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Good morning.  It’s that time of the holiday when someone worries it might go on for ever, like leftover turkey and leftover relatives. Instead, let’s call to mind one thing that really does endure forever: God’s love.

Psalm 136 is a prayer from the Old Testament of the bible that celebrates how ‘God’s love endures forever’. It rehearses the story of God’s people in single lines of poetry, each line interspersed with that brief chorus, ‘his love endures for ever’. So, for example,
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good  his love endures forever.
Who alone does great wonders  his love endures forever.
Who by wisdom made the heavens  his love endures forever.
…
Imagine a leader saying the main lines and a whole lot of people responding with the chorus, over and over, until it rolls off the tongue and they’re on autopilot. It gathers steam as each line builds up the story of salvation – from creation to exodus to the wilderness and so on – each time with the same response, which gets more and more insistent, more and more persuasive, more and more unchanging. Sometimes it gets voiced louder and faster, like a stream train. Life isn’t always happy – yet God’s love endures forever.
God smote the firstborn of Egypt it goes  his love endures forever.
And brought out Israel from among them  his love endures forever.