Skip to main content

Play Skillfully... Hitting the High Notes


Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him.  Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre. Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. (Psalm 33:1-3)
            This is a time of year in which hymns are more familiar. Most people have heard "Silent Night."
Silent Night
Holy Night
All Is calm
All is bright
Round yon virgin
mother and child
holy Infant
So tender ... and mild
Sleep in heavenly
peace
Sleep in heavenly peace
            This is how if often sounds to me when we sing it. All the phrases are separate from the others. I understand. This is how we've learned to sing it so that everyone is singing together, and everyone can breathe frequently enough to sing, especially that first peace.
       Today's passage is about singing joyfully and playing skillfully in praise to God. I know some people can sing joyfully, but when it comes to skill with either voice or instrument, well, they can't carry a tune in a dump truck (forget about the bucket.) God has granted to each person a variety of talents and skills. On skill I think we tend to neglect when it comes to hymns is to pay attention to details, or, put more correctly, to read the words or to hear them with understanding. The way we sing it (above) is very different from what is there, which would go something like this: Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright round yon virgin mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild. Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. There are only two people mentioned in this verse. "Virgin" is an adjective here, not a noun. The child is the holy Infant who is so tender and mild. "Round" is a poetic version of "around." It does not refer to Mary and her "baby bump" or her weight. That one took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out what I was singing there.
         If we think about what we are singing in praise to God, our praise will be more skillful even if we can't hit the high notes.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more