Psalm 117 This day was made
Psalm 117 Commentary.. 2nd and 4th Easter revised. Commentary by Dr Noel Donnelly
Psalm 117 appears every Easter Sunday. It’s always been a call to the community to give thanks and celebrate God’s “steadfast love”; so it’s especially appropriate as our Easter Celebrations continue, repeated on the second and on into the fourth Sunder of Easter. A variety of verses is selected on each of these occasions. But there’s always a selection of verses 22 to 23: “the stone which the builder rejected has become the corner stone!” Overall, there are 29 verses in the whole psalm, and there is a different bunch of six verses selected on the first, second and fourth Sundays of our Easter season. The whole psalm focuses on God, repeating the divine name 28 times in its 29 verses!
The psalm was originally a song of the community as it made a joyful procession through the Temple gates on a great feast day, probably the Feast of Tabernacles. In Jewish subsequent practice the psalm, being one of the Hallel Psalms, was sung at the end of the Passover meal after the fourth cup of celebratory wine. It is used in all four Gospels and would have been sung by Jesus and the disciples on the way to Gethsemane. Our Eastertide setting is one that celebrates the ultimate victory of the risen Jesus. We sing it on the first, second and fourth of the Easter Sundays.
That stone which the psalm mentions, the “cornerstone”, refers to the block of stone that holds together at right angles the walls of the building. If it was flawed, then the whole building would be unsteady. How strange then that a rejected one was used!
Our weekend liturgy surrounds this psalm of rejoicing with the apostles: in Acts, the first reading, where people gather for healing through the sermon of Peter; followed by the Gospel of John passage which moves back to chapter 10 where Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd, who lays down his very life for his sheep…. three mentions of this laying down in our present Easter Gospel, lest we forget the whole picture of Jesus’ glorious Passover from death to risen life!
Let us rejoice and be glad for the Lord has passed through that laying down and is now risen indeed!
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Ps 117: words (c) The Grail, England; music Gerry Fitzpatrick; (c) Kevin Mayhew. Recorded by The St Mungo Singers
Organ and voice score
a setting of Ps 117 for children
Ps 117b: words (c) The Grail, England; music Gerry Fitzpatrick; recorded by Magdalen MacInnes
Ps 117c: words (c) The Grail, England; music Gerry Fitzpatrick
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