I can’t read psalm 95 without thinking of the Venite from
the Office of Matins in the Lutheran hymnal of my youth. (The 1941 Lutheran
Church Missouri Synod red book – the hymnal preferred by God and the angel choirs)
It was a long song sung every Sunday and was printed on two pages that required
flipping back and forth to sing the next verse. Of course we all had it
memorized so the flipping was just liturgical calisthenics which in some ways
is the whole point of liturgy. It’s like breathing, something that generally
goes unnoticed but is essential for life itself. The Venite wasn’t very
interesting musically and it would be hard to think of it as shouting with joy
to the rock of our salvation but it became so familiar that fifty years later
it reminds me of so much more than the song. That sort of foundational memory is
present even when everyday memory fades and in that way the great God who made
the seas and molded the dry land is always present until the last song of this
life becomes the first of song of the next and we enter God’s face to face presence
with thanksgiving.
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