The people of God’s pasture
Psalm 95
1 O 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 the dry land, which his hands have formed.
6 O 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.
O that today you would listen to his voice!
8 Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your ancestors tested me,
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they do not regard my ways.’
11 Therefore in my anger I swore,
‘They shall not enter my rest.’
We like the start of this psalm. The call to worship God, to make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. For God is great, great over all other gods. God holds all things, the sea (which for the ancient Israelites who were not used to sailing on a body of water large that Lake Galilee was a metaphor for the chaos that sometimes invades life) and the dry land – that is all of creation. So, vs. 1-5 are safe, comfortable ground upon which to worship and praise God.
Vs. 6, 7 – move us from recognizing God at the one who holds creation in his hands, to inviting us to give our lives into God’s hands. That comes in two ways. Bow and kneel, in vs. 6, are signs that we are giving leadership, guidance, control of our lives over to God. Placing ourselves under his guidance and lead. Then in vs. 7, we are the sheep of God’s flock, The flock he loves and cares for, but also who follow the lead, voice, command of the shepherd.
Then vs. 8-11, the psalm takes a serious tone, describing the ways ion which the people of Israel during their wanderings in the wilderness of Sinai were disobedient to God’s lead, God’s voice, God’s command.
The psalm ends with an unspoken question: Which way will the reader of this psalm go – following the pattern of the people of Israel in the wilderness, or the way of the invitation in vs. 6 and 7 of letting God lead our lives? May we choose the path of vs. 6 and 7, to let God be our shepherd.
PRAYER:
We love to sing your praises, O Lord, to rejoice in what you have done in creation and in offering us salvation. We confess that we do not always rejoice at the thought of bending our wills, bowing our desires to you and kneeling before you. Move in us by your Holy Spirit that we might be shaped into people who rejoice not only to hear but also to obey your voice. In Jesus’ name. Amen.