Preaching the Poetry of Scripture

By David Schmitt, January 6, 2026

This post is part of the Obsculta Preaching Series, sponsored by the Obsculta Preaching Initiative at Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary.

How do we make space for the fullness of biblical poetry in worship? Biblical poetry works with images and patterns.  The images evoke experiences and the patterns layer those experiences in intricate emotional entanglements of spiritual beauty.

Yet, sometimes, this complexity gets lost in worship. We recite the appointed psalm responsively, half verse-by-half verse. The rhythm captures some of the parallelism of the poetry but it all moves so quickly that the images are lost, the patterns are not discovered, and we do not have enough time to contemplate what is happening in the psalm.

Musical settings help. They stir the emotions and linger over subtle but significant moments in the poetry.

What about preaching? Is it possible that the sermon can be a time to rebuild the Scriptural imaginary of God’s people by meditating more fully on the psalm? Can the sermon unlock the imagery and trace the patterns for God’s people so that they experience the poetry as a way of coming to understanding?

Often, when faced with poetry, preachers can approach it reductively.  They isolate a phrase, taken out of context, and use it as the sermon’s theme. Or they explain the meaning of the psalm, as if to say, “when we set aside all of the poetic experiences, this is what the psalmist is saying.”  

What I’d like to explore is how the sermon can provide a guided experiential meditation on biblical poetry, with the goal that in worship God’s people experience the psalms and through such experience understand how they shape our imagination and change our perception of the world.

Let’s look at Psalm 29. Psalm 29 is appointed for the Baptism of our Lord. In preparing to preach on the psalm, it is helpful to divide it into sections, to recognize images and patterns.

When preaching on narrative texts, preachers are often able to offer a short summary of the story. For example, a preacher could summarize the events of Jesus walking on the water rather quickly. What about psalmody? What would happen if we approached psalms as a drama? A drama of the imagination? How could we divide them into scenes? Whose are the voices we are overhearing and what kinds of worlds do they create?

In reading Psalm 29, one notices how the central section of the psalm is held together by the repetition of the “voice of the Lord” (v. 3-9a). For a sustained period of time, God’s people are asked to witness the voice of the Lord doing powerful things. Breaking cedars. Cracking open the sky. Shaking the desert. Stripping the forests bare.

 Then before this section, we have a vision of the heavenly realms (v. 1-2) and, after this section, we have the Lord of the heavens offering peace to his people on earth (v. 9b – 11).

So, one could imagine that Psalm 29 moves from the heavenly realms (v. 1-2), through the work of God’s word in the world (v. 3-9a), to his people on earth (v. 9b-11).  These are the scenes the drama lays out for us.

In the opening scene, we are in the heavens. Here, the heavenly beings are called upon to “ascribe to the Lord glory and strength” (v. 1). Although the heavenly beings are commanded to give glory to God, we don’t hear them respond. It is not until the very end of the psalm that their voices are heard. At the very end of the psalm, they cry “Glory” (v. 9b). So, we have an opening moment of a call to praise and then a long wait until that call is fulfilled.

In between, however, we have a powerful revelation. It is not of the voice of angels, but of the voice of God. Here, notice how one might imagine that the voice of God is traveling from the distant heavens down to the earth, nearer the psalmist. The psalmist sees the voice of the Lord hovering over the waters, like a storm cloud on the horizon (v. 3). Then, it comes nearer. One sees the voice of the Lord shattering the cedars on the distant mountains of Lebanon (v. 4-5). The breaking of these tall, majestic cedars makes the mountains, from a distance, look like a skipping calf. Then, the voice comes nearer, travelling over the wilderness, opening the sky with lightening and the earth with quaking (v. 7-8). Then, it finally comes closest to the psalmist, causing a deer to give birth prematurely and then stripping the forestry around the newborn fawn (v. 9a).

Upon witnessing the destructive power of God’s voice, the angels cry “glory” (v. 9b). And then, the psalmist reveals that this God of all power is also the protector of his people. This God gives “strength” to his people and blesses them with “peace.” The psalm, like the Gloria, takes God’s people from “glory to God in the highest” to “peace to his people on earth.”

Having identified the pattern, the preacher now meditates on the images. One might linger on the quaking of the wilderness. Here, the use of language that evokes the pains of childbirth offers the horrifying irony that the barren land still suffers the pains of childbirth and produces nothing for the pain. Or one might be captivated by the imagery of a fawn prematurely born. Again, horrifyingly, the defenseless fawn now has even the security of wooded covering stripped away.

This God of horrifying power inhabits the entire cosmos, and as he comes destructively among his people, the angels cry “glory.” But this God of such hideous strength comes to give strength to his people and bless them with peace.

Having explored the drama of the imagination set forth by this psalm, the preacher now has an opportunity in the sermon to help God’s people consider at the baptism of Jesus through the Scriptural imaginary provided by this psalm.

In this sermon preached in the chapel of Concordia Seminary, I offer you an example of what this looks like in practice.

The sermon begins by inviting God’s people to meditate on a psalm. Then, the sermon slowly walks through the drama of the psalm, offering a sense of its pattern and evoking the emotional experiences of its images. After experiencing the psalm, the sermon then looks at the world differently. We are invited to see the Baptism of Jesus and then our own live through the drama of the imagination provided by this psalm.

Take a look–and listen–here.

I am not saying that this is the only way to preach the poetry of Scripture. But I am suggesting that perhaps an immersion in the drama of the imagination provided by biblical poetry can renew our spirits and open our eyes to see God at work in the world.  

David Schmitt holds the Gregg H. Benidt Chair in Homiletics and Literature at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. His interests are in the intersection of theology and culture, preaching and the arts.  He is currently working on a book, Beholding the Sacred, about the role of images in preaching.