God has ascended amid shouts of joy,

Sing praises to God, sing praises;

For God is the King of all the earth;

God reigns over the nations;

—Psalm 47:5-8, NIV

Lift up your heads, you gates;

be lifted up, you ancient doors,

that the King of glory may come in.

—Psalm 24:7-8, 10, NIV

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,

the world, and those who live in it;

for he has founded it on the seas,

and established it on the rivers.

Those who have clean hands and pure hearts,

who do not lift up their souls to what is false,

and do not swear deceitfully.

They will receive blessing from the Lord,

and vindication from the God of their salvation.

Such is the company of those who seek him,

who seek the face of the God of Jacob.

Who is the King of glory?

Lift up your heads, O gates!

and be lifted up, O ancient doors!

that the King of glory may come in.

Who is this King of glory?

—Psalm 24, NRSV

O come, let us sing to the Lord;

let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

In his hand are the depths of the earth;

the heights of the mountains are his also.

The sea is his, for he made it,

and the dry land, which his hands have formed.

—Psalm 95:1-7, NRSV

The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty;

indeed, the world is established,

firm and secure.

Your statutes, Lord, stand firm;

for endless days.

—Psalm 93:1-2, 5, NIV

Ascended Lord Jesus, help us to turn our thoughts toward you. We confess to

you this Ascension Day that we so often fail to take you into account. Sometimes

we do not set our minds upon you because of sheer laziness—it’s easier just to go

with society’s flow. Sometimes we do not take you into account because of simple

inattention—we just forget to look for ways in which we could serve your gospel

in a given situation. At other times we have not turned toward you because we have

actively and willfully decided to turn away from you.

When and where we fail to be transparent to your cosmic lordship, please

forgive us. By your Spirit of Pentecost, sent to us precisely because you are reigning

on high, help us to see this world the way you see it. From your exalted throne you

are able to see us and this world and its many hurting people clearly and well. Help

us to open our own eyes. Grant us vision and insight to view the people around us

through the lens of your own compassion.

Sometimes, O God, we conceive of your lordship as regal, powerful, and

perhaps a bit distant. We think your sovereign rule involves mostly quashing evil,

pursuing justice, and judging sin. Remind us by your Spirit that your lordship is

also about being close to people in need. Prod us to recall that in your kingdom,

rulership comes through servanthood and that the hands that uphold our world are

the pierced and tender hands of Jesus. Help us to remember (so that we may imitate

this ourselves) that you see not just evil that needs judging but also suffering that

needs ministry.

For you, O Lord, see the tears of the widowed, the sobs that overtake them when

the rest of us are not looking. You see the disorientation in which so many people

live every day—confusion borne of war, poverty, abuse, or chronic illness. You

see the people in dead-end jobs who trudge to work every day filled with so much

despair that they can hardly breathe. You see those who search a loved one’s eyes

for traces of love but find only an empty stare. As Lord of the earth, you spy every

instance of one person cutting another to the quick, every place where a child lives

in fear, every bar where someone tries to drown their sorrows.

Yet you are our world’s every hope. You are tender enough to weep with those

who weep and yet strong enough to lend comfort and not be consumed with the

sorrows that overwhelm us. You are discerning enough to see where our lives run

off the rails and yet gracious enough to forgive our foolishness and open again

the better path that leads into your kingdom. You are the bright center to all of

life, O God! Your lordship helps us glimpse our future with you in your kingdom,

even as it points the way home.

Make us into people of the ascension, Christ Jesus! Make us your hands of mercy,

your voice of grace, your presence of love. Whatever we do, whether in word

or deed; whatever we see, whether sinful or salacious; whatever we hear, whether

uplifting or depressing; whatever we face in this world, help us to face it in your

power and with the knowledge of your grace and goodness. Help us to be gentle

with prodigal children. Help us to be stalwart in the truth with people in love with

lies. Help us to be radiant with hope with people who fear death. Help us to be your

people, Lord God.

For today, as always, this world needs your shalom-filled presence. Bring peace

to war-torn places and help people everywhere to see in one another your image.

May those who delight in the paths of suicide and destruction be turned instead to

delight in life and in mutual flourishing. End the terror in which so many live, and

thwart the dreams of those who plot still more terror on the unsuspecting. Where

there is hunger, bring bread; where there is drought and thirst, send refreshing

rains; where there is hatred, bring your peace; where there is greed, bring your own

fullness and so turn appetites run amok away from short-term pleasures toward

things that last and that foster richness and plenty for all.

We are the people of your ascension and reign, Holy Christ of God. Whatever

we do, help us never to forget who we are, whose we are, and where true joy may

be found.

In the power and blessing of your name we pray. Amen.

Ascended Lord, we praise you.

In your death you utterly wiped out the damning evidence

of broken laws and commandments that always hung over our heads.

You completely annulled it by nailing it over your head on the cross.

In your resurrection you gave us new life, free life, full of new possibilities.

In your ascension you paraded sin and death behind you

in your triumphal procession.

You are our guarantee of victory.

You are our guarantee because you went through everything

we struggle with and triumphed over all evil.

What you did, you promised to help us do.

You will always be with us—not merely with sympathy but also with power.

You are our guarantee because it is truly “one of us”

who now governs as ruler of time and space.

This too gives us confidence and courage for the future.

You are our guarantee because, in going away,

you released the Spirit on us.

You are not distant from us but closer to us than ever before.

The current of the Spirit works over and through us endlessly.

It seeps and trickles into all the depths of heart and mind and will

so that truly we are like trees planted by water.

We bear fruit in season, our leaves do not wither,

and all that we do turns out well.

We bring our hopes, our needs, our desires to you.

We are confident of access because you are “one of us.”

We are confident of answers because you are the ruler of the universe.

Yours is the name above every other name,

the name before which every knee bows and every tongue confesses,

“You are Lord,” to the glory of God.

Hear our prayers and accept our praises.

May they rise like sweet-smelling incense before you

from lives that are like altars set ablaze by the fire of the Spirit. Amen.

—based on Psalm 1:3; Ephesians 2:5-6; Colossians 2:12-15; Philippians 2:10-11

Sovereign King,

we praise you for your just and righteous reign over the cosmos:

for the order you give to creation . . .

for your sovereign rule over the nations . . .

for your faithfulness to your church . . .

for your lordship in our lives . . .

You are at once King and servant, willing to give your life

and caring even for what we might count as insignificant.

So we approach your throne knowing you will listen to our prayers

for creation and its care . . .

for the nations of the world . . .

for our nation and its leaders . . .

for this community and those who are in authority . . .

for the church universal as it works on your behalf . . .

for this local church in its ministry . . .

for persons with particular needs . . .

We pray in your name, O Christ, our sovereign servant King. Amen.

Martin Tel crafted this refrain from Psalm 68, using the famed Genevan tune for this Psalm. (For a full version of this Psalm and tune, see Lift Up Your Hearts, 212) Psalm 68 became the battle song of the Calvinist Reformation throughout Europe (analogous to Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" in the Lutheran tradition). It has been called the "Huguenot Marseillaise," and stanza 1 is probably the best known in the Dutch Reformed tradition.

Martin Tel is the C. F. Seabrook Director of Music at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. He conducts the seminary choirs, teaches courses in church music, and administers the music for the daily seminary worship services. He served as senior editor of Psalms for All Seasons: A Complete Psalter for Worship (2012). His love for music began in a dairy barn in rural Washington State, where he heard his father belt out psalms and hymns while milking the cows. Martin earned degrees in church music and theology from Dordt College, the University of Notre Dame, Calvin Theological Seminary, and the University of Kansas. He has served as minister of music in Christian Reformed, Reformed Church in America, and Presbyterian congregations. With his wife, Sharilyn, he is raising three children in Princeton, New Jersey.

 

The Genevan Psalter is the major gift of the Reformed branch of the Reformation to the song of the church. John Calvin (1509-1564) first experienced congregational singing of the psalms in Strasbourg when serving as a pastor of French exiles there, and when returning to Geneva in 1541 he finally persuaded the city council to permit congregational singing, which they had banned entirely under the influence of Ulrich Zwingli. Just two months after returning to Geneva, Calvin wrote in his Ecclesiastical Ordinances: "It will be good to introduce ecclesiastical songs, the better to incite the people to pray to and praise God. For a beginning the little children are to be taught; then with time all the church will be able to follow." Calvin set about overseeing the development of several metrical psalms with melodies, rather than the hymns, or chorales, of the Lutheran tradition, and also in contrast to the published psalters with texts only that followed in England and Scotland. The emerging Genevan Psalter was published in instalments until completed in 1562, including the 150 psalms, the Ten Commandments and the Song of Simeon. He employed the best French poets and composers to prepare metrical settings rather than continuing to chant the psalms, since poetry in meter was the popular form of the day—and also the choice for the Lutheran chorale.

 

The publication event was the largest in publishing history until then; twenty-four printers in Geneva alone, plus presses in Paris, Lyons, and elsewhere produced more than 27,000 copies in the first two years; more than 100,000 copies were available in over thirty editions. The Genevan Psalter was extremely popular, and almost immediately translated into Dutch, Hungarian, and German. Due to the intense persecution of the French Huguenots in the 16th century, the center of activity of the Reformed branch of the Reformation moved away from France and especially to the Netherlands, and from there to Indonesia, South Africa, and North America. The most recent translation (2004) of the entire psalter is into Japanese. The most recent English translation of the entire Genevan Psalter is available with melodies from the Canadian Reformed Book of Praise, available at http://www.canrc.org/?page=23 .

Calvin’s goal was to provide a distinct tune for every psalm, so that each psalm would have its own identity. Every tune would then bring to mind a particular psalm. The psalter didn’t quite reach this goal: it contains 125 different tunes. Today, only a few of those Genevan tunes are in wide use, among them the psalm tune most widely known around the world, often identified as OLD HUNDRETH, or simply, “The Doxology.”

Matthäus Greiter (b. Aichach, Germany, 1490; d. Strousburg, France, December 20, 1550) studied at Freiburg University and became a monk and musician at the Strasbourg Cathedral. Influenced by Wolfgang Dachstein, Greiter joined the Lutheran Church in 1524 and served several Lutheran congregations in the Strasbourg area. He also taught at the Gymnasium Argentinense (high school) and eventually directed a choir school. However, the year before his death Greiter returned to the Roman Catholic Church. He is thought to have been the music editor of John Calvin's first Strasbourg Psalter, Aulcuns Pseaulmes et Cantiques(1539).