God is Good. God is Great.
Today is the Reign of Christ/Christ the King Sunday and the concluding week of the Christian liturgical year. It is the week before Thanksgiving and the week before we begin a period of advent. Our liturgical year ends with this psalm of thanksgiving and praise. We are told to make a joyful noise and to worship with gladness! The tone of this psalm is overwhelmingly joyful and upbeat. Praise the Lord! Yet, I have the feeling that many of our “Praise the Lord’s” sound a lot more like “Praise the Lord.” So our question today is how do we “Praise the Lord” when our words, strength, and perhaps even our faith falter?
The psalmist gives us a hint. “Know that the Lord is God.” The word here for “know” comes from the Hebrew root yada. This describes an embodied mutual awareness. The larger usage of this verb suggests that the people’s knowledge of God is not merely intellectual or theoretical knowledge but a deep and intimate awareness of who God revealed in Jesus Christ and testified by the Holy Spirit is. It is a physical, emotional, and embodied knowledge of the God who holds the entire world yet knows us by name. It is this knowledge that surpasses mere acquaintance and invites us into deep connection. This Reign of Christ would not only be over all, but in all. This Reign of Christ would not only be over all nations but would also reign in our hearts. To know God is to know that God is the good shepherd, and we are their sheep. In this way, we remember one of the most important prayers that we learn as a child:
God is good. God is great.
Let us thank him for this food.
By his hands we all are fed.
Give us, Lord, our daily bread. Amen.
As we prepare to gather around the Thanksgiving table, let us remember that the Lord our God is good. The feasts that await us on Thursday with turkey, bread, green beans, and mashed potatoes are but a foretaste of the great feast in heaven that awaits our coming. For you and me and our neighbor, God has opened the Kingdom’s gates wide and prepared a seat for each of us at the table. With seats more comfortable, food more scrumptious, and the conversation more filling than anything we have yet experienced in this life. Imagine that! Despite the hardships of this year, we find on this Reign of Christ Sunday that there is a light in the darkness. We find that God is good.
As we prepare to gather with loved ones, friends, or in simple joy, let us remember that God is great. Greatness is a quality that is lasting and is proven over time. It is a mark of endurance and promise even after hopes faded. God’s love endured when the early church was persecuted. God’s love endured despite church splits, crusades, and theological crises. God’s love has endured through earlier pandemics and is with us even now. Despite being in exile, these Hebrew historians wrote, “The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” Jesus, around a table not too dissimilar from ours, sat with his friends for the last time and said, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” In this world, there was and is trouble, but we find in that trouble a God who is great—who makes new futures possible. This enduring love proves that with God, all things are possible.
Around the table, let us also remember to give thanks. Let us thank God for our food. Let us acknowledge that it is by God’s hands that we are fed—not our own. It is God who created the heavens and the earth. It is God who called the waters from the land and who prepared a home for us filled with trees, plants, animals, and boundless wildlife. It is we who were created after these things. This was done in the same way we prepare our Thanksgiving tables for family, loved ones, and guests. God prepared a world full of riches, gifts, and blessings for us before we breathed the breath of life. It is as if God is playing a beautiful melody made for us and for creation. A melody that brings healing, hope, and joy beyond measure. In giving thanks, we attune ourselves to God’s melodious saving work. We hear the notes of kindness, of grace and are invited to stand, dance, sing, or laugh along to this joyous song. This Thanksgiving, we are invited to pause and recognize that the Reign of Christ has given us the gift of participating in this melody. Let us pause and smile. Let us remember that it is God who is our provider, deliver, and our Savior. Let us remember with hearts full and smiles alight that Lord is God, and we are not.
God’s steadfast love endures forever. God’s faithfulness is to all generations. God’s plans to be with us, to be a comfort in darkness and a hope in difficult times, are sent with an invitation. I typically approach my life with the hope of Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future…’” Yet, this Thanksgiving reminds me that this promise goes beyond a prosperous future. Jeremiah continues in verse 12, saying, “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.” God’s great thanksgiving is a promise that invites us to glorious participation and response today. We do not have to groan at this response. We do not have to be reluctant givers or hold back our talents. Instead, on this Thanksgiving, we are invited to remember that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Even in our darkness, God knows us, God sees us, and God will listen to us. Even in the midst of an uncertain future where we are discerning the next chapter of our church, God is with us. God is good. God is great.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.