November 4, 2023

Today's Reading: Introit for Pentecost 23: Psalm 149:1-4; antiphon Psalm 148:13

Daily Lectionary: Deuteronomy 15:19-16:22, Matthew 13:44-58

For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation. (Psalm 149:4)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. We treat it like it reads “pretend to be less than you are and God will be happy with you.”  Really, it’s “when you are so humiliated the best you could hope for is pity, and it tastes so sour you’re not sure whether or not you’d just prefer to be abandoned, the Lord sees you the same way your dog does when you come home from school.” 

Where I come from, humble just means “don’t be braggy”.  Which means the Psalm reads something like give God praise for all the things you’re afraid to admit publicly to having because they sound too nice.  It makes for a monotonous liturgy.  But humble doesn’t mean pretending to be less than you are. It shares a root with humiliation.  The thing where you actually are less and you know that everyone knows it.  Humiliation is a word that somehow becomes a time machine to everyone’s terrible,horrible no good very bad days.  

But it is the humiliated that God adorns with salvation. He wraps it around you like clothing, so that others may see it too. It looks like white robes.  Baptism.  The mark of the baptized isn’t a lack of humiliation. It’s an identity that cannot be marred by it.  It brings about the genuine praise the Psalm calls for.  He is the God who sees us in our humiliation and is exalted by joining us in it and conquering it for us.  He leaves the angel choirs to be mocked by the crowds.  He leaves the power of heaven to die at the hands of ignorant men, naked and ashamed.  He is helpless as His mother looks on.  And after dying to save the ones who did it to Him, us, He rises.  He promises the same to you.  You are not just God’s creation, but His children. The liturgy sings not of how you feel on your good days or your humiliated ones, but of God’s works, that we would have something to cling to when everything seems to slip away, and something to taste in His body and blood that aren’t sour. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

At the name of Jesus Ev’ry knee shall bow, Ev’ry tongue confess Him King of glory now. ’Tis the Father’s pleasure We should call Him Lord, Who from the beginning Was the mighty Word (LSB 512:1).

- Pastor Harrison Goodman is content executive for Higher Things.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, Ky.

Study Christ's words on the cross to see how you can show more Christlike grace in your life. Perfect for group or individual study, each chapter has a Q&A at the end, and the back of the book includes a leader guide. Available now from Concordia Publishing House.