Make a Joyful Noise
By Dean Collins
Have you ever sung a duet? I imagine some of you are laughing at the thought, because you are convinced that you can’t carry a musical note in a bucket! I told someone recently that I remember singing publicly the first time at about age 12. It was a duet. I was playing Joseph, and Mary and I sang a duet in a Christmas pageant. It will take me awhile to remember who played Mary and which song we sang over baby Jesus. All this was more than 50 years ago!
Most of us are familiar with Psalm 100. This psalm makes a frequent appearance in devotionals and in Scripture readings around Thanksgiving each year, because of verse 4: “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!” Of course, we can enter into God’s presence every day. We do not need to wait until Thanksgiving week.
Psalm 100 begins with these instructions: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!” Do I have my non-singers back with me now? You can make a joyful noise even if you can’t read music or carry a tune. So, what about the duet?
One of the passages of Scripture I memorized in January and review every day is from Zephaniah 3:17, which says: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”
In John 17, Jesus prayed that we would be one with him, just as he is one with the father. One expression of this unity just might be in the area of worship. It strikes me that Psalm 100, Zephaniah 3, and Paul’s instructions to “address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," might just be connected. As we express worship together, it might be that God is simultaneously exulting over us with loud singing!
I don’t know if we are singing a duet with God or if our worship is more the style of antiphonal singing, where one choir or individual sings and the others sing back a refrain. Either way, we are called to worship together. When we do, we are united with our God, who is rejoicing over us as we lift our praises to him.
And one more thing: the psalmist seems to suggest some volume when praising God. Zephaniah said that God sings over us loudly. Some of us might need to bite our tongues next time we want to complain about the volume of the worship music at church on Sunday!
Father, it is truly remarkable to consider that even in this moment, you are singing over us as we come to you in prayer. Thank you for creating us in your image. Now, fill us with your spirit, that we as your image bearers might also reflect your joy in our praise and worship to you. In Jesus's name, amen.
Your Time with God’s Word
Psalm 100:1-5; Zephaniah 3:17; Ephesians 5:19-21 ESV
Photo by Keagan Henman on Unsplash
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