You have, perhaps, heard of a Lenten discipline. This past Lent was my fifth one where I didn’t take on a discipline of any kind in particular. I didn’t fast from a luxury or hold fast to a prayer or spiritual study routine. Honestly, every year since 2020, there has been at least one thing – if not more – going on in my life and/or in the life of the whole world that has made a Lenten fast seem unnecessary because I was being obligated by events outside of my control to abstain from so many things. So, I’ve pretty much given up giving things up for Lent.

But starting today, on this second Sunday of Easter, I am taking up an Easter discipline. As I sat in a small church this morning, saying along with the congregation the words of Psalm 150, I promised myself and God that, at least for the next 43 days, possibly throughout the time that this particular nightmare in which we live lasts, I will pray the last psalm of the psalter every day.

Psalm 150 is one of my favorites. I love it because it is absolutely raucous with praise: “Praise God in his holy temple; praise him in the firmament of his power […] Praise him with timbrel and dance.”

The poem even begins and ends with praise, with that one magnificent Easter word: “Hallelujah!” What we don’t realize in our English translation, though, is that a form of that word is repeated throughout the psalm.  Hallelujah is a Hebrew combination of words that means literally “Praise God!” and so the first part, “hallel” appears in the original Hebrew of the psalm every time we see the word “praise.”  Read verse 1 as: “Hallelujah!  Hallel God in his holy temple; hallel him in the firmament of his power.”

Now, Hebrew and Arabic are linguistic siblings; they are both Semitic languages, just as Palestinians – indeed, all Arabs – are a Semitic people. And Semitic languages share much in common, like, for example, the word “hallel.”  As in Hebrew, so in Arabic, “hallel” means “praise.” 

In fact, that Arabic word is used in my culture in a very special context.

I wonder if you’ve ever cared for a very young child: a newborn or infant. If you have, perhaps you’ve noticed something that nearly all babies do. When they fall asleep, when they are just on that edge between wakefulness and slumber, infants will make a noise.  It’s sometimes a soft rhythmic hum… huwww, huww – like a purr.  Other children might be a little louder, something that sounds similar to crying – but is definitely not crying.  Rather, it’s an instinctive, audible reaction that most children have as they cross back into the world of the subconscious. 

In Arabic, when a baby makes that noise, we say he or she “hallels.”  It may not sound like praise to us, but I think Arabic culture is linguistically naming what is true: babies, who have so recently come from God, maintain a sense of their close connection to their Creator in a way we older folks struggle to hold onto.  It is a child’s instinct, therefore, as she returns to that subconscious state, to praise the Lord.

And, like the psalmist, I think that the act of praising God is one of the things at the very heart of who we are as God’s creatures.  The instinct to praise God is built into our DNA, as surely as it is into all of creation.  So, the psalm’s exhortation to praise is not just a proscription for what we should do, but also, even primarily, a description of what all creation does, intrinsically, us included: “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord.” Anything that has body and breath is built for that praise, if we would let it happen. If we could just forget all the distractions and complications of life, we would discover that, like babies, our natural instinct is to “hallel,” to praise the God who loves us into being. 

But the truth is that, despite all our blessings, we grown-ups are not newborn babes. And though there is much for which we give thanks, there is also much – maybe even more – in our world today that prevents us from joining in that jubilant praise. So much these days will not “let” us hallel to God.

Most adults, with our cares and concerns, our woes and worries struggle with this, I expect. But, for me, well… For me, it has never been as hard to let myself hallel than it has been in recent years. Despite all my personalprivileges and blessings, it has never been as hard to join in that jubilant praise of Psalm 150 as it is for me right now. Today.

From the systemic ethnic cleansing of my own people in Palestine to the abduction of people off American streets with no recourse for help and so much in between, our world gives us a lot of reasons to stifle our Easter celebrations. And that’s just the global and national contexts that we all share. Add to that the personal tragedies everyone faces: grief or addiction or illness or a whole host of other things.

Is it any wonder then, that we adults struggle to join in the jubilation of Psalm 150, to participate in the hallel?  Our instinctto praise has to fight through a lot of darkness to be set free these days. How can we be expected to hallel when we seem to be living in the midst of a hell of our own making?

And it’s right there, in the middle of that question, that I find myself turning to the familiar figure and the familiar story of so-called “doubting” Thomas that many Christians remember this second Sunday of Easter, too, right alongside Psalm 150.

Psalm 150 has become a favorite piece of scripture for me in recent years, but the story of Doubting Thomas from John’s gospel has long held a special place in my own faith journey. All that understandable, relatable doubt and questioning gets turned into the most profound statement of faith in the gospels when Thomas, upon seeing the risen Lord, cries out the truth: “My Lord and my God!”

But sometimes, in a story so familiar, we miss important details. Like the fact that there is a week between Jesus’ first resurrection appearance to the disciples in the upper room and his second one – when Thomas is finally there. Seven whole days that Thomas had to wait. And during that long week, as his friends “rejoiced” because they had seen the risen Lord, how did Thomas feel? 

I imagine he felt much the same way I do right now.  Easter Day has come and gone.  We know the Lord is not in the tomb.  We know he has risen and defeated death.  But it’s hard, it’s so hard, right now, to feel it, to believe it, to really rejoice and praise God for it.

And I imagine in that first week after the resurrection, Thomas felt much the same way.  John’s gospel tells us that Thomas was skeptical of his friends’ rejoicing.  He’s still grieving Jesus’s death. And maybe now he’s envious of his friends, maybe even angry, not so much at them or at Jesus, but frustrated by the whole situation, all the uncertainty, all the anxiety, all the lack of control. 

And here’s something else I’m noticing about Thomas today: he didn’t know that it would only be a week.  We know that seven days after Easter Day, Thomas gets his chance to see Jesus’s wounds.  But he didn’t know that.  He didn’t know when or if his opportunity to encounter the risen Lord would ever come.  Just like us now, in that week, Thomas had to live in that place of uncertainty and doubt for who knew how long, even as his friends rejoiced around him. 

Kind of… Because, there’s one more thing to note about this story.  When Jesus appears before them a week later, his disciples are still in fearful isolation with the doors shut tightly.  They rejoiced when they first saw him; perhaps they are still rejoicing.  But their knowledge of Jesus’s resurrection hasn’t quite left them exuberantly dancing down every street of Jerusalem praising God “with timbrel and dance.”  They’re rejoicing, but they’re also still scared, still confused, still anxious.

“Have you believed because you have seen me?” Jesus asks Thomas.  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”  Yes.  Blessed are we.  Blessed are we who have not seen and yet still expect to see, still look for the risen Christ in the world around us.  Blessed are we whose faith sees the brokenness and suffering of our present reality and yet finds reasons to rejoice. Blessed are we who, despite it all, even now, “let” ourselves join in the jubilant praise of Psalm 150, holding fast to our Hallelujahs in hope, nevertheless.

So, I’m going to take on an Easter discipline of praying Psalm 150 every day, insisting on praise, allowing my God-given instinct for it to breathe through me, even if it’s only ever a whisper, despite all the hell around me, in the face of the hatred and evil I see in the world about. Because, Alleluia, Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia.