The Grammy Awards remind us of how important music is to us. It can make us cry or fill us with overwhelming joy. Surely there hasn’t been or isn’t a culture anywhere that does not have its music. Billions of dollars are spent each year celebrating life with harmonies and tunes. We have our particular tastes in what music is beautiful and is not. Music fills our cars, our homes, our malls and our churches. Almost always what we like is what we have heard in our youth. Often when we hear something strange and new we object. When churches began to sing the hymns of the Wesley brothers multitudes were scandalized. Along with Fanny Crosby’s hymns, the Wesleys’ hymns dominate church hymnals and used to dominate our worship experiences.
The longest book in our Bibles is a hymn book. The Psalms were not written to be Scripture but were the songs of worship. Many of them were written by King David almost a thousand years before the birth of Jesus. Three thousand years later we still thrill to their beauty. David was a rock star in his youth. When he played girls swooned and danced. I Samuel 16:23 speaks of him giving private harp concerts to King Saul to soothe Saul’s wits of depression.
There will never be a time without music. Revelation 15 speaks of the redeemed playing harps (guitars?) and singing “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the ages.” Some of us lament our lack of musical talent and envy those gifted ones in our midst. But surely there will be a time when we all shall lift our musical gifts up in praise before the One who has redeemed us.
Written by Roger Bothwell on February 11, 2013
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org