“Traveling Music”
Colossians 3:12-17
Broadway Christian Church
David A. Shirey
Paul makes a fashion statement in his letter to the Colossians. You may not think of Paul as a clotheshorse, but in chapter three of Colossians he is. He describes the Christian's wardrobe there-- tells us what to "put on." "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness and meekness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness" (Colossians 3:12-13). I hear Paul say, "Put on this" and "Put on that" and I imagine a mother standing at the foot of the steps leading upstairs as her child is getting dressed for school. “Have you put on compassion? How about your kindness? Make sure you put on patience. And your forgiveness is in the top drawer. And "Put on love.” Don’t you come down those steps without your love on! And last, but not least, “Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." Hear that? Paul says no Christian is fully clothed and ready for the day without putting on singing.
The sound of music provides the soundtrack for the Bible from start to finish. From Genesis to Revelation, “they never cease to sing” (Rev. 4:8):
In the beginning, there was singing. God asked Job, "Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth and the morning stars sang together and the heavenly host shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4-7).
When God delivered the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, there was singing. In the book of Exodus are what are called the Songs of Moses and Miriam (Exodus 15:1-21), among the oldest texts in the Old Testament.
Then there are the Psalms – as in songs – 150 of them located not coincidentally in the middle of the Bible. At the very heart of Scripture is a hymnal.
That’s no coincidence. The Jewish philosopher Philo, a contemporary of Jesus and Paul, wrote that the Jewish people would often spend all night singing hymns and songs. And as might be expected for a faith that grew out of Judaism, Christianity has always been musically inclined. One of the earliest descriptions historians have of a church service came from a man named Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia (in present-day Turkey). He sent a report of the activities of Christians to Trajan, the Roman Emperor, in which he said, "They meet at dawn to sing a hymn to Christ as God."
Jesus' life was bookended by music. The night he was born there was singing. "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and singing, "Glory to God in the highest—Gloria in excelsis Deo" (Luke 2:13,14). The first Christmas carol. The night Jesus was betrayed, having shared the Last Supper in the Upper Room, Mark tells us "When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives" (Mark 14:26).
The sound of music overflows from Jesus' life in the Gospels to Paul's letters. He told the Colossians to “sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" and he practiced what he preached. The Book of Acts records Paul’s singing with Silas while in prison in Philippi. "About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God... and suddenly there was an earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's fetters were unfastened" (Acts 16:25, 26). I don't know if their singing brought the house down because it was that bad or that good, but clearly the first Christians’ singing was a powerful thing.
There was singing in the beginning “when the morning stars sang together ... for joy” (Job 38:7) and according to John there will be singing at the end when God’s purposes are fulfilled. In the Book of Revelation, the book from which vast numbers of hymns, choruses, and musical compositions have been derived, John writes, "I saw a throne in heaven and one seated on the throne, and around the throne twenty-four elders and four living creatures. Day and night they never cease to sing." (Rev 4:8).
Of course, there are times we do cease to sing. Things happen to us or to those we love and we cease to sing. A song can’t get past the lump in our throat because of the ache in our heart. In those moments, we need help with our singing. Help not as in lessons (though I could use them), I mean we need help as in support. Accompaniment. Which is where others’ voices come in. When circumstances are such that we can’t sing, choirs, ensembles, and collectives help us by carrying the melody until we can once again join the chorus. Thanks be to God for those who sing, especially in those seasons of life when we find it hard to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord,” or any noise at all.
In 1 Chronicles 6, special mention is made of Israel's choir. It reads, "These are the people whom David put in charge of the service of song in the house of the Lord" (6:31). Imagine that – in ancient Israel, the position of choir member was one of the King's Cabinet appointments! Choir members were V.I.P.s in G.O.D.’s house. What were their names? They’re listed in the Bible. "Heman, the singer, the son of Joel and his brother Asaph... The sons of Merari, including Ethan son of Kishi..." The names of the singers of sacred song go on and on for 15 verses (6:33-48). Now let’s be honest, when we’re reading the Bible and we get to a list of names that stretch on for 15 verses, we skip over them to get to the important part, but I submit to you the names of the singers are the important part! Ponder the fact that the Bible preserves the names of the people who led the singing of sacred song. Audra, Kristi, Collective, Instrumentalists – take a moment to take in the fact that the names of ancient Israel’s sanctuary singers and instrumentalists are recorded in Scripture. Your names are etched in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Now, what did Israel's Choir do? "They ministered with song before the tabernacle of the tent of meeting" (6:32). They went before the people with song. That is, music led God's people throughout their long journey of faith. From the time God's people left bondage in Egypt through the 40 years of their wilderness wandering and into the Promised Land, music accompanied their every step. Call it ‘traveling music.’ That’s what music does: it goes before us throughout our life’s journey – accompanies us through life’s high points as well as low points to the point that it can be said that music takes us places. Isn't that what our love for the old favorite hymns is all about? No matter what's going on in our lives, if we can just bring to mind a few bars of favorite music, we'll be all right. Just hearing a few notes takes us places.
My mother died seven years ago, but I can still hear her say, “We don’t we sing ‘The Old Rugged Cross’ enough. When I was a little girl, your grandmother used to take me and your Aunt Bebe and walk us down Tod Avenue to Cherry Street to Emmanuel Lutheran Church and we’d sing the ‘Old Rugged Cross’ all the time.” I couldn’t help but to notice when we did sing “The Old Rugged Cross” that my mother would have a faraway look in her eyes. Do you know where she was? She was back in 1942, a six-year-old girl in pigtails, sitting next to her mother and her sister in a pew on the west side of Warren, Ohio. Music can take you places!
And it can take you to certain people. When I was serving my first church in Tennessee, the head elder was named Alexander Campbell Read, Jr. Everybody called him Mr. Bill. He used to ask me, “David Shirey, when are we going to sing ‘The Church in the Wildwood?’” Every once in a while, we’d sing it, and when we did I could see that Mr. Bill wasn’t with us. He had taken leave of the premises. He was somewhere else. I asked him once, “What is it with ‘The Church in the Wildwood?’” He said, “My daddy had a deep bass voice and whenever we sing ‘The Church in the Wildwood’ I can hear his voice singing the refrain ‘O come, come, come, come…’ right alongside me.” Music took him there.
Music has the ability to get deep down inside us. Neuroscientists tell us we have two hemispheres in our brain – the left is our logical hemisphere and the right is our creative hemisphere. That’s where music resides. It taps into the right hemisphere of our brains and makes its way into our hearts and souls ... burrows deep down within so that it’s there even when we’ve forgotten most everything else. My wife Jennie volunteers back in Kentucky at a memory care unit in an assisted living center where she goes and plays the piano. Many of those people couldn’t tell you what day it is, but let Jennie strike up a Broadway show tune or an oldie goldie hymn and they’re all singing the chorus and first verses from memory. No wonder someone called certain pieces of favorite music “a tattoo on the subconscious.[1]”
Music takes us to places and people and sometimes music takes us where John got to go according to the Book of Revelation – to the very throne, into the very presence, of God. Have you been there? I've been there thanks to music. Give me Christmas Eve. Give me candlelight. Give me "Silent Night" – and I'm there. Give me the scent of Easter lilies, a bright Spring morning, a brass quartet, and "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" and I'm outta here. Give me "Amazing Grace" pretty much anytime or anywhere and by the time we get to the last verse, "When we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun," I'll have been there for three verses already. Music – singing – can take us places and when we reach the point we’re no longer able to take another step or another breath, music can carry us further – to the very throne of God.
I remember a trip Jennie and I made thirty-some years ago to visit the congregation we served in St. Louis in the mid-80s. We made the trip it to see a man dear to us who was dying of cancer. The church had refreshments in the parlor after worship and Cliff and I stood together in front of the punch bowl and talked.
I asked, "How are you doing?"
Cliff sad, "Losing weight, but that’s not all bad. I don't have the energy I used to. I’m doing the best I can."
"I know you are."
Then he said, "I saw that piece you wrote about old favorite hymns."
"You did?"
"Yes," he said. “One of my favorites is “I'll Fly Away.” And with that, he cocked his head a little, looked off into the distance, and started singing. He sang right there in front of the punch bowl in the church parlor, a cappella:
Some glad morning when this life is o'er, I'll fly away
to a home on God's celestial shore, I'll fly away.
I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll fly away; when I die, hallelujah by and by, I'll fly away.
Then he closed his eyes and continued:
Just a few more weary days and then, I'll fly away
to a land where joys shall never end, I'll fly away...
And as Cliff sang, I could have sworn that for a moment he was carried a long way away from that church parlor in St. Louis. It was as if God had opened a door for that dying man, pulled aside a starlit curtain, and gave him a glimpse of life everlasting.
Singing took him there.
Paul says, “Put on hymns and psalms and spiritual songs.”
Never cease to sing.
Let all God’s people sing … AMEN.
[1] Quoted in a 1986 Newsweek review of a newly released hymnal. Author unknown.
