6. Thursday after First Sunday in Advent.
Keep us, Lord, in thy tabernacle,
hide us in thy pavilion. Amen.
Psalm 48. A Song and Psalm for the sons of Korah. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge. For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together. They saw it, and so they marvelled; they were troubled, and hasted away. Fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail. Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind. As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever. Selah. We have thought of thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple. According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth; thy right hand is full of righteousness. Let mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments. Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even unto death.
❦
The earthly Jerusalem typifies, as it were, the church of Christ; and this psalm recites the splendor of the church.
The Lord is in his Zion; the great, eternal God is in the midst of his Christian people. He who is the first and the last and the living, who was dead and is alive for evermore, who has the keys of hell and death, he is in the midst of the seven candlesticks, in the midst of the church, with the sevenfold gifts of his Spirit. This is the glory of the church, that the Lord himself is in it, that it is the city of the Lord of hosts. For this reason are all its enemies put to shame, while its children are victorious over death and hell.
We who are baptized and believe in Jesus dwell together on that Mount Zion which is established forever; we abide within the walls of the city of God, where mercy and righteousness reign, where death and the devil are shut out, and with them all evil, so that bliss and life only are found therein. For our communion is with the Father and the Son in the Holy Ghost. We still have, to be sure, much sin and frailty, but we have full forgiveness of sin every day; Satan throws the darts of temptation against us and often wounds us, but we are continually healed by the blood of Jesus, and we walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. Outside of God’s church the devil rules, and all who dwell there are the children of death. Over us in Zion, in the community of true believers, Christ is king, and all his people are the children of life. Our removal from the church on earth to that in heaven shall in no wise harm us. For the same God is our God forevermore, and he will be our safe guide even unto death. This is truth. The word of God teaches it. We believe it and train ourselves always in this faith. We do not see it, neither do we feel it in such manner, that we make this feeling our reliance. But the word of God does not lie, in this word we trust. O, that we might have firm faith in the blessed truth of the word! Then shall we more and more know by experience, that all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ.
We remember thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple, and praise thee that thou so graciously dost save us. Keep us with thee and gather unto thyself the multitudes of thy redeemed from all the ends of the earth. Amen.*
Ye nations round the earth, rejoice
Before the Lord, your sovereign King;
Serve him with cheerful heart and voice,
With all your tongues his glory sing.
The Lord is God, ’tis he alone
Doth life and breath and being give;
We are his work, and not our own,
The sheep that on his pastures live.
[suggested tune: Old Hundredth, TLH 13; listen here]
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.