WADING RIVER CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH

SERMONS IN PRINT

Peter Vibert 7/23/06

Psalm 118:1-29 “His Love Endures Forever”

“Give thanks to the LORD!” Why? Because “He is good, and his steadfast love endures forever.” Psalm 118 is one of the most quoted in the NT, and contains more verses that have been memorized, made into songs and hymns, embroidered into wall hangings, than almost any other Psalm.

As in Psalm 116, the speaker rejoices in the rescue and salvation that the LORD brought to him in distress; but in this Psalm the joy is communal and not just personal. All Israel, all the priestly house of Aaron, all the believers are called to join in the festivity as a triumphal procession enters the city gates to go the Temple. Perhaps the Psalm remembers the Exodus, perhaps the victory of a king like David over Israel’s surrounding nations, perhaps the return of the exiles from Babylon; perhaps all these and more. It takes on an even richer meaning in the Gospels – perhaps you caught the familiar phrases that tell you what the NT makes of this Psalm?

1) Blessed Is He Who Comes

At least 5 different places in the NT, verses from Ps 118 are applied to Jesus. In addition, in all 4 Gospels we also hear “O Lord, save us! (Hosanna! in Hebrew)... Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.” It is Palm Sunday, and the king is entering the gates of his city to go to the Temple in festive procession. Days later, as Jesus faces opposition from the priests and Pharisees, he demands of them “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone. The Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.’ ” (Mt 21:42).

It is Jesus who proclaims the victory of Psalm 118, who rejoices in the powerful “right hand of the LORD;” who affirms “I will not die but live.” He is the “rejected stone” chosen by God and vindicated by resurrection. Peter tells the Sanhedrin after Pentecost, “Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead... is ‘the stone you builders rejected which has become the capstone’ ” (Acts 4:10-11), and in his 1^st letter writes that Jesus is “the chosen and precious cornerstone” (1 Peter 2:6-8). Now Jesus and all his followers say “The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.”

As Christians we need to rediscover this joy, this certainty, this celebration! Let Israel say “His love endures forever.” Let all who fear the LORD say “His love endures forever.” Let Wading River say “His love endures forever.” Let Shoreham and Ridge and Rocky Point and all Long Island say “His love endures forever.” Let VBS workers and grandparents and parents of young children and empty-nesters say “His love endures forever!” “I shall not die, but I shall live.” “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good”!

2) The LORD Is With Me

It is a festive song, but there are also signs within it of lessons learned in the journey from suffering to victory. The Psalmist comes to the altar of God to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, but he comes as someone who has learned truths along the way that he will not forget.

Because the LORD answered him, and the nation, in times of distress, he can now say “the LORD is with me; what can man do to me?” He has learned what you and I still need to internalize if we are believers who have entrusted our lives, our eternal souls, our families, our futures to Jesus Christ as Lord. “What can man do to me?”

Too often, that scares us. “Man” can do a lot to us – employers can fire us, the IRS can haunt us, our children can despise and shame us, our spouses can sadden and hurt us. We have to run faster and work harder to provide security and a future for our families. It is not so much wanting to fulfill “the American dream” as it is to stave off disaster. Do you know what a week in a good nursing home now costs in this area of Long Island? More than a week on an Alaskan cruise ship, as someone reminded us last week!

For those who trust in the Lord, there is this bedrock assurance: “The Lord is with me; what can man do to me?” If you don’t know that deep in your soul, you need to learn it. Nothing, nothing - in this world or the next – can separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ, says the Apostle Paul. Nothing! Do you believe that? Have you experienced that? Some of you, I know, have – and others of you are doing so right now as you go through some of the pain this fallen world has to offer. “The Lord is with me; what can man do to me?”

3) Do Not Trust In Princes

The Psalmist has also learned the flip side of that truth – The LORD can protect you against all that “man” can do to you – therefore “It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man... it is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.”

The princes of this world are not people in whom you should place too much trust. If you do, then you can be sure that at times you will be disappointed, dismayed, ashamed, hurt. I was reflecting this week that every US President since Eisenhower has at some point disappointed or dismayed even his closest supporters. And do not imagine you can get around the problem by trusting in principles or policies or programs instead of princes – because they too will let you down. A policy of “civilizing the world” will earn you contempt, as the British found; a plan to export “freedom and democracy” to the world will get you Hamas elected, as the US has now discovered (remember that even the Nazis were elected to power). And in the end, the princes of this world always care more about popularity than about principles.

“Do not put your trust in princes” says the Psalmist, here and in Psalm 146. They are all too human, and they will disappoint you. Whether they are politicians, “princes of the church” (Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox), pastors of churches, employers or spouses – do not put your ultimate trust in them: put it in the Lord, the God who made you, who sustains you and redeems you. He is the only one who will be a refuge when you need it, and whose love is steadfast and endures forever, because he alone is truly “good”!

4) The Rejected Stone

What else did the Psalmist learn? That people the world rejects can be chosen by God. His ways are not our ways, and his values are not our values. Things and people we imagine to be of no worldly significance can be the most precious of all to him.

Of Jesus it was prophesied that “He had no beauty that we should desire him... he was despised and rejected” (Isaiah 53:2-30). Of his followers, Paul said “Not many of you were wise by human standards ... not many influential... not many of noble birth” (1 Cor 1:26). But that is God’s way. “The stone the builders rejected” becomes the capstone (as in an arch) or the cornerstone (as in a foundation). In the eyes of the world, Jesus was a nobody from nowhere. So was Abraham, so was Moses, so was David, so was Mary the mother of Jesus, so were Jesus’ closest friends.

So are you and I. And that’s OK, because we are the kind of nobodies God can use and often chooses for his work; nobodies in obscure places. It is true down to the finest level. The most important people in a church like this, or any congregation, are probably people you know nothing about. They are lonely widows who sit at home and pray for the Holy Spirit to be released in this church and this community. They are people who pick up the phone every day to check on the welfare of someone in need. They are people who slip into an envelope much more than they can afford to give, but who believe God calls them to support generously and sacrificially his church here and around the world.

I have mentioned before that there is a small handful of people who have been the greatest spiritual support to me here in the past ten years; in several cases, if I mentioned their names, many of you would say “Who?” But that is God’s way – to use what by worldly standards is of little value to do powerful things in his hands. What he wants is people who are available – perhaps feeling rejected by the world, but available to him – whom he can use. Are you willing to be one of them?

5) This Is The Day

Finally, amidst the rich gold-mine of this Psalm, lies one of the writer’s jewels of discovery. “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Perhaps he was referring to the day of festive procession through the city gates to the Temple; perhaps it was in fact a festival day - Passover or Pentecost or Tabernacles. Perhaps it was a Sabbath. The church adopted it to mean “the Lord’s Day” – Sunday, when Jesus arose – and took Psalm 118 into its liturgy at Morning Prayer, as it is today in e.g. the Orthodox Church. The Western Catholic Church took it to refer to Easter, and used Psalm 118 then.

But ordinary Christians have always grasped that it was about ordinary days – that this is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it! Have you grasped that yet? This is the day we have been given; not yesterday, which is already history; not tomorrow, which may never come; but today. If we do not rejoice in this day, there is no reason to expect there will ever be a day worth rejoicing in!

We cannot live in the misty glories of the past – they are gone now, and will not come back. Memory is a wonderful thing, dreams can be sweet, nostalgia has it bitter-sweet charms; but they are no place to live for long. And do not suppose you can just mark time waiting for a better tomorrow – when your husband has learned to be more considerate, when your children have become tidier, when you have found a better-paying job, when you have retired. These things may or may not come, and if they do, will bring their compensations, but none will taste as you imagine they will, or be enough to satisfy; and each will bring its own new set of challenges and difficulties.

This is the day the Lord has made! Let us be thankful for it; use every day for what it has to offer, and not ever “kill time” waiting for something better to turn up. This the day – let us rejoice and be glad in what God has blessed us with today!

Even when things are “not what they used to be,” when the world seems to be “passing us by” – when we feel perhaps a little rejected and diminished by life and by certain people – we must learn to rejoice in the day, to rejoice in God’s grace to us, to rejoice in his goodness... for there will never be a better day then today to “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.”

Let us pray...