The text: Psalm 66 – NRSV
Today on this Lenten journey we come to a notable milestone: Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. Whether you have been following along from the beginning or have found these posts only recently, I hope they have been of some help to you in your Lenten walk this year. On this final “little Easter” before the main event, we lift up a psalm that is a song of praise but also one of witness and thanksgiving. As we have seen in other psalms, a change in voice marks a turning point and an opening for understanding. The first half is communal, celebrating what God has done through major events like the Exodus, but such is the language that it can apply to any act where God has saved the people from disaster. The second half switches to first person singular: the individual psalmist offering a faithful response to God’s acts of communal salvation. Again, such is the language, where what God has done for the psalmist is never specified, that the psalm becomes an open invitation for us to substitute whatever it is God has done for us into the text, making the prayer our own. That God’s communal acts can result in individual faith is a powerful story, and a universal one. How else does anyone come to faith, if not through community? So on this Palm Sunday, perhaps this psalm asks us to remember and celebrate those communities in our own pasts and presents that have formed faith in us, or are forming and deepening faith, and to give thanks. It’s a pathway to owning our faith histories, our own personal stories to tell. If we keep these stories in mind on this day, just imagine what these stories might become a week from now!
Curious about this series of posts? Read the initial post.
Want to catch up on any you missed? See them all by clicking on ‘Lenten Psalms” below.
