Summary
"This Is the Day" — Giving Thanks for Our Todays
Psalm 118:24 is one of the most quoted verses in all of Scripture: "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." It is often read as a general affirmation that every sunrise is God's gift, and so we ought to rejoice each day that He gives. That truth stands on its own — God is sovereign over every blink of the eye and beat of the heart, and His grace meets us in all our days. But the verse itself, in its own context, is pointing to something more specific.
Look at what comes immediately before it. Psalm 118:22-23 declares, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes." Letting Scripture interpret Scripture, we find Jesus Himself quoting this passage during Holy Week in Mark 12:10-11, days before the cross. Peter applies it directly to Christ in Acts 4:11, and Paul builds on the same image in Ephesians 2:19-20, where the household of God is built "with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone."
Architecturally, the cornerstone is the first stone laid; every other stone is set in reference to it. So when verse 23 says, "This is the Lord's doing," the "this" is the work of Christ — the cross, where the wrath of God for sin was laid upon the Son, and the resurrection, where God validated that sacrifice by raising Him from the dead. Then comes verse 24: "This is the day that the Lord has made." The particular day in view is Easter — the day the cornerstone was laid in the resurrection of Christ.
Isaac Watts, the father of English hymnody, caught this exactly. His hymn "This Is the Day the Lord Has Made" reads in its second stanza, "Today He rose and left the dead, and Satan's empire fell." Easter is the day Watts is rejoicing in. And Paul agrees in 1 Corinthians 15:17: "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." Without Easter, there is no day worth singing about.
This shapes how we give thanks. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 calls us to "give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." Notice the preposition: not always for every circumstance, but in every circumstance. The reason we can do that is the day we rejoice in. Easter is the lens through which all of our todays come into focus. Every present circumstance — joyful or painful, ordinary or overwhelming — is held by the God who has already conquered death for us in His Son.
So the call of “Today ” 11-14-21 is simple and bracing: give thanks today, because Easter has happened. The cornerstone is set. The sacrifice has been accepted. God holds not only your eternity but also this very day. "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."
Video citations
- “Today ” 11-14-21 — Would you open your Bible's please with me this morning to Psalm 118. An easy way of course to find the book of Psalms is simply to go to the very center of Scripture open it up. You're going to…