Psalm 146:5–10 (NRSV)
Read Psalm 146:5–10 on biblegateway.com
Verse 5Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God,
Verse 6who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever;
Verse 7who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free;
Verse 8the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous.
Verse 9The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
Verse 10The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the Lord!
Devotion
Help and hope are a major theme of this psalm, and of the Advent season. Happy are those whose help and hope is in God. We often invoke “hope” without having much sense of what it means beyond wishful thinking or optimism. But the psalmist roots this hope in the cosmic creation bespeaking the Divine’s presence above, around, and beneath us. Creation is the visual song of God’s help and hope, turning us outward in wonder toward the web of life that enfolds us.
But the psalmist also turns our attention to another source of hope and evidence of God’s help: justice for the oppressed, food for the hungry, setting prisoners free, healing of bodies, watching over strangers, upholding orphan and widow. The many ways God brings these things about, through the community of faith called to love of God and neighbor, give rootedness and context to the happiness of those whose help is the creating God and whose hope is in the redeeming love of the Divine.
Prayer
Holy One, whose goodness all creation praises and whose love sustains and upholds us in our distress, be now for us, as you were for our ancestors, our help and our hope as we move through the shadows of this season toward the light that is beginning to dawn. Amen.
Interested in digging deeper into today’s text?
Read more here.