Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult,
O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into
singing!
For the LORD has comforted his
people
and will have compassion on his
afflicted. (Isaiah 49.13)
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Shortly I will admit two new head
choristers N and N.
Their role is to be responsible and
a good example to fellow choristers in the life of the choir working under our Director of Music's direction contributing to the life of this church, its music and
worship.
And we will pray for them in their
task.
Our first reading tonight gave us a
lovely verse for any musician but frankly any Christian, any believer in God.
It calls on the heavens and the
earth - the whole creation – even the mountains to break into song, not just
God’s human creatures.
It is a beautiful image the whole created
order, the cosmos, breaking into song to praise the Creator.
Song is one of the gifts that God
gives us; that’s why singing matters in worship and why choirs and musicians
matter in the way we seek to worship the Lord.
And if mountains can sing so can we
all!
First and foremost, our song is
deployed in praise of God.
The great ‘song’ of Evensong is the
Magnificat - Mary’s Song - ‘my soul magnifies the Lord’.
In other words, in my song my soul
both enlarges and focuses my sights on God my Saviour.
Song expresses so many things: the
psalms themselves reveal this, and they are the other sung building block of
Evensong and Judeo-Christian worship.
The psalms are the songs of the Hebrew
Bible; psalms are there to be sung, and we sing them in many and various ways,
at Evensong we would sing them as tonight by Anglican Chant, or sometimes the
ancient Plainsong or sometimes with a congregational response or in metred
verse like a hymn.
Psalm 137 asks the question, ‘how
shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange and foreign land?’.
Sometimes song does not come easily;
the Israelites I their exile in Babylon could barely get out the songs of home,
the songs of the Temple in Jerusalem.
But what the Israelites discovered
in exile was that the way they would sing their song was in lament.
Lament, praise, thanksgiving, joy,
penitence: we sing the Lord’s song in many and various ways.
In our tradition the task of leading
this song falls to a choir, but that is not to absolve the rest of us from
uniting our voices in praise and adoration of God; we can’t subcontract our
worship.
Rather, we use our gifts, and the
gifts of others, to create a symphony of praise to the Lord: we even join the
mountains and the trees of the field, as Isaiah puts it elsewhere, in praise of
the Creator.
The verse from Isaiah that I have
alighted on comes in a passage that celebrates the restoration that God gives
to his people: in times of trouble and testing, when all seems desolate and
oppressive, the Lord restores his people and renews his creation.
Singing the Lord’s song is not to be
confused with musical ability.
This week make your life a song – be
it lament or celebration, sorrow or joy, pleading or praise – for when you know
the restoration of the Lord you will know how to sing the Lord’s song.
And let us give thanks today for all
who lead God’s praises in singing, and pray for N and N now to be made
Head Choristers of the Boys’ Choir of this Minster Church of St John the
Baptist, our patron saint who, echoing the Prophet Isaiah, cried out in the
wilderness, ‘prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, for all
flesh shall see the salvation of the Lord’.
Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult,
O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into
singing!
For the LORD has comforted his people
and will have compassion on his
afflicted.
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