Israel say, “His steadfast love endures forever.”

¹⁴ The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation.

¹⁵ There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the Lord does valiantly;
¹⁶ the right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly.”
¹⁷ I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord.
¹⁸ The Lord has punished me severely, but he did not give me over to death.

¹⁹ Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.

²⁰ This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.

²¹ I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.
²² The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
²³ This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
²⁴ This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

A reflection:

This psalm is a traditional song of Passover in the Jewish faith. As I understand it, it is often sung at the end of a Passover feast to celebrate the greatness of God and to remember how the people were delivered from Egypt. Since it is that kind of song, it may even have been sung by Jesus and the disciples as they left the upper room after the Last Supper. Now, as we read this psalm during Holy Week and Easter, what difference might it make to imagine Jesus himself singing these words?

“God’s steadfast love endures; the Lord is my strength; I shall not die but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord; Open to me the gates of righteousness; I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation; The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone; This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes; This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Can you imagine this psalm as a song, as images that Jesus carried with him from the upper room into the Garden of Gethsemane, to the courts of the High Priest, Pilate, and Herod? We know Jesus was in agony in the garden, but these pictures of a trustworthy God into whose hands he was placing his life might have been a comfort to him. Yes, even the day of his crucifixion was a day that the Lord had made.

One of the three persons of the Triune God was willing to give up his life, trusting the steadfast love of God to raise him again so that human beings like you and me could also trust the steadfast love of God, could know that death is no longer permanent. The man that the church of Jesus’s day rejected became the chief cornerstone of our eternal life. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. Let us never forget that this marvelous act of love is what Easter means. “When Jesus died, God re-alived him,” says my grandson. So may it be for us all.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for being the kind of God who breaks death for us so that we might come to you for life eternal. Help us always to remember with joy this act of our God, the Three-in-One, and to let us rejoice and be glad in it. Amen.