Come on now!
Join in one huge
Hallelujah!
Let’s say a big Thank You to Yahweh.
He’s so, so good.
His love is relentless, never quitting.
A simple telling of all the amazing things Yahweh’s done
Is more than one person could do in a lifetime,
An impossibly large undertaking.
But the best life includes this:
Living justly,
Knowing what’s right and doing it.
Remember me, Yahweh,
When you remember your people.
Re-member me,
Put my pieces back together again,
As you re-member your people.
As you make your favorites
Happy and whole,
Let me in on their happiness,
Let me in on the hallelujahs
Rising from your inheritance-people.
For this is the reality we face:
We’ve sinned just as badly as our grandparents,
Made a complete mess of things,
Created a lot of purposeless pain.
Our grandparents acted like spoiled kids
When they were in Egypt.
They took your plague-miracles for granted.
They quickly forgot how much you love them.
They rebelled against you at the Red Sea.
Amazingly, he saved them,
Staying consistent with his character,
Letting them know the kind of power
They were dealing with.
“Hey, Sea,” he said, “Get out of here!”
And it dried up.
As he led them between the piled up waters,
Their feet kicked up dust
From the desert-dry ground.
Haters were hot on their heels,
But he saved them,
Snatching them from the threat of violence.
Then he gave those haters a bath
With no survivors.
That opened their eyes,
Opening their hearts in belief,
Opening their mouths in praise.
But if didn’t take them long to forget God,
To try to take control of their lives,
To not wait for his wisdom.
They got hungry,
Pestering God for food in the wilderness.
He gave in to their demands.
They got full bellies
But empty souls.
Moses became the target of their envy.
Aaron, too,
Even though he was Yahweh’s priest.
The earth opened up its mouth
And swallowed Dathan and Abiram’s band.
Flames flared up,
Burning that crew to a crisp.
At Horeb, they made a calf
From molten metal,
A “God” for them to worship.
They had the real and glorious God
But traded down for grass-eating bull.
They forgot who they were dealing with:
The God who saved them,
The God who did all those amazing things in Egypt,
Those miracles in Ham’s land,
That terrifying splitting-the-Sea thing.
God was furious,
Vowing to kill them all.
But Moses,
His favorite,
Stood in the way,
Averting his anger.
They turned up their noses
At the lush land,
Belittled God’s promise.
They whined like two-year-olds
And obeyed just as badly.
So Yahweh swore a solemn oath:
“You’ll die in this desert.
Your grandkids will be conquered
And scattered around the world.”
They united themselves with the Baal of Peor,
Eating sacrifices offered to the dead.
This was a slap to God’s face
And he didn’t stop a plague from infecting them.
But Phinehas didn’t sit still.
He took justice in his own hands
And the plague stopped.
It showed how committed he was to doing the right thing.
It’s a point of pride to his family
And always will be.
But they got God good and mad again
At Meribah Springs.
It was a bad day for Moses, too.
They got him all riled up
And he said some stupid, regrettable things.
They didn’t purge the land,
Hedging on Yahweh’s command.
Instead, they got caught up in the surrounding culture
And became cheap copies of their new neighbors.
They let that culture tell them
What “God” is like,
And it messed them up.
It got so bad they even killed their own kids,
Sacrificed to the Canaanite concept of “God.”
The earth itself cringed,
Polluted by the blood spilled on it.
Such sluts!
They chose the prostitution
That tarnished them.
It’s no surprise Yahweh was so hurt,
So angry.
They had been so dear to him,
Their betrayal was that much more horrific to him.
So, he let them go
And they fell right into the hands of their haters,
Who treated them like dirt.
These enemies took advantage of them,
Bullied them mercilessly.
God would run to their rescue
So many times.
But they had rebel hearts
And idiot minds,
Continually choosing the gutter life of sin.
Even so,
He couldn’t keep his eyes off them,
Couldn’t ignore their pain,
Couldn’t unhear their crying.
He never forgot them,
Never forgot his covenant with them.
The deep, fathomless well
Of his mercy-love for them
Always compelled him to relent.
He even got their captors
To feel pity for them.
In view of your relentless, never-quitting love
Shown to them,
Save us too,
Yahweh our God.
Gather your exiled people.
Bring us back home
That we might write a book of thank-yous
To your holy name,
That we might go all out
In praise to you.
May there be no end
To the blessings poured out on you,
Yahweh, Israel’s God.
Can I get an Amen to that?
Somebody say a Hallelujah
And make it loud!