The little chapel of Staverden
At the start of sorrow: a hymn of praise. Death does not have the final say.
Psalm 100
Give thanks to the Lord, shout for joy.
1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
2 worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us,
and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good
and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
The facade stone
Last Sunday, I was sitting in the small chapel of Staverden. What a remarkable place it is. A building from 1875, it stands beautifully, right next to the castle, surrounded by a park where you can wander for hours. But what immediately caught my attention was that facade stone. It reads ‘Psalm C.’ Now, you might wonder: why on earth the ‘C’?
This made me think of a friend of mine. He and his brother also found themselves in this little church and, afterwards, he asked his older brother, “Do you understand why the facade stone above the church door says ‘Psalm C’?” His brother looked at him as if he were seeing something impossible and said, “Didn’t you go to university? Aren’t you the smartest of the two of us?” Well, of course, the ‘C’ stands for one hundred, in Roman numerals. How silly… I should have known that. Psalm 100. This anecdote was the reason I started writing this little article.
A psalm full of gratitude
Psalm 100 is one of those that wakes you up. “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth!” it begins. It’s as if David is saying: “Come on, everyone, make some noise!” What’s interesting is that this is the only psalm that is entirely about thanksgiving. No complaining about enemies or sin, just pure joy in God.
And this, even though David’s life wasn’t easy. Far from it. But he didn’t focus on the misery; he focused on who God is. In Hebrew, ’to give thanks’ actually means something like ’to draw attention to someone’s character.’ It’s more than a mere reflex, like mumbling “thank you” when someone hands you the sugar. It’s about proclaiming: This is who You are, this is Your nature.
God is good. God is faithful. God is always there. You see this most powerfully in Jesus, who was compassion in person. John describes it beautifully: “He lived among us and we saw his glory, full of grace and truth.” Not a distant, inaccessible God, but someone who truly connected with people.
The King of all ages
If you read the psalms around number 100, you’ll keep encountering the same refrain: “The Lord is King.” Psalm 93, 97, 99… you see it everywhere. It’s as if David couldn’t say it often enough. And rightly so. Throughout the ages, it has been shown that He remains faithful, no matter what happens.
When they built that little chapel in 1875, they must have wanted to engrave that truth in stone. Psalm C — as if they were trying to say: here, we believe in a God who is King, no matter what may come.
Intimacy with God
There isn’t actually a true Hebrew word for ’to give thanks.’ It can also mean ’to confess.’ Not like confessing a crime, but more like confessing your love to someone you hold dear. The thank offering in this psalm is really an offering of love. A way of saying: I am Yours, You are mine.
This reminds me of the Song of Songs, where the bride says, “I belong to my beloved, and he desires me.” That’s how it should be between God and us: full of desire for one another, full of intimacy. “Come in, my love,” God says to us. He longs for us. Just imagine, the God of the universe longing for you.
Welcome to all
“Worship the Lord with gladness,” it says in verse 2. It’s almost a command, but a loving one. Like a beloved saying: “Come on, come closer, don’t be afraid. I won’t bite. On the contrary, I have only love for you.”
And then there’s that beautiful part of verse 3: “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” Like a shepherd. Just a few hundred yards from that chapel, on the heath near Ermelo, a shepherd still cares for his 240 sheep. Day in, day out. Rain or shine. Always there to feed them, keep them together, and bring them home safely.
Our God is like that, too. Jesus himself said: “I am the good shepherd. My sheep hear my voice and I know them.” To hear that voice, you have to get close. You have to silence all the other voices for a moment. You have to listen.
In the time of the temple, only Jews were allowed into the sanctuary. Foreigners could enter the outer court, but no further. The prophets already foresaw that this would change, that even foreigners would one day be intimate with God. And look, that’s exactly what happened. We, the Dutch and everyone else, were all once far away. But Jesus called out: “Come.” He is the door, the gate.
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving,” verse 4 says. Even when your heart is heavy, even when you are struggling. Come with a song. This reminds me of Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate who survived the war. He lost his mother, his sister — terrible suffering. But he once said:
“My father believed in people and taught me to speak; my grandfather believed in God and taught me to sing.”
Singing in the midst of sorrow. It’s possible.
The Postweg
A road begins at that little chapel: the Postweg. Ten kilometers long, it ends at the Reformed church in Putten. And Putten is a place with a dark history. During the war, 600 men were taken from there to the camps of German darkness. Only a few dozen returned. A village full of widows.
At the beginning of that path: Psalm 100, a hymn of praise. At the end: sorrow, death, loss. And yet, the cornerstone is still there. They didn’t remove it when those men became victims of the Nazis’ atrocities. As if they wanted to say: death does not have the final say.
That stone is still hanging there. Even now, in 2025, amidst all the misery of our time. “The Lord is good, his love endures forever and his faithfulness continues through all generations.”
You can build on that. You can bet your life on it. Even when the world seems to be turned upside down. That facade stone remains, a memorial that God is there and that He is good. And I think that’s exactly what David wanted to say when he wrote that psalm. Don’t look at what is wrong, but at who God is. Rejoice, even when you really want to cry. Because He is the King. He is always there. He loves you.
@wimvanputten