MUSIC
Recently I was looking through the prayers in the ancient Book of Common Prayer. I came across this one for church musicians and artists.
O God, whom saints
and angels delight
to worship in heaven:
Be ever present with your
servants who seek
through art and music
to perfect the praises
offered by your people
on earth; and grant
to them even now glimpses
of your beauty, and make
them worthy at length to
behold it unveiled
for evermore;
through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.
We know that music and praising God with singing and instruments has always been God’s idea. Listen to these words from Psalm 150:
Praise the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens. Praise him for
his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing
greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the
trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise
him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the
strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of
cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.
Psalm 150:1-5
We can slot in this instrument or that but that pretty much covers anything related to music doesn’t it.
It reminds me how grateful I am for the gift of music in my own life and worship. It’s been wonderful to have sung with kids on a Sunday School bus in Richmond Hill, Ontario when I was the kids pastor many decades ago. Then on Southside Chicago I have pictures and memories of singing with classrooms full of beautiful 4th grade black students who were laughing at my “funny pronunciation” of “again” when we sang the chorus “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.” Not long after I was playing guitar and singing with Asian friends in Taiwan as we thanked God for new life together in Jesus Christ.
In 1994 I came to Vancouver, Canada and through the years as groups of recovering alcoholics and addicts have sung together, sometimes in the community and other times in prisons, my heart has been touched so many times by simple songs like, “Jesus Loves Me this I know” and “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”
During this time in the pandemic so many wonderful recordings have been made of songs that touch our hearts and bring us close to God.
Personally, I stumbled across the Facebook page of Merv and Merla Watson, great worship leaders that I first worshipped with on Bloor Street in Toronto in the 1970’s when I was a struggler. I was a mess but there they were every Thursday evening in a huge gathering of people in St. Paul’s church and the worship drew me over and over again even though my heart was a tangled up place of chaos. For a few weeks now Merla has been playing songs on her violin and uploading them to Facebook and I’ve been grateful over and over again for them and so many others like them who’ve impacted my life for good.
So many stories I could tell you today, but let’s just thank God for singing and dancing and the playing of instruments. Let’s pray:
Heavenly Father,
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise
to the rock of our salvation!
to the rock of our salvation!
Psalm 95:1
Singing and music are Your idea God and what a good idea they are. We’re so grateful for the joy and uplift we have received from reaffirming our faith in You, Your love for us, and Your care for us through music.
… speaking to one another with psalms,
hymns, and songs from the Spirit.
Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord,
Ephesians 5:19
You knew how inspiring music would be and so You even commanded us to sing and speak to one another in this way as part of our regular meeting together for worship. We thank you for those who are faithful to prepare for Sunday services – even though much of it is done right now online. Bless them. Fill their hearts with joy in Your presence as they prepare, and our hearts with Your presence as we participate in services each week.
As Your Word tells us, so we want our lives to be enriched today with the message of Christ:
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly
as you teach and admonish one another with all
wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from
the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
Colossians 3:16
We want to come with thanksgiving. We want to come with praise. We want to come with worship because You are an amazing God who has done incredible things in our lives over and over again. Some of us for a little while, some of us for lots of decades that we’ve known You and all of us, honestly, every day of our life whether we realized it or not.
And so we will praise You with joy, in song. Amen
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