Let me make a few introductory remarks: First, I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. Second, I know I haven’t finished my devotional series on The Gospel of Matthew. Forgive me. But I’m currently doing this series of sermons and I thought I’d share them.
Maybe finishing Matthew will be my New Year’s resolution. Maybe! 😉
Psalm 136 has a familiar refrain. For many Lutheran families it serves as a brief prayer before or after mealtime: “O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, His mercy endures forever.” It’s a simple phrase of thanksgiving and praise, but it’s packed full of theology at the same time.
It’s a simple refrain, but it is a difficult verse to accurately translate from the original ancient Hebrew in which it was first composed. Bible scholars are at a loss for how to adequately convey the meaning of one little word in this verse: The Hebrew word khesed. I’ll say it again: “O GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD FOR HE IS GOOD, HIS KHESED ENDURES FOR EVER. Traditionally, the King James used “mercy.” But the word “mercy” doesn’t fully convey the meaning of khesed. Other English translations use a variety of expressions: faithful love, loving-kindness, steadfast love, or even grace.
Khesed is cram-packed with meaning expressing all of God’s never-ending, always-there, ever-faithful love for you. A love that is so much more and so very different from the kind of ordinary love we talk about. For starters, unlike human love, God’s love is never earned—certainly not— it’s not only not earned, it’s the opposite of earned; it’s undeserved. It’s is a love that is based solely on grace alone.
No one deserves God’s love. I don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve it. Yet, God has chosen you and me to be the recipients of His love, anyway. And (this may surprise you) it’s not because God sympathizes with you or even feels sorry for you. To the contrary, He has great wrath towards you… and me, too! He is a Holy God. We are sinners. We are selfish, sinful creatures. We deserve His punishment. Yet, amazingly, and for some mysterious reason, God’s love is for us anyway.
How can this be? That’s a good question.
How can God love those whom He has every reason to hate?
We can’t possibly love someone we hate. But God can! He can, because His love is based not upon fickle feelings nor is it based on any merit or worthiness in us. His love is based upon His commitment to us and His promises—His Word—all the promises He made to men like Adam, Abraham, Moses and David. Because God never breaks His promises and because His Word never changes, God’ love than really is steadfast and it truly does endure forever.
Maybe the best way for us to understand the Lord’s khesed is with a picture-story: Imagine a day and time long ago in the days of emperors whose every word was law, whose courts were ablaze with wealth, robed in the finest fabrics and colors, bedazzled with jewels–gold all aglow–and sweet fragrance all around. They were almost godlike (that’s how the ancients sometimes regarded their rulers). But imagine such a spectacular emperor deciding one day to descend from his throne and leave behind his palace and finery and he goes out into the desert, desolate and scorched. He heads toward a squalid encampment that stinks and buzzes with flies. The stench is unbearable for him, but he enters the encampment, nonetheless. The indigent and diseased are the best this camp offers, the worst of the worst—vagabonds, charlatans, and thieves have gravitated here. They fight and scuffle and claw at one another, fighting over crusts of bread and stale food and rotten pieces of meat. So consumed are they with their base needs and craven hunger that they don’t even notice the emperor standing there in all his finery and beauty.
You might wonder why would such a grand emperor go to such a terrible place? Is he here to eradicate his land of such vermin? Has he come to pronounce judgement?
Surprisingly the answer is NO.
There he stands, where no one would ever expect him to be, and even as they fling themselves around in their filth and fight over stale bread, the emperor proclaims mercy. He declares love. He even calls out to these filthy, violent people, “Come, and be my people, my family. I declare you to be my children and heirs of my kingdom. Live with me under my care and protection. This is my promise. Always it will be yours. My free gift to you. Just come! Please come!”
Of course, this little story doesn’t make much sense, does it? We can’t quite conceive of any emperor doing this, at least not an earthly one. And that only makes the idea of a heavenly King doing this seem even more unlikely.
However, this is exactly what Psalm 136 is saying. This is the mystery it’s expressing. Khesed is the mysterious, nonsensical, wonderfully amazing love of God for sinners like us. “O Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever.” And like a heartbeat, this psalm literally throbs with it. It demonstrates how every aspect of our life—our past and present moments—pulsate with the certainty of God’s love for us.
This psalm bursts with joy and celebration at God’s inexplicable but very true and timely love and kindness that He shows His people throughout the ages. Psalm 136 points us all the way back to the beginning; God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, the sun, the moon and the stars. It recounts the great moments when God rescued Hs people from Egypt and led them through the Red Sea. He gave his people victory over the great kings, Shion of the Ammorites and Og of Bashan. He delivered to them the Promised Land. He never failed to keep any of His promises.
On and on, line by line, this psalm recounts all the wonderful things God has done, but then notice also where it ends: with today’s dinner. The psalmist does not intend for us simply to recite the glories of some bygone age, some long ago time when God still performed wonders; No, the psalmist brings the story to the here and now, right to our next meal. The psalm ends with the food on your plate. It screams out the truth that our God continues to show His love for us through the millennia that have passed between Og of Bashan and the Frosted Flakes you had for breakfast. Because if God could do such wonders as part the red sea, then why would He not provide for you in the details of today?
“O Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His steadfast love endures forever.”
And if you don’t get this the first time or the second time or the twentieth time, the psalmist beats us in the head 26 times with the glorious news that God’s faithful love and outrageous grace endures forever. It’s a message that is repeated in every single verse of the psalm. Reminding me, that as long as I’m alive, God’s faithful love is my lifeline. As long as I have breath, I can bank on it. Lean on it. Trust in it and push further and further into it. I am rooted in its breadth and length and height and depth. Because God’s grace won’t expire. His love has no shelf life.
Even as we sit down to eat lunch, how good it is to pray “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, His mercy endures forever.” But it’s a prayer I can pray at more than just meals. I can sing this refrain in the grand and glorious moments of life and in the dark and scary things of life, and somewhere—everywhere—right in between. In the light and in the darkness, no matter the circumstances of life, again and again, His steadfast love endures forever! His steadfast love endures forever!
Singing this psalm is simply acknowledging that the sufferings of this world cannot defeat us and they won’t endure. They are temporary. They cannot outlast the steadfast love of God in Christ.
And so, just consider then what all this means concerning Christmas. It was His love for us on that first Christmas that compelled our Lord to go from commanding angels to sleeping in straw meant for cattle. From holding stars to clutching Mary’s finger. The holy hands that held the universe would bleed as they took the nails driven in by a cruel soldier. Why? Because that’s what steadfast love does—steadfast-amazing-merciful-kind-love that endures forever. Yes indeed, the unlikely is reality! The Emperor has really come into the desert to claim the likes of you and me.
And this is what we all need to hear, all the time! “O give thanks unto the Lord, for His mercy endures forever.” Amen.
O Lord, open my lips... 