Sixth Sunday After Pentecost

“Sing”

Luke 19:37-40

Last Monday, many of us from Tellico were seated in the Sanctuary of Church Street United Methodist Church in Knoxville. We were there to be with our dear friends Ken and Dianne Hamrick whose son Michael died last week from a heart attack. Michael, who was married just three weeks ago, was only 34-years old.

The church was filled with people, many of them young men and women who had been Michael’s friends. There was a great deal of emotion on display, and the magnitude of the loss was etched on every face.

So we sat there in the silence of the sanctuary, mourning this great tragedy.

And then the church’s pipe organ began to sing.

It was a somber, mournful tune befitting the occasion, and capturing the great grief of all who were present. The song the organ sang seemed to come alongside us sitting there in the wooden pews, embracing us with a kind of understanding. It was as if the music itself was aware of the intensity of our suffering. The song washed over us, giving expression to our inexpressible sorrow. For long, long moments, the organ sang to us the sad song of human grief.

And then, the song changed.

It was just a subtle, almost unnoticeable shift from deeper, darker chords to a single higher voice that sounded like a flute. And right away, my heart was stirred as I recognized the melody. It was the “Hymn of Promise.” (Organ begins playing, softly)

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

When I visited with Ken and Dianne the other day, I told them how my heart had been deeply stirred by the song the organ sang. They told me they had heard it, too – and recognized the “Hymn of Promise” - and the song had touched their souls.

What is it about a song that has the power to reach into the deepest parts of our lives? And why is it that when we face even the most tragic experiences of human existence, our faith calls us to sing?

Jesus is entering the city of Jerusalem for what will be the last time. In a few days, he will be rejected, arrested, and sentenced to die on the Cross. As Jesus rides into the city on a humble donkey, those who are with him begin to sing: The song goes like this: “Hosanna! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

The religious leaders of Jerusalem demand that Jesus tell the disciples to stop singing. Jesus answers, “If they were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Sing! Sing! Even facing the darkest times of our lives, our faith calls us to sing!

You will remember that on the Thursday of what we call Holy Week, Jesus shared a last supper with the disciples. The scriptures tell us that before they went out to the Garden of Gethsemane, they sang a hymn. And, of course on that long ago Friday – Good Friday – when they nailed Jesus to the Cross to die an agonizing death, we remember how he cried out, “My God, my God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?”

What you may not know is that those are the words of a familiar song of the day – the first line of Psalm 22! It begins with despair, but the song ends with the triumph of God. As death came upon him, Jesus did this remarkable thing! Jesus began to sing! In a sense, Jesus was actually leading a song because, I’d be willing to bet that those nearby who loved him and heard him sing that tune began to hum it themselves as they left the tomb and journeyed back into the uncertainty of their lives.

Sing! Sing! Even in the grip of death itself, our faith calls us to sing!

“Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving…sing a new song unto the Lord…sing!….sing!…sing” Over and over and over again, the Bible tells us to sing – no matter our circumstances, regardless of our fortune, in good times and bad times– SING!

So when we gather together each week as a congregation, each of us coming to worship with our own life experiences – sometimes joyful, sometimes sad – sometimes celebrating blessings and other times mourning losses – sometimes full of faith, sometimes full of doubt – sometimes with our lives all together and other times with our lives falling apart – as we come to worship with all the things of our lives, we join together and…SING!

Have you ever wondered why we Christians do that?

A friend of mine asks if Christianity doesn’t sometimes come across as being sort of psychologically unhealthy. We come to worship with the weight of the world around our shoulders…and yet we sing songs of praise! That’s nuts! We place our children into the grave…and yet we sing hymns of promise. That’s crazy! Our lives are made so very small by age, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, and all the other human frailties beginning with “A” and running all the way to “Z”…and we sing, “How Great Thou Art!” This does not make any sense, my friend says!

Could it be, he asks, that we are only kidding ourselves? Is it possible that we sing only to mask our pain and pretend it isn’t there? Do we sing simply to escape the reality of life?

No.

We Christians sing not to hide from life. We sing to take hold of life!

There is a wonderful scene in the 4^th and 5^th chapters of the Book of Revelation that captures the true meaning of worship and song. The vision is rich with color and symbolism. In it, God is on the throne of heaven. His appearance is like jasper and carnelian, and a rainbow resembling an emerald encircles the throne, as does a sea of glass like crystal. Remember, this is a dream and it is loaded with symbolic imagery!

Around God’s throne are twenty-four other thrones, upon which elders are seated. They are dressed in white and wearing golden crowns. There are flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder there in the throne room of heaven.

In the center of it all, around God’s throne, are four living creatures covered with eyes. Each one has six wings! Can you picture them? Can you hear the sound of their wings beating as they fly about the throne room of heaven? And these living creatures sing a song! They sing without ceasing, day and night. They sing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come!”

And whenever the four living creatures sing this song, the twenty-four elders fall down before God’s throne, and lay down their golden crowns.

Perhaps you recognize that the song sung in this vision has become one of our most-beloved hymns. Do you know which one it is? Yes, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee!…second verse…”Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore thee, casting down their golden crowns upon the glassy sea…”

What an amazing and symbolically-rich picture is painted in John’s vision of heaven. And it gets even better as the description of worship continues into Chapter 5. The Lamb of God appears – Jesus – and the worship continues to build. The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures are joined in the song by angels numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand! That’s a lot of angels flying about, playing harps, and singing the song! And then every created thing – people, trees, mountains, stars, animals, oceans, termites, – every created thing in heaven, and on earth, and even underneath the earth – all of these add their voices to the heavenly song of praise!

Can you picture the scene? Can you imagine the sound?

But let’s back to the original question. What’s the point of all this? Is this song of worship just a cheap way out of coming to grips with the reality of human misery? Is this just so much pie-in-the-sky ecstasy designed to help us escape our pain when the world seems like it is falling part? That was the context of Revelation, you know. So what is the purpose of creation singing this magnificent song?

Well, we see an answer in the words of another song the 24 elders sing:

“You are worthy, our Lord and God,

To receive glory and honor and power,

For you created all things,

And by your will they were created and have their being.”

We sing because God is our creator, and because God is good. And if that is true – that God is the creator, and that God is good – then there is an essential underlying goodness to life, and to people, and to nature, and to the world. And the message of our faith is this: GOODNESS WILL PREVAIL!

So people of faith – when we, like Jesus, face the darkest times of life – do not give in to the darkness, but take hold of a song that sings, “Life is good, and I’m not letting go of it!”

People of faith – when we, like Jesus, are driven to our knees and made to feel like we are of no value and no good – do not surrender to the indignity, but lift up a song that sings, “I am a GOOD person, and I’m not letting the world tell me I’m not!”

People of faith – when we, like Jesus, look out at a world filled with terrorism, violence, injustice and oppression – do not concede the world to those ills, but we lift up a song that sings, “The world God created is a GOOD world, and I bind myself to making the world good, too!”

People of faith – when we, like Jesus and his followers, lose those we love to death – shed many tears and endure great suffering. And yet, we do not yield our children, or our spouses, or our friends to the power of death’s destruction. No, we dare to lift up a hymn of promise! We stand up and sing a song of hope that says, “I trust my loved one to the God who is good, who created them in goodness, and who in love promises that life will win out over death and the goodness of God will prevail!”

Sing! Sing! One of the most powerful tools God has given us to overcome the denigrating and dehumanizing and destructive forces of evil in our world is the song that life is good, and that good will triumph over evil!

That’s why we sing when we come to church on Sunday! And that’s why we need to sing when we go forth to live on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday…and beyond.

Now, I will tell you right up front that some of us should not sing that song with our voices. Some of us are like my boyhood friend Marlin who, after joining the Chapel Choir, was told that he should only move his lips! Some of you have told me that, if you sang, people would stay home from church. Others have said the stained glass windows might crack. So I want to say to you, “Don’t sing!” At least, don’t sing out loud.

But sing as loud as you can with your life! With the words you speak, the decisions you make, and the actions you take, sing the song of the goodness of God. Do not give in to the darkness! Do not surrender to indignity! Do not concede to evil! Do not yield yourself or your loved ones to the power of death’s destruction!

Do not give up on life! Stand up, and let your life be a song that stirs the soul of the world with the hymn of God’s promise!

There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.