The Third Sunday in Lent [a] March 15, 2020
Psalm 95:1-9
1 Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
3 For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
In the Name of Jesus.
The Psalm is a prayer. A prayer given us by our Lord. An intercession to God in Heaven from the lips of those who belong to him. It is an intercession he wants to hear from our lips.
1 Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
[Psalm 95:1]
Those are the first words our Lord gives us in this Psalm. They are words we are given to speak not to him, but to one another—we are encouraging one another:
Oh, Come, Let us sing to the Lord.
In this short petition our Lord gives us so much.
First, we are bound together, all of us, as brothers and sisters in Christ, in such a way that we speak to each other in encouragement.
Second, as we speak to one another in encouragement, we are inviting each another to come to the Lord’s Name to receive his gifts.
Third, we are inviting one another to join as one voice to make a joyful noise. And that noise is joyful because it is “to the Rock of our salvation.” That is, we have a Savior, we are justified by faith in that Savior, and that Savior is our Lord Jesus Christ. [Romans 5:1]
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
[Psalm 95:2]
In this encouragement we are given to speak to one another, we remind each other with words of thanksgiving. For to give thanks is to rejoice in knowing that all that we have is from our Lord, he is the one who cares for us, and we now sing to him with that joy, praising his Name.
For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
[Psalm 95:3]
We pray to our Lord who is the Creator of all. There is no power above him, either in Heaven or on Earth. Our every breath comes from him, our every care we commend to him.
In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
[Psalm 95:4-5]
All things are in his hands.
We give petition to our God for the Earth and all things around us, praying that in hurricane or earthquake, in pestilence or famine, he cares for us, as he has promised to do.
We pray to him for all the things of the created order. This includes the things of our parents and our children, of our families and our neighbor. It includes those given to serve us in positions of authority, the prince and the king, or, in our case, the president, the governor, the mayor, and all given public office.
We commend them to our Lord’s care that they would use their offices to protect families and all persons, and that we would give them due respect and help as we are able.
We pray for the police officers and first responders, for the doctors and nurses, commending them to our Lord’s care, that they would do well in providing safety and medical care, and would receive due honor from us.
We pray for our neighbor, that our neighbor would be kept in health, and where our neighbor is sick or weak or even just fearful, we rejoice in helping our neighbor as we are able and in speaking encouragement.
And especially at a time such as these days now, we pray for our neighbor and our nation. We know that our President has declared the Coronavirus to be a national emergency.
We may not know or understand the scope of this, we may not agree with all the assessments being made, but we give thanks to our Lord for the president and all governing authorities.
We do not panic, we do not fear, for we know that we belong to the Lord who is our Shepherd, and in this faith we pray that our authorities handle things with wisdom, and that they receive, as the Catechism puts it, honor, service, and obedience from us and our fellow citizens.
Especially at a time such as this, we pray for those who may be especially susceptible, and we pray for the doctors and nurses and medical providers, that they may have much success in their service to us and our neighbor.
And we pray with confidence and thanksgiving, for our God is our Shepherd who loves us, and we are the people of his pasture.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
We pray to our God in the confidence that he is, indeed, our God. He has named us as his children, himself as our God, and he will not depart us.
We are the people of his pasture, the sheep of his hand.
He cares for us as a shepherd not letting his sheep go without good water, as a shepherd guarding his sheep from the wolf, as a shepherd, even, who lays down his life for the sheep.
God has shown his love for us in that, even while we were still sinners, he gave his Son to die for us. [Romans 5:8]
Through Christ, we have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. [Romans 5:9]
Because he is our Shepherd and we his sheep, and because by his blood he has given us access to grace in which we stand, we pray to him in worship.
A worship which receives gifts from him. For to worship God in faith is not to bring gifts to God to make him happy, but is to come to him to receive all good gifts from him.
To worship God in faith is to know that even as we suffer, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that he is our God who loves us, and this suffering produces endurance.
And enduring this suffering produces character—a character by which we know that we are his people, he is our Lord, and in our every doubt or weakness or fear, we commend ourselves to him.
For, this character he gives us, this character of knowing that we are his, produces, says Paul, hope. [Romans 5:4]
Romans 5:8:
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
In the Name of Jesus.