Psalm Meditation 1124 ¶ Second Sunday of Christmas ¶January 2, 2022 ¶Psalm 149 1 Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful. 2 Let Israel be glad in its Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King. 3 Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre. 4 For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory. 5 Let the faithful exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their couches. 6 Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, 7 to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, 8 to bind their kings with fetters and their nobles with chains of iron, 9 to execute on them the judgment decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones. Praise the Lord! (NRSV) ¶This week, the word ‘humble’ caught my attention, since we don’t usually associated victory with humility. Humble folks are on the lower end of our social circles. We like humble folk, we enjoy their company, however we don’t see them as the kind of people who will win any great victory of any sort. Humble folk are just as likely to be the ones who do all the work so the more ambitious folk can take the credit. In most cases, the humble people are content to know that they did the hard work, and ‘Whew, someone else gets to give all the talks and speeches on the results. ‘ ¶According to the psalmist, all of the faithful exult in the glory of the victory God gives the humble. Everyone can be a part of the whooping and hollering of the victory celebration, including waving their two-edged swords in the air. They may have used those swords in battle, but for sure they get to wave them around as if they won the battle completely on their own. Once again, the chances are good that the humble did the hard work behind the scenes and are too exhausted to do much celebrating. ¶We are overjoyed to celebrate a victory. And we like to have a name and face that gives focus to our celebration. It is important to recognize that these victories are not the work of one person. John Glenn was the first person to orbit the earth in a space capsule, and we celebrated him and his historic accomplishment. He did not orbit the earth on his own. There were scientists, mathematicians, engineers, maintenance people, and others contributing their knowledge, skills, expertise, and luck to the project. While it is easy to celebrate one person’s victory, it is just as important to remember the folks who made that one moment possible. ¶December 30, 2021 ¶LCM lcrsmanifold@att.net http://psalmmeditations.blogspot.com/