17 May 2011
The Introits for Easter III and IV...
...have shared a peculiarity that never struck me before. How many times have I prayed these Psalms over the years and not noticed this? In the Introit for Easter III, Psalm 33 is prayed: "Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield." Our soul? One would expect "our souls." But the Psalmist speaks as though the soul of the those who wait for the Lord is one, not many. And then again on Easter IV, when Psalm 66 is prayed: "He has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip." Our soul, not our souls. As though one soul inhabited all God's people. I am reminded of how Jonathan's love for David was described in 1 Sam 18: "the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." Isn't that what happens in the Body of Christ? Our souls are knit to the soul of great David's Greater Son, and we love Him as our own soul - and so our souls become one, and we can pray the way the Psalmist prays, as we wait for the Lord, that is, as we wait for His joyous appearing.
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5 comments:
Our being knit together as one body with Christ and through Christ we're knit to each other as one body, the Church who is knit together with Christ as one body... a lot of knitting going on!
Oh, and that the psalms are heard to speak of both their author(s), our Lord, the individual Christian and the Church all at the same time...
Which is also why the creed, when adapted from a conciliar statement to a congregational one, went from plural to singular -- I believe, both a personal confession and the Body of Christ as one.
Bills observation is good one to ponder...I completely agree with the term "knit" being used in your comments , another word that came to mind was "Meld".
Psalm 33:20 is the supplication of
the entire congregation who speak
with one voice and soul. This
communal affirmation of trust in
Yahweh is to be expected in worship.
Some Bible scholars label this as
a festival hymn and others call it
a prayer.
Think also of Emmaus disciples in Luke 24--"Was not our *HEART* burning within us as He talked with us along the road, opening to us the Scriptures?" Here heart is not the seat of emotion but that of thought/action in the Jewish mindset; also, heart not individually considered, but united around God's Word.
Pr. Matthew Johnson
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