Verse for the week of August 29th:
Hallelujah! Happy are they who fear the LORDand have great delight in God’s commandments!(Psalm 112:1)
The whole of Psalm 112 is an encouragement for people to take seriously faith in Godand seek after God’s commandments. This psalm is similar in nature to both Psalm 1 andPsalm 111. The psalm is uplifting the notion of how faith in God helps and is of greatbenefit to the believer.
The psalm proclaims that those who fear the LORD and delight in God’s commandmentswill have descendants that will be mighty in the land; wealth and riches will be intheir house; their righteousness will last forever; they will never be shaken; they willbe merciful and full of compassion—to name some of the benefits that the psalmistproclaims.
The question that I want to reflect upon with this verse is what it means to fear theLORD. When we read this phrase, most people I think tend to translate the word fearwith the notion of being afraid. Thus, it is read by many as happy are those who areafraid of God. But is this really what the text is saying. After all are we to be afraid ofGod—are we to be scared of God. Some individuals may be and normally when this isthe case, those people may not think about this as a way to happiness.
So, what does it mean to fear the LORD? The word fear may be better translatedas ‘awe.’ That when it talks about the fear of the LORD it is really meaning somethingcloser to awe—a sense of wonder and/or reverence. That it is not that we are to be afraidof God or scared of God, but that we come into the presence of God acknowledging theawesomeness of God and the magnificence of God in all things. I think that the intent ofthe psalmist is that when we know who God is and that we are not God, we put our trustinto God and that is when we are more open to acknowledging the receiving the blessingswhich God bestows upon us. Life becomes better when we know that everything is notdependant upon ourselves but that God is the one who watches over us, protects us andguides us all of the days of our lives.
How is it that you ‘fear the LORD’?

(Psalm 103:1)

I must admit that I used to struggle with this verse many years ago. Growing up within the Lutheran Church, we never used some of the ‘other services’ within the LBW (i.e.Morning Prayer p. 131; Vespers p. 142; or Responsive Prayer p.161) rather we only used Setting 1 & Setting 2. The reason that I mention this is that within the Holy Communion settings we never used the words ‘Let us bless the Lord.’ We may have said things like ‘The Lord bless us…’ {p. 74 LBW} or ‘you (God) have blessed us with thesegifts…’ {p. 68 LBW}.
Thus, I am not sure where I came to the conclusion that we do not bless the Lord, but rather it is only God who blesses us. It seems to me that I never really encounter a notion that we bless God but only that it is God who blesses us.
Then, during seminary—we began using all the services within the LBW so that as people studying to be pastor we would be familiar with them and comfortable leading them and using them in a variety of settings within congregations. I remember one day,we were using the Morning Prayer Service {p. 131 LBW} and there it was—part of the liturgy where we say or sing ‘Let us bless the Lord.’ I can even remember not singing the response ‘Thanks be to God.’ The reason that I did not complete the response was that it struck me as odd—can I really bless God? Can I say those words with integrity?How can I a sinner in need or redeeming bless the Lord? Isn’t I who needs God’s Blessing?
So, being a student—it seemed natural to begin a study about this phrase and was my conclusion that it is only God who can bless wrong. Could I say with integrity, ‘Let us bless the Lord?’
I started by looking up the definition of bless. For after all, what does this word literally mean?
In the dictionary there are many definitions listed—some are: 1) to consecrate; 2)to glorify; 3) to invoke divine favor upon. In my mind I tended to think about the definitions 1 and 3 which seems to be more to be what God does and not what we do to God. However, the second definition—to glorify makes sense. That the word bless is insome ways similar to the words: glorify or praise.
Within a Hebrew dictionary—it lists the Hebrew word for bless when used with God ‘Bless God’ the intent of this phrase is to declare God as the origin of power for success, prosperity, or fertility. Hence, praising God for how God bestows blessings upon us—for everything comes from God and by saying ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul’ is actually a statement of belief that God is the source and origin of all things and that we are acknowledging God for all that He has done.