Let Us Rejoice Today And Be Glad

Psalm 118 sits at the end of a small cluster of psalms, 113 through 118, that Jewish tradition calls the Hallel, from the Hebrew word for praise. These were sung at the great festivals, and above all at Passover, when families gathered round the table to remember being brought out of Egypt. So this is not a private diary entry. It is a congregation’s song, written to be sung out loud together, which is why the verse says ‘We will rejoice’, not ‘I will’. There is a real chance, though I would not press it as certain, that this is among the psalms Jesus and his disciples sang on the night before he died. Matthew 26:30 tells us they sang a hymn before going out to the Mount of Olives, and the Passover Hallel is the natural candidate. I find that thought steadies me. When the verse tells me to be glad in this day, it was first sung by people remembering rescue, and possibly last sung by my Lord as he walked towards the cross.

It is easy to read ‘This is the day that the LORD has made’ as a sunny remark about Tuesday in general. But in the flow of the psalm, the writer has just described being surrounded, pushed hard, nearly falling, and then saved. Look at verses 10 to 14, and verse 22, where the rejected stone becomes the head of the corner. The day he is rejoicing in is a particular one: the day God’s deliverance arrived. That does not cancel the everyday reading, it deepens it. What helps me is to hear both at once. Yes, every ordinary morning is a gift from God’s hand. But the verse was born out of a specific rescue, a turning point you could put a date to. So when I say the words, I am not only thanking God for the abstract fact of being alive. I am invited to name a day God actually showed up, and to let today stand in that same light.

You cannot honestly read this verse without glancing two lines up the page. Verse 22 says the stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Jesus took that exact line and applied it to himself at the end of a parable in Matthew 21:42, and Peter does the same in Acts 4:11 and again in 1 Peter 2:7. The cry of the crowds as Jesus rode into Jerusalem, recorded in Matthew 21:9, comes straight out of verse 26 of this same psalm. So this is one of the most quoted psalms in the whole New Testament, and it clusters tightly around Christ. That changes how I hear ‘the day the LORD has made’. The early church read this song and saw resurrection in it: the great reversal where the rejected one is raised and given the highest place. I cannot prove the psalmist saw that far ahead, and I will not pretend he did. But standing where we stand, after Easter, the brightest day God ever made was the morning the tomb was found empty, and every glad day since borrows its light from that one.

Here is where it gets honest for me. The short reflection already says gladness is a decision, and it is. But I want to name how hard that decision can be. There are mornings I open my eyes and the first thing I feel is the weight of the list, or a conversation I am dreading, or just a flat greyness with no clear cause. On those days ‘We will rejoice and be glad’ can sound like being told to cheer up, which never helps anyone. What I have found is that the verse is not asking me to manufacture a feeling. It is asking me to look for what is actually there: that I woke, that there is coffee in the cupboard, that someone texted me back, that God has not stopped holding the world together overnight. I am not glad because the day is good. I am glad because the day is given, and the One who gives it is good. Some mornings I have to say the words before I feel a single thing, and the feeling, when it comes, comes second.

• Can I name a particular day God rescued me or someone I love, and let today stand in that same light?
• Where am I waiting for a flawless day before I let myself be thankful, and what would it cost me to stop waiting?
• The psalm says ‘We’, not ‘I’. Who could I actually say these words alongside this week, rather than carrying my gladness alone?
• If the brightest day God ever made was the morning of the resurrection, how does that change what I expect from this one?

If today feels more grey than glad, you might sit with a few more verses on thankfulness and hope or simply take the next one as it comes with the verse of the day.