text: There is no single feature to the Christian church that reveals our unity with Jesus and all Jesus’ people than the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper (or Eucharist or communion). In his memoir, Open Secrets, Richard Lischer employs a most lovely image at one point. In the church he first served following his graduation from seminary, the wine chalice used for the Lord’s Supper was a fairly large goblet made of a shiny silver. Each time when he presented the wine, he would lift the cup up high over his head. A few people in his staunchly Lutheran congregation didn’t like that move–they thought it looked too Roman Catholic. But Lischer says that the reason he did this was because when he lifted the cup up, he could see on the curved underside of the chalice the entire congregation reflected. It reminded him of the fundamental truth of the sacrament: when we eat the bread and drink the cup of our Lord, we thicken our union with him but we also become members one with another. We are all one in the cup we share.
  Psalm 98 is a stirring call to joyfully (and boisterously!) celebrate God’s reign over all creation. It’s very similar to Psalm 96. After all, both invite the listening congregation to sing a new song and each ends with God’s righteous judgment being a reason for jubilant singing. Each psalm is also part of the cluster of “kingship psalms.” However, psalms 96 and 98 are also subtly different. Psalm 96 focuses on God’s glory. Psalm 98 focuses on God’s salvation.