The “First and Fundamental Act of Worship”: A Mediation on Psalm 100

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
    It is he who made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving
    and his courts with praise;
    give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
    his faithfulness continues through all generations.

This Thanksgiving I am drawn to the simplicity of Psalm 100 because I know what follows the day of thanks. In spite of my best efforts to practice Advent, the culture thrusts the Christmas season upon me the moment I finish my turkey dinner. Life gets busy and hectic. The race to the next celebration begins before the leftovers are stored in the fridge.

Fortunately, Thanksgiving remains a relatively simple and blessed holiday in my world. I spend time eating a meal with people I love. No gifts to buy, lights to hang, or functions to attend. The simple pace nurtures my soul. I long to linger in that pace.

The profound simplicity of Psalm 100 seems to fit the season. The Hebrew poets wrote many intricate psalms giving thanks to God (see Psalm 40, and 65 for example), but 100 is five short verses with a series of imperatives – shout, worship, come, know, enter, give thanks. The Old Testament scholar James Mays notes these commands draw us into the temple and the presence of God. This movement into the presence of God is “the first and fundamental human act that constitutes worship.”[1]

The invitation to “shout”, “come”, “know”, and “enter” reflects the ancient practice of entering the presence of a king with a shout of acclamation. In the king’s presence, his subjects would acknowledge his sovereignty over his kingdom. This simple psalm calls us to recognize God is king and we are not. It takes the burden of running the world off our shoulders and places it squarely in the hands of our all-powerful Lord, who alone has the wisdom and power to manage his realm. This simplifies life as in His presence we come to “know” that “the Lord is good.” Like the sheep of Psalm 23 we can rest in His steadfast love and faithfulness (See Exodus 34:5-7, the essential Jewish Creed).

The psalmist invites us to let go of all we grasp and seek to control that we might simply receive the goodness of God and in return “give thanks to him and bless his name.” May the prayer of Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier settle into our hearts for this season:

Drop Thy still dews of quietness

Till all our striving cease;

Take from our souls the strian and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

[1] James Mays, Interprétation: Psalms. pg. 317