Psalm 148
Lesson Focus
God is truly Immanuel, God with us, working on us and through us so that the world might be what it was created to be.
Lesson Outcomes
Through this lesson, students should
Understand the dual nature of Christmas anticipation—celebrating Christ's birth and eagerly awaiting His return—and recognize its significance in shaping their faith.
Gain insight into the challenges and brokenness of the world, exploring how the psalmist's cosmic hymn of praise encourages hope, courage, and faith in the midst of adversity.
Be encouraged to offer praise to God through fulfilling their intended purpose.
Catching Up on the Story
This week is the first week of Christmas. We’ve come through Advent anticipating the arrival of our salvation, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Our anticipation during Advent isn’t confined to our anticipation of Jesus’ birth but includes our patient waiting for Christ to return.
As a community of faith, we confess that Christ has come and is coming again. The events we celebrate on Christmas Day make no sense without an anticipation that Christ will come and return to make things right.
The Text
This anticipation that Christ would come again makes sense to us because we feel in our very bones that all is not right with the world. There seems to be so much that has gone wrong; we feel it at every level. Hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes, and deadly viruses plague our physical world, wreaking havoc on all living creatures, not just humans.
The list of things that negatively affect humans is too extensive to mention. No one needs to be reminded of cancer, strokes, crime, or corruption by those in power. And we certainly do not need to be reminded of death. It is an ever-present reality.
We’ve all experienced the reality of the world's brokenness, both that affects our physical world and the things from which humans suffer. If you have been fortunate enough not to have had to endure the troubles of this world, sooner or later, you will. That’s just the way things go.
But this is the first Sunday of Christmas, so why the glum introduction? After the anticipation of the last few weeks, there’s often a letdown after the holidays are over. Personally, I feel it before the sun sets on Christmas Day. All the food, gift giving, merriment and music is over, and we’re thrust back into the cold, harsh reality of winter and real life.
We’ve sung joy to the world in celebration of the coming of our salvation, but then we look out the window and wonder, “What’s changed?” There are still hurricanes and cancer. The conflict between people and nations continues unabated. The loved one we lost this last year is still dead, and friends and families still have severe and life-threatening health issues.
In that world, we continue to focus on Christ’s return. To anticipate Christ’s return is not just to name the fact that the world is not as it should be but to hope that it will one day be what God knows it can be.
A Cosmic Hymn of Praise
As we inhabit this broken world, we are confronted with today’s text, Psalm 148.
It’s a cosmic hymn of praise, written in the middle of the same chaotic and broken world in which you and I live. The realities of life for the psalmist were the same as the ones we face today. Albeit we’re a little more skilled and efficient at harming one another, we’re also better at healing folks, too.
It takes a lot of nerve and a fair amount of courage to write a psalm like this in the middle of a broken world. It takes hope, too. And faith. It takes courage to issue a summons to all of the created world to enter into praise of the God who created it. Why should I offer praise to God when life is so thoroughly cruel? Why should I believe that the world could be anything other than what it is? Yes, it takes real courage to call the world to praise when death is so near. I refuse to believe that the psalmist was naive to the difficulties surrounding him. So, with great boldness, the psalmist exhorts, no demands, that all of God’s creation enter into praise. The structure of the psalm is simple.
The psalm begins with a call to praise from the topmost of the created order, the heavens, the angels, and all the heavenly hosts. All of the things that we do not see but are there are called to enter into praise. From there, the psalmist moves downward, calling the sun and the moon, the highest heavens, and the “waters above the heavens” to praise. Of course, the ancient understanding of how our physical world is organized differs from our own. They could not have conceived of what lay beyond the bounds of the great big blue sky.
“Waters above the heavens” throws us back to the very beginning, to Genesis 1. Even the stuff that was before we were is called to praise. It’s in verse 5 that the psalmist gives us the reason for our call to praise, and it is the very fact that creation happens. The call to praise God is because God called things forth into existence, and it goes to everything and everyone mentioned in the Psalm. God is to be praised simply because we (all of creation) exist.
As we get down to verse seven and following, you might ask how it is that sea monsters, fire and hail, snow and frost, and stormy wind are to enter into praise. Or, how do mountains and hill, fruit trees, and animals, both wild and domesticated, praise their creator? These things, certainly not fire and hail, have no mind or will to offer up praise.
What if the snow praises God simply by being snow? What if the stormy wind praises God by being wind, by doing what it was created to do, and by being what it was designed to be? (Mays, 444). Is that not what would bring the creator the most joy, seeing the works of his hands flourish in the way they were created? God is praised every time the wind blows, or the rain falls, or when the cattle munches grass in the field when the birds flap their wings overhead and sing their beautiful song.
Interestingly, “Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and rulers of the earth” are listed after wild animals. I think we’re not as high in importance as we sometimes think we are! If it's true that the wind and waves praise God by doing what they were created to do, then how do we praise God? Is it true that we most fully praise God when we do the things we were created to do? I think so. And what were we created to do?
We were created to be in a relationship with the one who made us. We were created to love God with all our beings and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We find doing either of those things difficult because we have come to believe that we are the creators of our own lives, and we wrest control away from the one who created us. We were not created to control. We were not made to dominate each other or creation. As with most things, when an item or a person undertakes a task for which it was not created, it ends up broken. A plastic fork makes a terrible snow shovel. It was not created to lift heavy snow. We were created to love, and when we do not love, we end up broken, too. Then, soon enough, our brokenness cascades and causes a chain of brokenness all through God’s good creation.
Verse 14 reminds us that our brokenness and the world's brokenness is not its final state. “He has raised up a horn for his people” is an idiom for God bestowing dignity and strength upon us (Schaefer, 343). God is not done with us or our world, even though we often do not do the things we were created to do. The psalm ends with a reminder that we are close to God. We are reminded that even though we are broken, we should praise God because God is near and has not abandoned us.
So What?
Because God has not abandoned us, we can stand today and respond to the psalmist’s invitation to praise our creator. Because God has not thrown us all out and started over, we can call on each other to lift our voices and lift our lives in praise.
With courage, we can call creation to praise because, in faith, we anticipate the time when Christ returns, and we can praise God by being and doing what we were created to be and do in the fullest sense possible.
So, take heart! Though the world is not how it should be, we are not as we should be, God is truly Immanuel, God with us, working on us and through us so that the world might be what it was created to be.
Group Discussion Questions
Read the text aloud. Then, read the text to yourself quietly. Read it slowly, as if you were very unfamiliar with the story.
How does anticipating Christ's return contribute to a deeper understanding of Christmas beyond celebrating Jesus’ birth?
In what ways does the brokenness described in the text resonate with your personal experiences or observations of the world?
Reflect on the psalmist's courage to call for praise in the midst of a broken world. How can this perspective influence our approach to faith in challenging times?
Consider the hierarchy of elements called to praise in Psalm 148. What significance can be drawn from the order, and how might it relate to our role in creation?
Explore the idea that everything in creation praises God simply by being what it was created to be. How can humans apply this principle in their lives?
Discuss the role of humanity in praising God, especially in comparison to other elements of creation. How does our understanding of importance align with the psalmist's hierarchy?
In what ways do we wrest control away from the Creator in our lives, and how does this contribute to brokenness individually and collectively?
Consider the reminder that, despite brokenness, God is close and has not abandoned us. How does this assurance influence our ability to praise God in challenging circumstances?
Discuss practical ways in which the group can encourage each other to lift their voices and lives in praise, acknowledging God's ongoing work in shaping the world according to His purpose.
Works Cited
Mays, James Luther. Psalms. Interpretation, a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1994.
Schaefer, Konrad. Psalms. Edited by David W. Cotter, Jerome T. Walsh, and Chris Franke. Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001.
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