All Things Come to Praise

2020 has come to us. The book has closed on another year, on another decade according to most. The calendar serves us in marking out days. A sense of order is given to our life in time. It sets us in places. We can see appointment reminders and these guide us through the months.

But God, the One worthy of all of our praise, is there. He is over, under, and around every one of our moments. To Him, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years are as a day (see Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8).

At seasons such as this, I think it is good for us to think of Christ and Calvary. Just days ago, we celebrated His coming to earth, a baby boy born to young Mary of Nazareth. On the Cross, Jesus hung there as a man, a man as innocent as He was on the day of His birth. These hours of His most diabolical and severe suffering were not wasted hours – Christ made every moment count.

He forgave. He saved. He cared. He lamented and mourned and grieved.

He thirsted. He drank. He ended. He committed and bowed and breathed – His last breath.

And He died. He gave Himself to death and completed the mission of His humanity.

The curse of us all came upon Him. The earth shook. The skies went dark. The rocks fractured. Judgment and justice for the sin of the world was accomplished.

A Way Made

In the Temple at Jerusalem, a veil was torn, from top to bottom. This was a curtain of separation, a thick barrier decorated with embroidered images of cherubim. It hung between the people and the Holy of Holies, the compartment that housed the Ark of the Covenant with its Mercy Seat. It was the place where He manifested His presence. The veil shielded away the tremendous light and power of God’s holiness and righteousness.

The death of the only begotten Son divided the curtain. The way opened. Bloodied with the effectual flow from Emmanuel’s veins, the Mercy Seat now spoke a message of triumph and life and of welcome.  All may come and adore Him. All may rejoice in the reality of His presence.

Let us sing the song of the Finished Work of Redemption.

The curse of the tree in the garden was answered by Christ on the tree of Golgotha. Let us rejoice in the newness of life that He has won. Click To Tweet

Let everything that has breath now praise the Lord. This is the way the book of Psalms finishes for everything in heaven, earth, sky, and sea speaks to His praise.

All of our pasts were buried away with Jesus in that garden tomb long ago, the one where He was laid after the Cross. The completeness of His obedience was validated on the third day. Out of the earth He came, uncorrupted, risen, and complete. The Son resurrected. By this One’s death, death was defeated.

The curse of the tree in the garden was answered by Christ on the tree of Golgotha. Let us rejoice in the newness of life that He has won.

Riches Are Ours

Jesus spent His hours, days, months, and years in a process of fulfillment. Every stroke of the Law of God was fulfilled in His Person. He left none of it undone. Whole and true in His steps on earth, He accumulated to Himself all the riches of glory and majesty and power.

How does He now spend such wealth? He lavishes it upon sinners through mercies that are new every morning. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us.

Let us praise the Lord for His mercy is forever.

The throne of David is now His seat. There at the right hand of the Father, He sees and knows all that is about us. He holds our 2020s in His hands. He bids us come to Him in our heaviness and weakness, and also in our successes and accomplishments. Good times, bad times – the Lord is faithful in all of them.

In Times Square, many watched a ball fall. People toasted each other as clocks struck midnight. They woke up and looked at a new calendar – full of days that they will fill with who knows what.

Us?

We shout to the Lord. We live in His Day, a forever Day, a Holy Day.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.