January 13, 2007 - Saturday in the First Week after Epiphany
Higher Things Reflection for today:
“It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your Name, O Most High.” (Psalm 92:1)
Music and praise go together. “He who sings, prays twice,” the church father St. Augustine once noted. What prompts our praise and motivates our music is not some inner drumbeat. Unless the Lord opens our lips, our mouths cannot sing His praise.
The music of praise rests on the wonderful works of God, namely His creation and His redemption. All the earth bows down to God and sings praise to Him. The rivers sing for joy, the mountains clap their hands, because God is their Creator, who made them out of nothing in the beginning by His Word.
Sadly, God’s foremost creature, man, has lost sight of his Creator and now views the creation as a cosmic coincidence, a fortuitous selection of seemingly random mutations. No longer do we worship the Creator, now we worship the creation, the essence of all idolatry. No longer do we gaze at the mountains or the sea and say, “How great Thou art!” Now we say, “How great we are!” That is the nature of our sin, the self turned inward, away from God.
The first article of the Creed alone cannot save us. Beautiful beaches and high mountains and starry skies cannot redeem the sinner. That is God’s other great work: redemption. He redeemed Israel out of Egypt by the blood of the Passover Lamb. He redeems the sinner from sin and death by the Blood of His Lamb poured out on the altar of the Cross.
Jesus is both Priest and Sacrifice, the Offerer and the Offering. Through Him, our prayers are heard – not because we deserve to be heard, but because Jesus intercedes for us before the throne of His Father. We may pray confidently that God will hear us, not because of any merit or worthiness in us, but based solely on the merits of Jesus Christ, who prays for us. That’s how we can say a bold and confident “Amen” at the end of our prayers, for we know that Jesus’ prayers are heard, and the Father hears our prayers coming through Jesus.
As a baptized, believing child of God, you are privileged to praise Him, to worship Him without fear, to come before Him with melodious hearts and voices, singing songs of praise to Him who called you out of darkness. Prepare to praise tomorrow, the Lord’s Day, and sing with joy to the God who creates and who redeems what He has created.
“Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld His love from me!” (Psalm 66:20)