Home » Old Testament » Psalms »
Psalm 148
Easter 5C
Some years back at a worship service we used St. Francis of Assisi’s poem “Canticle of the Sun” as part of a responsive reading. There was, alas, a slight typo in the bulletin that made it sound at one point as though we were worshiping Mother Earth. This led a rather conservative member of my…
Psalm 23
Easter 4C
Presidential funerals always draw a huge television audience. We have seen it for Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and most recently for George H.W. Bush. But when you watch such services, you need not have the funeral program in your hands to guess that probably at some point some pastor is going to…
Psalm 30
Easter 3C
A friend of mine who passed away last year on Easter used to respond to life’s oft-difficult circumstances by saying, “Ah well, joy cometh in the morning.” Or at least joy may come in the morning but most of us know altogether too well that sometimes it doesn’t. Or the “morning” in question ends up…
Psalm 150
Easter 2C
Whether it’s a Broadway play like Les Miserables or a classic movie like The Sound of Music, most people enjoy a good musical. But have you ever wondered what it is about such productions that appeals to us? After all, musicals are decidedly unlike real life. In The Sound of Music people burst into song…
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Easter Sunday
Comments, Observations, and Questions Call it the little Psalm that could. Call it the Psalm of stealth and surprise. Call it the Psalm that fits the Gospel bill. Why? Because out of all the 150 psalms in the Hebrew Psalter, many people have their favorites but those favorites—most anybody’s “Top 10 Greatest Hits of the…
Psalm 31:9-16
Palm Sunday
Comments, Observations, and Questions It is Palm/Passion Sunday and so God’s people come to church. We Christians come to church because we believe when we do, we come into the presence of God. We believe in God and so we believe God is faithful to the promise that when we gather in God’s name, God…
Psalm 126
Lent 5C
For a Lenten selection, this psalm is pretty sunny-side up and cheerful. Maybe as Lent is coming to a close, we are supposed to see in this poem the promise of restoration beyond the cross toward which we are journeying this season. This is, after all, one of the “Songs of Ascent” in the Book…
Psalm 32
Lent 4C
Most of his friends had been hanged. But despite his central role in helping to construct Adolf Hitler’s Nazi nightmare, Albert Speer somehow managed to receive from the Nuremberg trials only a twenty-year sentence at the Spandau Prison in Berlin. Not long after arriving in Spandau, Speer met with the prison chaplain. To the chaplain’s…
Psalm 63:1-8
Lent 3C
When a psalm is as relatively brief as Psalm 63 and yet you notice that the Lectionary would have you stop reading—and presumably stop preaching—three verses shy of the actual conclusion of the poem, one might be justified in wondering what’s up. What is in those last few verses? Why the full stop before this…
Psalm 27
Lent 2C
C.S. Lewis said somewhere that when you add it all up and consider it all together, in the end we would all find that our prayer life is also our autobiography. Who we are, where we’ve been, the situations we’ve faced, the fears that nag us, and not a few of the core characteristics of…
Content related to Psalms