March 20: Psalms of Praise for God's Salvation
♫ Music:
WEEK FOUR INTRODUCTION
TITLE: PSALMS OF PRAISE FOR GOD’S SALVATION
March 20–March 26
On the third Sunday of Lent, the midpoint of the forty-day fast, Eastern Christians celebrate the Sunday of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross. The means of Christ’s pain, suffering, and execution has become the preeminent Christian symbol of victory and resurrection throughout Christendom. It is through Christ’s great work on the cross that joy has come into all the world. In the West, the powerful Anglican processional hymn, “Lift High The Cross” calls believers to “proclaim the love of Christ till all the world adore his sacred name.” This hymn is based on John 12:32, “And I, when I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” In both East and West, Christians have been singing the “sweet, sweet song of salvation” for generations. This week we will focus on those psalms that praise God for that gift of salvation—the gift he has so wonderfully wrought for us.
For centuries, Psalm 28:9 has been the rallying cry of the faithful: “O Lord save Your people and bless Your inheritance.” The ancient church added this powerful refrain, “Grant victory to Your people over their enemy [i.e. the devil] and preserve Your dwelling place by the power of Your cross.” Because the gift of salvation from God is our most pressing need, Christ’s great sacrifice must be continually on our hearts and lips—an endless song of praise to our matchless Savior and Redeemer. Indeed, we must frequently wonder what kind of supernatural love has been poured out upon us. God’s salvation was graciously given to the righteous King David, the upright children of Israel who trusted in him, and, in this age, to all who sincerely seek the face of God. Praise to the One who has set us free—Jesus Christ, our living hope!
Day 19 - Sunday, March 20
Title: THE JOY OF SALVATION
Scripture: Psalm 65
Praise is awaiting You, O God, in Zion;
And to You the vow shall be performed.
O You who hear prayer,
To You all flesh will come.
Iniquities prevail against me;
As for our transgressions,
You will provide atonement for them.
Blessed is the man You choose,
And cause to approach You,
That he may dwell in Your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Of Your holy temple.
By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us,
O God of our salvation,
You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth,
And of the far-off seas;
Who established the mountains by His strength,
Being clothed with power;
You who still the noise of the seas,
The noise of their waves,
And the tumult of the peoples.
They also who dwell in the farthest parts are afraid of Your signs;
You make the outgoings of the morning and evening rejoice.
You visit the earth and water it,
You greatly enrich it;
The river of God is full of water;
You provide their grain,
For so You have prepared it.
You water its ridges abundantly,
You settle its furrows;
You make it soft with showers,
You bless its growth.
You crown the year with Your goodness,
And Your paths drip with abundance.
They drop on the pastures of the wilderness,
And the little hills rejoice on every side.
The pastures are clothed with flocks;
The valleys also are covered with grain;
They shout for joy, they also sing.
Poetry:
Vine Maple (II)
by Paul Willis
(Acer circinatum)
Who would have guessed it?
Your little honeysuckle flowers,
thrown to the wind
to spell the sweetness
of your leaves,
tiny sheaves
that harvest the fleetness
time has finned
through all the airy, watery hours.
Who could have blessed it?
—Ross Lake National Recreation Area
THE JOY OF SALVATION
Psalm 65 reminds us of the gift of God’s salvation and His blessings of bounty for His people. In the weeks leading up to Good Friday, I seek to spend time meditating on the depths of Christ’s sacrifice for us, His death on the cross that atoned for the sins of all who repent and call on Him for salvation. Centuries before Christ came, the Psalmist proclaimed that God would provide atonement for our transgressions and promised eternal life for those whom He has chosen, purchased with His blood “from every tribe and language and people and nation.” (Psalm 65:3-4; Revelation 5:9). This reality brings comfort to believers, even in the midst of the wars, chaos, and uncertainty. We do not know what tomorrow may bring, but we know He holds the future and can praise him for His glorious salvation and the blessings he provides even in the midst of our dark and broken world, as the song “Psalm 65: You Crown the Year” proclaims. I have seen photographs and videos of Ukrainian believers huddling in basements or standing in refugee camps praising God despite facing death and the loss of their homes and loved ones. They are a shining example to us of what is truly important––our salvation in Christ alone!
The Psalmist follows praise for God’s eternal salvation with a description of His righteousness and His sovereignty, reminding us that He has the power to save us. The massive mountains towering above us remind of us His grandeur and steadfastness. He is able to still the crashing seas and restrain “the tumult of the peoples,” including the devastation wrought by invading armies.
The Psalmist ends with the bounty God brings after atoning for sin. He causes “the outgoings of the morning and the evening to rejoice.” (Psalm 65:8). He waters the earth and crowns the year with His goodness. (Psalm 65:9, 11). Even though this world is passing away, God wants us to enjoy and praise Him for what He provides for us, the fruits of the harvest and the beauty of His creation. The “Fields of Light Installation” shows a glowing field of flowers under a full moon and night sky. Paul Willis’ poem, “Vine Maple,” describes the sweetness of the honeysuckle that blooms in springtime. Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, is always in the spring, a concrete example of resurrection after the death of winter. I love hiking in the California hills in early springtime and watching the green creep over the brown of the landscape and the flowers bloom and spread––orange, pink, purple, blue, yellow––carpeting what was once dry and seemingly dead. They remind me of God’s goodness as well as of the reality of Christ’s resurrection. After His death on the cross, He did not stay in the grave but rose again and is now sitting on the right hand of the Father in Heaven (Mark 16:19). He has conquered death for all believe (I Corinthians 15:54-55). Hallelujah!
Prayer
I praise You, Lord, for your great gift of salvation through Jesus Christ! Please help me to cultivate an eternal perspective and constant gratitude for all that You have done for me, despite any circumstances I may face.
Dr. Alicia M. Dewey
Professor of History
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Sensorio Paso - Field of Light Installation
Bruce Munro
2019–2022
15-acre display of 58,800 fiber optic lights
Paso Robles, California
The Field of Light is a large-scale, site-specific, light-based art installation created by British artist Bruce Munro. It was originally conceived in 1992, when Munro camped in the Central Australian desert near the monolithic rock formation called Uluru/Ayer's Rock. To Munro, the red desert had an incredible feeling of energy that seemed to radiate from it. "There was a charge in the air that gave me a very immediate feeling which I didn’t fully understand,” the artist said, "It was a moment when I felt at one with the world…I recorded thoughts of creating a sculpture on a landscape scale, incongruous in size and location, and experienced by the transient visitors...I saw in my mind a landscape of illuminated stems that, like dormant seeds in a dry desert, quietly wait until darkness falls, under a blazing blanket of southern stars, to bloom with gentle rhythms of light." Munro experimented with different locations and installations, but in 2004 he finally developed a large version of the installation for Long Knoll Field in Wiltshire, a field adjacent to his studio. Subsequently, Munro has continued to produce site-specific iterations of the artwork in a number of places. The installation always slowly changes color over time, creating a shimmering field of light and beauty in the night. The installation for today’s devotion is located in Paso Robles, California; it began in 2019 and continues to this day.
https://sensoriopaso.com/
About the Artist:
Bruce Munro (b. 1959) is a dual nationality English/Australian artist known for producing large, immersive site-specific installations, often by massing components in the thousands. Frequently, Munro’s subject matter is derived from his own experience of fleeting moments of rapport with the world and existence in its largest sense—of being part of the large overall pattern of life. His recurring motif is the use of light on an environmental scale in order to create an emotional response in the viewer. By recording ideas and images in sketchbooks, he has captured his responses to stimuli such as music, literature, science, and the world around him for reference, reflection, and subject matter for his work. As a result of this practice, Munro produces both monumental temporary experiential artworks as well as intimate story-pieces. Bruce completed a B.A. in fine arts at Bristol in 1982. Shortly after he moved to Sydney, where he worked in design and lighting, he was inspired by Australia’s natural light and landscape. Returning to England in 1992, he settled in Wiltshire, where, together with his wife, Serena, he raised four children. Bruce’s work has been shown at museums and botanical gardens internationally, notably, Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania; The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Waddesdon Manor for the Rothschild Collection, Buckinghamshire; Beyond Limits 2016 for Sothebys at Chatsworth House; and Messums, Wiltshire. Bruce’s work is held in private and public museum collections internationally, including Cheekwood Garden and Art Museum, TN; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and Texas Tech University.
https://www.brucemunro.co.uk/
About the Music:
“You Crown The Year (Psalm 65:11)” from the album Glorious Ruins
Lyrics:
You crown the year with Your goodness
You answer us with awesome deeds
Your hope resounds God our Saviour
To distant lands and farthest seas
O paint the fields bright and golden
Drench the harvest with Your rain
God's river filled with living water
That flows to all as You ordained
[Chorus]
Praise the Name of the Lord
O my soul sing His worth
All of life join the song
Come and lift up our King
[Verse]
Now let the earth join the dancing
Deck her out in showers of spring
The dusk and dawn forever relay
The call to come and worship Him
[Bridge]
Holy holy
Worthy are You Lord
All the glory
To Your Name forever
About the Performers:
Hillsong Worship (formerly Hillsong Live) is an Australian praise and worship group from Sydney, Australia, where they started making music in 1983 at the Hillsong Church. Fifteen of their songs have appeared on the Billboard Magazine charts in the US, with "What a Beautiful Name" (2016) representing one of their greatest successes, reaching platinum in the US. Hillsong Worship has some notable members, including Darlene Zschech, Marty Sampson, Brooke Fraser (Brooke Ligertwood), Reuben Morgan, and Joel Houston.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsong_Worship
About the Composers:
Reuben Timothy Morgan and Brooke Ligertwood
Reuben Timothy Morgan (b. 1975) is an Australian worship pastor at Hillsong Church UK and one of several worship leaders and songwriters in the Hillsong Worship group. He has written songs such as "Eagles Wings," "Hear Our Praises," "I Give You My Heart,” "My Redeemer Lives," and "Mighty to Save," which won the Worship Song of the Year at the 40th GMA Dove Awards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuben_Morgan
Brooke Ligertwood is a Grammy award–winning songwriter, producer, and worship leader, and is the head of Hillsong Worship globally. Ligertwood has called Hillsong Church home since 2004, serving the church through creativity and song while also enjoying a successful fifteen-year mainstream career under her maiden name of Brooke Fraser. She and her husband Scott (also a songwriter), along with their two young daughters, are based in Orange County, California, and are part of Hillsong California. She is obsessive about the marriage of theology and art, and as such has penned beloved congregational anthems like “What a Beautiful Name,” “King of Kings,” “Hosanna,” and “Man of Sorrows,”’ as well as devotional favorites like “Awake My Soul,” “New Wine,” and “None But Jesus.”
https://hillsong.com/contributors/contributor/brooke-ligertwood/
About the Poet:
Paul Willis is an American poet and professor of English at Westmont College in Santa Barbara and a former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California. Paul earned a B.A. in biblical studies from Wheaton College in Illinois and a Ph.D. in English from Washington State University. He is the author of seven collections of poetry. Adrienne Rich chose one of Paul’s poems for The Best American Poetry series, and Garrison Keillor has read his poetry on The Writer’s Almanac. Four of his poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Paul served as poet laureate for the city of Santa Barbara from 2011 to 2013 and as artist-in-residence in North Cascades National Park from 2014 to 2015. More recently, Paul has published a young adult novel, All in a Garden Green (2020), an Elizabethan time-travel story. His debut in creative nonfiction, Bright Shoots of Everlastingness: Essays on Faith and the American Wild (2005), was named by ForeWord magazine as the best essay collection of that year from an independent press. In addition to other published essays, Paul has written book reviews for Books & Culture, Anglican Theological Review, and Christianity and Literature. He has also served as book review editor for Ruminate magazine.
https://pauljwillis.com/
About the Devotion Author:
Dr. Alicia M. Dewey
Professor of History
Biola University
Alicia Dewey received her doctorate from Southern Methodist University and has taught at Biola University since 2007. Her courses include the History of the American West; California History; American Democracy, Civil War, and Reconstruction, 1800–77; the Rise of Modern America (1877–1920); Research Methods in History; the U.S. History Survey; and U.S. History Since 1865. When she is not teaching, researching, or writing, she enjoys the outdoors and experiencing the American West through hiking, camping, canoeing, bird watching, and landscape painting, as well as spending time with her Maltese dog, Ranger. She is a member of Kindred Community Church in Anaheim Hills, California.