Psalm 111 ~ Great are the works of the Lord

Hereford Cathedral - what does Heaven look like to you?

Psalm 111

1 Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
2 Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them.
3 Full of splendor and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures forever.
4 He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered;
the Lord is gracious and merciful.
5 He provides food for those who fear him;
he remembers his covenant forever.
6 He has shown his people the power of his works,
in giving them the inheritance of the nations.
7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy;
8 they are established forever and ever,
to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
9 He sent redemption to his people;
he has commanded his covenant forever.
Holy and awesome is his name!
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever!

Footnotes 111:1 This psalm is an acrostic poem, each line beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet

What does Heaven look like to you? Jesus called it the Kingdom of Heaven and Paradise. Cathedrals have their place in God's worship, even if you prefer an outdoor guitar celebration for Easter.

Church worship should inspire you to think about the sermon and the readings. Our guest preacher inspired me to think about the Church and being part of the loving body of Christ. I sometimes miss being part of the huge Church, one of the nation's largest, at Easter and Communion. It would bring tears to my eyes to see people going up to take communion in the awesome, vast, auspicious Church. I told my husband it is like seeing people queue up to enter the Gates of Heaven. All different types of people in line to receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ, expectant faces.

Smaller churches are like family. My family has decided we love our church. The drawbacks? Say you & your husband decided to play hookie and walk to Starbucks on a beautiful Sunday morning, the next Sunday, someone is going to ask you what you were doing when they saw you walking while they were on the way to church. Yes, and decorating the church for Holy Saturday... there is going to be that sister who is letting you know how it should be done and correcting your word usage. If they were your actual sibling, you might accidentally pinch them. But nothing takes the place of your family when your baby dies, as our daughter did.

Last night, my husband & I were winding down our Easter celebration meal, it was dark outside and we looked through our 300 hundred channels to find something reminding us this actually is Easter. So thanks, television schedulers for letting us have one choice. One? We were watching Anthony Hopkins in a movie called "Peter and Paul". Edward turned to me and said, "What do you think Jesus looked like when He returned? Did He look good, remember the tombs opened and prophets and people returned like Jesus. The photo I saw had hands clawing their way out of the ground like zombie day. And they weren't in the ground, they had tombs!"

Edward's question reminded me of the early days after Isabelle died and he asked me forlornly what babies did in Heaven. Which caused me to go the the Scriptures and find Isaiah 49. Yes, this is getting to a point. There actually is a physical resurrection of Jesus. Paul let us know about the new physical body, so the answer is... He looked great. Which reminded me of the jumping little lamb photo I had tucked away.

So...now for the Easter sermon we heard. Our guest was a young man in his 20's, who had bounced from Brazil to America with his family, with his father's employment. He had bonded as a young adult with Brazil and chose to go back, away from his arguing family, and found lots and lots of drug related trouble. He had a church family in Brazil, due to being with his family sometimes in Brazil. They spoke to him, but he was taken in, physically, with the drug family to become part of the drug dealing and drug smuggling culture. After being involved in a very violent fight, he'd brought the baseball bats from America, that became a gunfight/drive by, he realized he was no longer part of the body of Christ. The friend he saw dying, if it had been him, he was destined for hell. He found his aunt, she helped him detox and found a youth weekend were he opened his heart to Jesus Christ. Now he is a young man on his way to youth ministry and seminary.

Where does that leave the body of Christ? This is worth a lot of thought. My father was very important to me. He had many wonderful qualities. He had a fatal flaw, he medicated his hurts with alcohol and was an alcoholic. He told me one of the troubles he had with church was to see upright men so comfortable in church. It is a perpetual problem with the upright, in the congregation. It is an ongoing situation for well over 2,000 years.

Consider if you had been this preaching young man's church family. Would you invite a teenager to live with you knowing he had drug issues, drug friends, drug possession, drug police & drug usage? Would you expose your young children to him? Part of the real problem, this boy brought the bats used to create some of the violence with him from the USA. It is impossible for men to save men from themselves. Only with God is this possible. His church family did not save him, God did. His church family was still speaking to him, so I would hope they continued to pray for him.

Where does that leave you? If you are part of Jesus Christ, it asks you to approach people and their troubles with prayer. It asks you to look for the open door God will provide for you and the person you are praying for. It asks you to act when God prepares a path. Where does that leave you if you are the person who is hurting? You are a child of God. Never forget it. God won't forget His child. Never neglect it. Get yourself to a Christ honoring Church. Make your feet take you weekly. Why? Dropping in and out makes it easier for you to drop out. Realize as you sit in the congregation of God, you are not more unworthy than anyone else. You are not saved by your worthiness, you are saved as a gift of God. Be grateful and remember.

Matthew 22:37-40

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

<><