Rejoice And Be Glad (Psalm 40:16)

 


Saturday, May 17, 2025


Psalm 40

Exodus 30:11-25; 34-38

John 12:9-19


Rejoice And Be Glad (Psalm 40:16)


But may all who seek you
    rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation
    say continually, “Great is the Lord!”


Psalms are a funny type of scripture to try and work out. They are prayers – but for whom to say? We are blessed to be in a sort of Psalm renaissance at the moment, fortunately, where believing scholars are returning to the old ways of interpretation. Psalm 40 is an excellent case study of this traditional, orthodox method of study.


We know, from the book of Hebrews, that this Psalm is a prayer of the second person of the Trinity; that is, it is a prayer by Jesus. Hebrews 10:1-14 goes into Psalm 40:6-8 as a declaration of the Son of God coming to save his people through is incarnation, passion, death and resurrection.


If we take all of Psalm 40 to be the words of Jesus, then let us turn to the penultimate verse. Here we have Jesus’ prayer for us:


‘But may all who seek you
    rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation
    say continually, “Great is the Lord!”’


We know that God the Father has heard this prayer and said “yes” in reply – Jesus was brought out of the pit of death in his resurrection. And so we can know that God the Father has also said “yes” to this bit, about all who seek him being glad in him.


I am reminded at this point of the old hymn “Someone Is Praying For You”. We may be blessed to have fellow Christians we know by name praying for us. If not, then your church comes up in our monthly diocesan prayer cycle – so loads of us clergy are praying for you. If you aren’t in an Anglican church, then you still have someone praying for you, and you know his name – Jesus of Nazareth. And he is blessing you in these words of this Psalm.


What do you need prayers for right now? Who have you asked to pray for you?


Lord of our salvation: may you always hear our prayers through Christ your Son our Lord, that we may continually rejoice and be glad in you.

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