The Password

"The Password"
Psalm 100


When I was a kid, my brothers and I and an odd collection of neighborhood kids liked to make forts.  We weren't into making tree forts.  That was OK by me.  I'm afraid of heights, oddly enough.  I think it's part of God's odd sense of humor to make a tall person afraid of heights.  Instead of tree forts, we made tunnel forts.  We'd dig like a pack of prairie dogs until we had hollowed out an underground den.

We thought our dug out caves were really cool.  My father, seeing the backyard dug up and a pile of dirt on the grass, didn't share our opinion.  We'd have to fill it all in and go dig up one of the other kid's backyard; which would create the same reaction with that kid's father.

It was our club and only boys could be members.  We made up passwords that only the guys in the club knew.  But every once in a while the girls would find out the password.  There was a leak in our secret club, and then we'd have to change the password.  There was no way we were letting a girl in our cave.  That is, unless we beat her over the head with a stick and dragged her in by her hair, just like the cavemen supposedly used to do.

That memory came flooding back as I read through Psalm 100 in different translations.  Instead of the verse that reads:
Be thankful...as you enter His temple
Eugene Peterson, in The Message has:
Enter with the password: "Thank you."

"Thank you," is one of the most important passwords in our relationship with God.  It opens up the way into God's heart.  It is the only proper response for all that God brings our way in life.  It's the password anyone can use.  Thankfully God doesn't discriminate like we did in our childhood clubs.

But yet, saying that particular password is hard for a lot of people.  There is something within them that keeps the vocal chords from uttering the word that gains a person entrance to worship and into the presence of God.  It has astounded me how many letters used to come to Dear Abby about an experience of thanklessness.  Someone gave something to someone else--a favor or a gift--and no "thank you" was given in return.  Some of the events of thanklessness had happened years before the letter was written to Dear Abby.  Evidently, not being able to say the password, "thank you," creates long held grudges.

That’s why I want to focus our attention on Psalm 100.  It has always been one of my favorites from childhood.  I have always liked the Psalm because it has an uplifting and celebrative tone.  Right at the start the Psalm says to make a joyful noise to the Lord.  In The Message it has, “On your feet now--applaud God!”  That always captured my attention as a kid because we weren’t allowed to make much noise, let alone shout.

When all the cousins got together at my grandparent’s house for Christmas, we had a lot of fun tormenting my grandparent’s chihuahua.  It was constantly yipping.  Remember those Taco Bell commercials where the chihuahua would say cool things like, “Gooey cheese,” or, “Drop the chiluppa.”  Not my grandparent’s dog.  It would just bark, all the time.

So we’d use the dog kind of like a hockey puck, sliding it back and forth to each other on the wood floor.  We would laugh and scream as it tried to get a grip with it’s claws.  That is until our grandfather would come down the hall and yell, “Can’t you kids be quiet; you’re hurting grandpa’s ears.”  We’d shut up for about a minute and then be back at it again, sliding their dog across the floor.

As a kid, you’re always being told to shut up and be quiet.  But here in Psalm 100, I saw permission being given to shout and make noise before God.  That’s why I grew up believing that God was not an adult.  God was a kid who liked noise--lots of it.  Later, as I thought about that, I also realized that being thankful before God should be a noisy, fun, and emotional outlet.  Being thankful to God is not a tight-lipped, “thank you,” but a big THANK YOU that is shouted and sung.  It is a thank you that is expressed in outbursts of emotional praise to God.

Luigi Tarisio was found dead one morning in his home.  His home was almost empty of any human comforts.  Astonishingly, though, Tarisio had a collection of 246 violins.  He had collected them all his life.  They were mostly crammed into a little attic.  He had written that he hardly every played them, but was, “keeping them safe.”  One of the greatest violins in his collection was a Stradivarius.  It had remained silent for 147 years.  Instruments that had been designed to sing and make beautiful music had been purposely, yet tragically, silent.

How many thank you’s have been kept in your storage, unspoken, unshouted, unnoised, unsung?  That which makes for a thankful heart, according to the 100th Psalm is a willingness to make noise.  It is a willingness, even a joy, to be vocal in your expressions of thankfulness.  It is a willingness to get emotional.

I read recently that doctors who deal with cancer patients have identified what they call, “the cancer personality.”  A majority of people who get cancer have a personality that is passive and emotionless.  The doctor’s theory is that a lifetime of pent-up emotions causes the release of a variety of hormones that weaken the body’s immune system.  Instead of seeking out tiny cancers and killing them, their bodies let them get away and grow and spread.

This Psalm 100 shows us the healthy way of expressing our emotions through thankfulness.  Say the password in a loud, singing, praising "thank you!"  So, go ahead.  Show God your thankfulness.  Don't let anyone tell you you're hurting God's ears.


Another great part about Psalm 100 that fits here with what I just said is we are told to make this joyful noise with other thankful people.  The worship that Jesus and the people of Jesus' time were used to was a noisy, group activity.  People would parade into the temple.  The parade would start outside the city of Jerusalem.  It would gain in numbers and in noise the closer it got to the temple.  Notice the many different forms of the plural pronoun occurring in Psalm 100:  us, we, everyone, and the plural form of you.

Joy, thanksgiving, and gladness are always a group activity.  Saying the password is not a me thing; it is a we thing.  Mark Twain once said, "...to get the full value of joy, we must have somebody to share it with."  People say, "I can worship just as well by myself.  I don't have to come to church."  But think of all the multiplied gladness that one individual is missing.  Think how small that one "thank you" is, and how much larger it becomes when it is joined with all the other voices of worshippers who are singing and shouting their "thank you" to God.

In his book, The Secret of Staying in Love, John Powel wrote:
Very few of us ever even approach the realization of our full potential.  I accept the estimate that the average person accomplishes 10% of his promise, sees only 10% of the beauty around him, hears only 10% of the music and poetry of the universe, smells only a tenth of the world's fragrance, and tastes only a tenth of the deliciousness of being alive.  He is only open to 10% of his emotions, tenderness, wonder, and awe.  His mind embraces only a small part of the thoughts, reflections, and understanding of which he is capable.

After reading that, I thought to myself, if that is so, left to ourselves we are missing a lot.  But if we join ourselves to the company of thankful people, our 10% is joined to another's 10% and so on.  Our experiences of the world grow by the number of people we are with.  There's a lot of truth behind the saying, "The more, the merrier."  Our expressions of thankfulness, added to others expressions of thanksgiving, become a huge exclamation of this very special password.  So join the parade!  Express yourselves in the "we" of gladness.


And lastly, Psalm 100 tells us that what makes for a thankful person is never forgetting that God is good.  That's the way the Psalm ends:  The Lord is good!  There may be times in our lives when we question the goodness of God.  When bad or hurtful things happen to us, we wonder what good could come of it.

Or, from a different angle, we wonder how God could put up with the waywardness of the people of the world.  Once in a fit of temper, Martin Luther shouted, “If I were God and the world had treated me as it has treated Him, I would have kicked the wretched thing to pieces long ago.”  Psalm 100 answers Martin Luther’s perturbance with the simple point that the reason God doesn’t do that is because, “God is good, all-generous in love.”

Remember that in Hebrew poetry, ideas are rhymed, rather than words.  In one line, a statement will be made; and then in the second line, the first line will be restated in a different way.  The second line may fill out the first, or contrast the first.  So in this last verse of the Psalm, the psalmist writes, “God is good.”  Then in the second line the idea is restated:  “His love and loyalty will last forever.”  Love and loyalty, the psalmist is saying, demonstrates God’s goodness.

Bible commentator, C.H. Dodd once wrote, “All God’s activity is loving activity.  If God creates, God creates in love; if God rules, God rules in love; if God judges, God judges in love.”  So, if something bad or painful happens in your life, know that God is moving quickly with love, and in love, to make something good happen out of those experiences.

And when you think of any experiences of disloyalty you have lived through, it is certainly comforting to know that God’s goodness is expressed in undivided loyalty.  In the days of sailing ships there were few precautions.  If a vessel lost its sails, masts, or riggings in battle or a storm, it was hopelessly disabled.  The most welcome sight a ship in distress could receive was that of another ship bearing three flags with the letter symbols, B, N, and C.  These three flags flown together were the international sea code for “I will not abandon you.”  God’s goodness, says Psalm 100, is demonstrated by the fact that we will never be abandoned.  God will never leave us to face life alone.  Even though we may experience extreme disloyalty, God will never forsake us.

When you realize that about God, and experience it, you can’t help but say to God, “Thank you.  Thank you God, for not leaving me alone, for hanging in there with me, for walking beside me, and even carrying me when I couldn’t go on by myself.”  The thankful heart is the one that always remembers God is good:  loving and loyal in all His dealings with us.



We do have much to say “Thank you,” for.  It is the password among all passwords.  But as I have tried to make clear, it isn’t as much the things that you are thankful for.  It’s the attitude with which you bring to life.  It’s a condition of the heart that gets emotional with thanks to God.  It’s a mutual spirit, shared with other thankful souls that heightens our own individual thanksgivings.  It’s an assurance of mind that God is good and all things work for God’s good for those who love him.  Make this password a word that dwells in and unlocks your heart.