Day 55 | Troi Buchanan

Psalm 98:1-3 (ESV)

1 Oh sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
2 The Lord has made known his salvation;
he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.
3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.

What is the new song we ought to sing to the Lord today? Last week Maddie beautifully wrote about God as judge. How God can be both merciful and judging. It got me thinking quite a bit this week about the idea of God our judge, about justice, and about mercy. Psalm 98:8-9 (ESV)

8 Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together
9 before the Lord, for he comes
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.

My favorite image of justice is the way that Jesus interacts with the people of his time. In every interaction, every opportunity that he gets, Jesus raises up the lowly and puts down the proud. Consider how Isaiah puts it;

Isaiah 40:4 (ESV)

4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.

Remember that Jesus is God’s greatest revelation of God’s character to us. We have to interpret every word, every action, every verse through the lens of Jesus. I love how Brian Zahnd puts it:

“God is like Jesus. God has always been like Jesus. There has never been a time when God was not like Jesus. We have not always know what God was like…But now we do.”

Think about this; God’s judgement is Jesus. God’s final judgement on his creation is love incarnate. Jesus is the great equalizer; all that is low will brought up, all that is high will be brought low.

Jesus always errs toward the low, the downtrodden, the left out, the marginalized, the other. And even in his interaction with the mighty and proud it always end in an invitation to try a different way. When Nicodemus comes to Jesus he doesn’t send him away, he invites him into a new way (John 3).

Psalm 99:2-4 (ESV)
2 The Lord is great in Zion;
he is exalted over all the peoples.
3 Let them praise your great and awesome name!
Holy is he!
4 The King in his might loves justice.[a]
You have established equity;
you have executed justice
and righteousness in Jacob.

—

8 O Lord our God, you answered them;
you were a forgiving God to them,
but an avenger of their wrongdoings.

Maybe on this day, our song should be a song of thanksgiving. Offering up praise because God has been merciful and delivered us from our inequity. Or maybe our song should be a cry for help, that God would come in and be the judge of our hearts, that God would be an “avenger of our wrongdoings.” Either way, on this day, it is good and right to sing a new song to The Lord.

Psalm 99:9 (ESV)
9 Exalt the Lord our God,
and worship at his holy mountain;
for the Lord our God is holy!