Psalm 146: A Performance Review

REFLECTION QUOTES

“Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.”

~Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)


“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

~Jesus of Nazareth, Gospel of Luke 7:22-23

“Let it be said to one when set in some affliction, ‘There is a great man who can set you free;’ he smiles, he rejoices, he is lifted up. But if it is said to him, ‘God frees you!’ he is chilled, so to speak, by despair. The aid of the mortal is promised, and you rejoice; the aid of the Immortal is promised, and you are sad? It is promised you to be freed by one who need also to be freed, and you are pleased at such help; you are promised the great Liberator, who needs no one to free him, and you despair, as though it were but a dream. Woe to such thoughts, they wander far; truly there is sad and great depth to them.”

~Augustine, theologian and Bishop of Hippo (354-430 AD)

“O, how wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favours!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have:
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.”

~ Cardinal Wolsey in Henry VIII, by William Shakespeare

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 146 (ESV)

1Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

3 Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.

5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

10 The Lord will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord!