A Song for the Godly (Ps. 149)

You're singing along in Psalm 149, "The Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation." Amen! Lord, you love the humble!!

"Let the godly exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their beds" – Yes, Lord, I love to sing on my bed as I'm going to sleep!

"Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations..."

Uh...
Huh?
Did I just sing that?

I daresay that there are not too many churches that sing Psalm 149 very often! Or at all.

But Walter Brueggemann warns us:

"If this psalm becomes too dangerous to sing in our more bourgeois liturgies, then we may want to consider how such liturgy becomes innocuous and cuts God off from God's deeply rooted social intention." (Brueggemann in Goldingay, 743)

A church that has no place for singing Psalm 149 in her liturgy is a church that has redefined God into a figment of their own imagination.

God's purpose in history is to subdue the nations under the rule of his beloved Son! In a very real way, I think that these texts become more clear in the light of Revelation.

When we see the end of history more clearly, it makes more sense of what the middle is all about.