Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
✙ Ps. 150:6 ✙
My personal year comes to a close today, and as I read the final verse of the psalter I'm reminded of an exchange Jesus had on Palm Sunday [see Luke 19:38-40] when all his followers began shouting, “Blessed is the King who comes in the Name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
Also present in the crowd welcoming him were some Pharisees, and here we see that it's possible that some Pharisees weren't Jesus' enemies, but friends who were trying to prevent the trouble that was to come. “Teacher," they implored him, "order your disciples to stop.”
But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
I can almost imagine the psalmist saying, as Jesus did, that if creatures with breath refuse to do it, the rocks will glorify God on earth, and heretofore lifeless meteors in orbit around the sun will join in the song until even the heavens ring with God's praises!
It's appropriate then that the final verse of the final psalm enjoin me to praise. For what else can I do but praise the One who gives me both a song to sing and a voice with which to sing it?
Also present in the crowd welcoming him were some Pharisees, and here we see that it's possible that some Pharisees weren't Jesus' enemies, but friends who were trying to prevent the trouble that was to come. “Teacher," they implored him, "order your disciples to stop.”
But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
I can almost imagine the psalmist saying, as Jesus did, that if creatures with breath refuse to do it, the rocks will glorify God on earth, and heretofore lifeless meteors in orbit around the sun will join in the song until even the heavens ring with God's praises!
It's appropriate then that the final verse of the final psalm enjoin me to praise. For what else can I do but praise the One who gives me both a song to sing and a voice with which to sing it?
Let music swell the breeze,
and ring from all the trees—
sweet freedom's song.
Let mortal tongues awake;
let all that breathe partake;
let rocks their silence break,
the sound prolong!
—Samuel Francis Smith
hal hopson • Prayer of Thankful Praise • Shenandoah Christian Music Campa
