Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Let Us Sing to the Lord

Continuing my posts of patristic texts coinciding with this Sunday’s Psalm study.



Oh come, let us sing to the Lᴏʀᴅ;
    let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!  (Ps 95:1)

Today, the trumpet-blast of the prophets have roused the world, and have made glad and filled with joyfulness the churches of God that are everywhere amongst the nations.…  Come then, every one, and let us rejoice in the Lord; O come, all people, and let us clap our hands, and make a joyful noise to God our Savior, with the voice of melody.  Let no one be without portion in this grace; let no one come short of this calling; for the seed of the disobedient is appointed to destruction.  Let no one neglect to meet the King, lest he be shut out from the Bridegroom’s chamber.  Let no one amongst us be found to receive Him with a sad countenance, lest he be condemned with those wicked citizens—the citizens, I mean, who refused to receive the Lord as King over them.  Let us all come together cheerfully; let us all receive Him gladly, and hold our feast with all honesty.  Instead of our garments, let us strew our hearts before Him.  In psalms and hymns, let us raise to Him our shouts of thanksgiving; and, without ceasing, let us exclaim, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord;” for blessed are they that bless Him, and cursed are they that curse Him.  Again I will say it, nor will I cease exhorting you to good: Come, beloved, let us bless Him who is blessed, that we may be ourselves blessed of Him.  Every age and condition does this discourse summon to praise the Lord; kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens—and what is new in this miracle, the tender and innocent age of babes and sucklings hath obtained the first place in raising to God with thankful confession the hymn which was of God taught them in the strains in which Moses sang before to the people when they came forth out of Egypt—namely, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Methodius, Oration on the Palms, I

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