Last night, my men’s LifeGroup concluded its study on Invitation To The Psalms by looking at Psalm 150, the rousing hallelujah that brings the Psalter itself to a close.
Here’s the ancient text of Psalm 150:
Praise the Lord.[a]
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with timbrel and dancing,
praise him with the strings and pipe,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
So to bring those words home last night, I dug back into Good Shepherd history.
Not too far back, mind you. Just to 2010 when we did a series based on Psalm 146-150 called Crescendo. When the Sunday rolled around to focus on Psalm 150, I asked our worship pastor Chris Macedo to give the people of the church a living experience of the words on the page.
As he often does, he took the raw material of an idea and produced something greater and grander than I had envisioned. Here’s what it looked like then and why I use it to bring the Psalm to life now: