Mtr Kelli Joyce

Dear Friends in Christ,

There are three psalms assigned for morning prayer today - 97, 99, and 100. And it's interesting to look at the first lines of Psalm 97 and Psalm 99 next to each other.

"The Lord is King; let the earth rejoice." "The Lord is King; let the people tremble." There are three themes here: God's royal sovereignty, a call for the whole world to rejoice, and an exhortation to reverent fear. I think both of the human responses these psalms suggest are appropriate responses to the initial premise: our God reigns.

God is not like human kings. The trembling that we are told we ought to do when we consider God is out of awe, in its original sense of being completely overwhelming and beyond our ability to process. It is not because God is not good. Indeed, Psalm 100 makes this as clear as possible: "The Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; * and his faithfulness endures from age to age." God is good. There is nothing of God that is not good, and there is nothing good that does not come from God. (This is why God's power should be a cause for our joy!)

God is also holy. ("The Lord our God is the Holy One," Psalm 99 says.) This holiness should be a source of both our joy and our trembling. God's holiness means that God cannot and will not ignore the evil we suffer - and it also means that God cannot and will not ignore the evil we inflict on others. God will judge: us and everyone else.

"Righteousness and justice are the foundations of [God's] throne." God cannot be bribed. God cannot be manipulated or deceived. God is the one who calls us to righteousness in our relationships and justice in our societies. And God enables us to do it.

The Lord is King: let the earth rejoice, let the people tremble.

In peace,
Mtr Kelli