Praise fills the pages of the Bible and dominates our hymnals; but, it is often difficult to find it in us as Christians. Praise is not easy to define. Most Bible dictionaries include it under the general classification of prayer, and it is frequently associated with the act of thanksgiving.

In our First Lesson today, the author of Second Isaiah presents praise as the only response that a faithful people can make; because there is nothing else that God requires or desires.

God is about to do a great deed. It is deed before which all that God has done in the past fades into the background of redemptive history. Even the exodus from Egypt, so sacred in the memory of Israel's salvation, will be forgotten in the light of this new and mighty act. A new pathway through the waters of a new sea, a n…