How are we at saying “thank you”?  Do you find this something difficult to say?  One great thing about the internet is the ability to find out what people are thinking on a topic like this.  Searching “Why is it hard to say thank you” brought me to a thread on Quora – a place where people weigh in on questions.  “Why, when I want to say thank you, I feel cringe, and end up not saying it?”  Lack of self-worth was one reason.  We may take things for granted, was another.  We may simply be an ingrate, one person offered.  It may lead to feelings of embarrassment or obligation.  Saying thank-you may lead to vulnerable feelings of future obligation or expectations.  I get this.  It’s like the classic scene at the end of a dinner party where the guests say “Thank you – we will have to have you over sometime!”  This can get filed away with “We should get together sometime, of course.  We may not like to feel obligated.  We may like to be self-sufficient.

Yet we have a whole category of Psalms, including the one that was read this morning, that has to do with giving thanks to God.  With saying “thank you” to God.  Why should this be?  What might we have to learn about God and about ourselves from Psalm 30?  Let us take a look at our song this morning and see what God may have to say to our hearts.

We’ve been talking about the Psalms as Israel’s prayer book and Israel’s songbook.  At the beginning of this Psalm, we are reminded that this is a song, and we learn where it was sung.  The dedication of the Temple (or the house).  Often there is much we don’t know about a text and we can be ok with not knowing.  Who wrote it?  Does “of David” mean by David or about David or in the style of David?  Is it pointing to an episode in David’s life?  How could it be a Psalm of David for the Temple when the Temple wasn’t built until after David’s death?  Of course, it is entirely possible that David wrote a song in advance.  Which Temple are we talking about?  The first one built by Solomon?  The second Temple, rebuilt after the Babylonian exile?  We do know that this Psalm has long been associated with Hannukah, the 8 days which mark the restoration of worship at the Temple and dedication (or Hannukah) of the Jerusalem Temple by Judas Maccabeus.

“Why am I talking so much about the temple?” you’re asking.  We said three weeks ago that the Psalms are timeless expressions of a turning toward God.  Bearing this in mind, we do well to look at this inscription and ask “What was the temple in Jerusalem and to whom did it point forward?”   The temple was a place of God’s presence.  The temple was a place of mercy and forgiveness.  The temple was a place of communion with God.  Followers of Jesus, of whom does this remind us?  The one who said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up.”  God with us.  The locus of God’s grace,  The locus of light and life.   

We looked at praise three weeks ago to start this mini-series in the Psalms.  Thanks and praise go together like two things that go very well together.  Like watermelon and feta (try it!).  Thanks and praise. Praise and thanks.  How appropriate that a song of thanks and praise was central to the dedication of a place at which God’s presence, forgiveness, and mercy would be celebrated?  Listen again to the lines.  You have drawn me up.  You have healed me.  You have restored my life.  Central to our relationship with God is our gratitude.  Someone has said that gratitude is the basis of worship.  Worship of God is to be the foundation not only of our gathering together on Sunday mornings, or whenever we gather together, but it is to be the foundation of our very lives because this is how God has made us.  Paul talked about presenting our bodies – our very selves, as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (made holy in Christ), which is our spiritual worship.  This spiritual worship finds its basis in our giving thanks and praise.

The praise and thanks that is being offered in this Psalm is for a very specific reason – that God is a deliverer.  That God changes things.  That an encounter with God changes things.  That Gos saves us, and let us never take this for granted or get used to it.  That God – redeems us – restores us – reconciles us – all words we use to try and describe what it means to be brought back to God.  It changes our situation.  Look at how the psalmist sets two things in opposition to each other to signify this change throughout the song – I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.  His anger is but for a moment, his favour is for a lifetime.  Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.  You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.  Let me thank and praise you!

What is the foundational thing that we thank God for?  One thing that applies to everyone who is a follower of Christ?  You have drawn me up.  This imagery is of a bucket being drawn out of the depths of a well.  You’ve thrown me a rope and pulled me up. Rescued me!  You have healed me.  You restored me to life.  “I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.  O Lord, my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.  O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.”  For the original Psalmist, the praise and thanks here is for recovery from grave illness – illness that was leading to the grave.  To Sheol, to the Pit.  The place of no light, no remembrance, no praise of God, no sound even.  For the Psalmist, thanks and praise is based on God’s saving act – the Psalmist has been saved from the place of death, the place of darkness, of silence.

Jesus was still to come when this song was written, but how can we read these verses and not think of the one who defeated death itself?  I will extol you, O Jesus, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.  Who are our foes?  The powers of darkness.  The powers of hate and fear and greed and oppression and pride.  If you can say “O Lord my God I cried out to you for help, and you have healed me – you have restored me to life” then the fitting and proper response is praise and thanks.  If you haven’t said this then the invitation is there before you every day.  It’s there before you this day.  This morning.  The invitation is there to join in this song and prayer of praise and thanks. 

Which is what the psalmist does in v 4.  He invites others to join in.  “Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.”  Thanks is something that we do together.  It makes God’s nature known.  It makes God known as a deliverer.  There’s another element to why we’re called to praise and thank God together.  To have any significant experience of life is to know that our awareness of God-with-us ebbs and flows.  Few of us are soaring like eagles all the time as we wait on God.  The Psalms are nothing if not honest about what our lives are like.  As we walk along the Way, we may feel at times like we’re barely able to walk or crawl.  Oftentimes it might seem that we’re still on this Way solely because Jesus is dragging us along!  Get together and sing praises and give thanks to his holy name!  Why?  Because oftentimes we need to be reminded and we need to remind and encourage one another, that God’s anger is not a permanent state.  God’s anger is not an attribute of God – it’s a divine response to sin.  Have you ever felt far from God?  I have.  Have you ever felt that God was hiding his face from you?  I have.  What have I learned from such experiences?  That God doesn’t coerce us.  That God gives us the choice to go it on our own.  That God was waiting.  That God was there the whole time.  We come to know that a moment of God’s anger is nothing compared to a lifetime of God’s favour – of healing, of restoration, of being made whole.

Living in the grace of God, living in the favour of God, does not mean that we won’t suffer.  Every week when we gather together know that there are those among us who are suffering.  We need to be reminded together that suffering is not a permanent condition.  Weeping may linger for the night.  It may linger. It may linger a long time.  Sorrow and lament and suffering, however, do not have the last word. Sorrow and lament and suffering are not living here.  They are only spending the night.  With the morning comes joy. 

We’re learning to pray through the Psalms.  Thanksgiving should always be part of our prayers, whether individually or corporately.  Prayer should not be confined to asking for things from God.  There’s nothing wrong with asking things of God, of course, we call these prayers of supplication or intercession.  The Psalmist prays the foundational asking prayer.  “Hear, O Lord”  Not “hear” as in “Do you hear me?” like some kind of prayerful soundcheck.  “Hear” as in “Save.”  “Hear (save) O Lord, and be gracious to me!  O Lord, be my helper.”  Help not in the sense that I need some assistance with something but help in the sense of “Without your aid God, I am undone!  Ruined!”  God has answered such a prayer, God answers such a prayer, God will answer such a prayer.  It is good and fitting and proper and right for us to answer God’s grace with thanks.  We want to be fully engaged when it comes to God.  Our engagement with God will be less than it should be unless our answer to the saving help we have received is embodied in our praise and thanks to God.  Our relationship to God, individually or together, is not perfected, as someone has said, “except as we learn and say in prayerful praise how the Lord met our neediness with his grace.” 

Prayer changes us, you see.  Prayers of thanksgiving change us.  We talk about spiritual formation – about being formed in the image of Christ or being made like Christ. Engaging often and meaningfully in prayers of thanksgiving to Christ for the grace which has been given us, leaves us open to the Holy Spirit changing us.   

This also involves looking at ourselves honestly.  Examining ourselves.  Confessing.  We leave ourselves open to the Holy Spirit doing this transforming work in us. The Psalmist makes a confession in v 6.  “As for me, I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved.’”  When things were going well, the Psalmist became complacent.  He forgot that is was by God’s favour that he had been established like a strong mountain.  To praise God and to tell of God’s faithfulness and to give thanks is the right and fitting and proper response to what God has done for us and does for us and one day will do for us.  It’s a recognition that all we have, all we are is of and from God.  That God has created us to live in loving communion with him, with one another, with creation.  That we are unable to do this on our own.  That in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection we who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  To all this, we cry out “Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me!  O Lord, be my helper!”  What a great prayer.  We should pray that every day.  I know it would change us.

God would change us.  You have turned my mourning into dancing, as the song ends.  You have given me feet to dance and a soul to sing. You have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.  You have given me a whole new set of clothes.  I feel good when I get new clothes!  Paul picks up this image in his letter to the Colossians 3:12–15 “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.  And be thankful.”

Being thankful changes us.  Being thankful leaves ourselves open for the Holy Spirit to do one of the things the Holy Spirit does.  Why should we want this?  So that our souls may praise you and not be silent.  The place of silence was the place of death.   The place of praise and thanksgiving is the place of life and love.  

May we then say confidently and joyfully with the Psalmist – “O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”  May this be true for us all.

Amen