Join the Choir
Revelation 7:9-17
Click here to view the full sermon video for Sunday, May 8, 2022, entitled "Join the Choir."
I cannot sing. It’s a fact. Neither could my father nor my mother. So I got it honestly, the sins of the parents visited upon the children. The song bird never landed on my shoulder. Never came close. Even my sixth grade choir director at Birdwell Elementary in Tyler, Texas, knew that. Mrs. Butler rightly considered me a musical loose cannon. So she always stood me beside Holly Hendrix. Now Holly had a fine voice; he even played the violin. Ostensibly Holly’s lead would keep me in line if not in tune.
Eventually, though, Mrs. Butler gave up on me musically. Right before the big patriotic choir program for our parents, she took me off privately and suggested very gently, “Frank, why don’t you just pretend to sing during the program?” It was my first big choir performance and I was asked to lip sync! She figured I could throw off even Holly Hendrix singing “It’s a Grand Ole Flag”. She was probably right.
So I’ve never been asked to join a choir since. Not once in 47 years of church ministry has a single choir director ever asked, “Frank, how about you join our choir?”
So the title of the sermon may seem puzzling to you- “Join the Choir”. Are you wondering if this is one of my wildest fantasies? That Jerri would plead with me, “O Frank, please join us! We have an opening in our lip sync section.”
Now I do have this grand hope that someday I will be able to sing like an angel, with the angels. Our text in the Revelation of John promises that one day we shall hunger and thirst no more. Maybe that promise can be expanded to read, “We shall sing badly no more. No more crying when you sing.” Now that would be heavenly!
In truth, this sermon title is an invitation for all of us to join a different sort of choir. A heavenly choir made up of myriads of angels and twenty-four elders and four living creatures and “a great multitude that no one could count”. This vast heavenly host falls before the throne of God singing triumphantly, “Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might belong to our God forever and ever. Amen.” This heavenly chorus sings throughout the book of Revelation, a text so often identified with fire and brimstone. But it is, in fact, a book of high liturgy and corporate praise world without end. This book reveals much to us, including the hymnody of the early church.
We are invited to join this vast throng in its infinite joy. In the presence of the Lamb of God who loved us and gave himself for us, we will lift our voices in eternal delight. The grand destination of our lives is to love God and enjoy God forever in ceaseless praise. What is our end, our goal, our destiny? To join this choir offering thanksgiving and honor and praise to the Lamb of God who alone is worthy of our everlasting worship.
Our text describes a fascinating dialogue between John and one of the twenty-four elders. John is asked about a great multitude who are newcomers to the choir. Their hymn of praise cries out, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.” They are from every nation and tribe and are clothed in white robes and are waving palm branches. The elder asks John who these people are and John is stumped. They are Christian martyrs slain by Caesar and his henchmen. In the second chapter of Revelation, John acknowledged that Antipas from Pergamum had been martyred. Surely Antipas has taken his place in this choir that cannot be silenced. Why? Because the people of God will sing their way to freedom and liberation.
Perhaps John would want us to see in that vast multitude early martyrs, like Stephen, Peter, Paul, and James. In recent years, others have offered their lives in witness to Christ-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Oscar Romero and the four nuns slain in El Salvador. The heavenly choir gladly welcomes new members forever singing the praise of the Lamb of God. Eternal worship is our final home, where our hearts long to be, where our spirits yearn to be free.
So I got to thinking about our worship together here. There are so many things we do in worship: we pray, we listen to Scripture and sermons and announcements, we greet one another in the name of Christ, we gather around the baptismal font to confess our sins verbally and silently and there we baptize those whom God has called, we gather around the Table of the Lord to receive the bread of life and the cup of salvation, we ordain and install elders and deacons, we welcome new members and celebrate significant milestones in people’s lives, we offer to Christ afresh our time, talent, and treasure, and we are sent forth finally to serve the Lord with gladness in the peace of Christ. And throughout our worship, there is always and forever music and song and hymns of praise. In fact, I cannot imagine Christian worship without beautiful music, making a joyful noise to the Lord. (Incidentally, I am grateful that “noise” is considered worship. Thank you, God!)
Now I do understand the value of silent worship. I really do. But when I come to worship with you on Sunday morning, I want, I need the music of the church. The prelude, introit, hymns, Kyrie, Doxology, Sanctus, anthems and special music, postlude. As a non-musician I am simply in awe of my sisters and brothers who like David on his harp can soothe the ragged edges of our hearts. I am truly grateful for all of you who bring beauty and melody and harmony and joy into our worship. Your gifts truly are for the common good and your gifts lift our hearts like nothing else can. Thank you!
I also got to thinking how important it is to sing when times are difficult. This past week our sanctuary hosted the Paul Hopkins family to celebrate the life of LaDonna Hopkins, a truly remarkable servant of God. A jazz band and a guitarist provided the music for the memorial service. How important music is in times of sadness and loss! Others sing for us when we in our grief cannot. In truth, we especially need music in the hard times to remind us of God’s steadfast love. And how we need uplifting music when a pandemic robs us of a million of our fellow citizens, when war ravages Ukraine, when fires rage in our own state, and political anger and economic anxiety plague our nation’s life.
Whenever we have faced difficulty, music helps us bear our burdens. When the children of Israel crossed over the Red Sea with Pharaoh in hot pursuit, Miriam and the women took their tambourines and danced and sang this song: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea!” The Exodus is not the Exodus without a song of praise. Think of the Union soldiers singing Julia Ward Howe’s stirring song: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; he is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; he has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword, God’s truth is marching on. Glory, glory hallelujah!” The Civil War is just darkness and death without the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Think of Civil Rights marchers linking arms and singing, “We shall overcome. We shall overcome someday. O deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome one day.” The March from Selma to Montgomery is incomprehensible without “We shall overcome.”
Friends in Christ, the worship of God’s people is incomprehensible without music. We join all of God’s people to sing our way to freedom and liberation.
We join our Ukrainian sisters and brothers who gathered at Easter to sing praise to the risen Christ-despite the death and destruction. They were even singing beneath that bombed out steel factory in Mariupol-in the darkness they sang to lift their spirits! In the best of times and the worst of times, we lift our voices in praise of the God who suffers with us, who gives us hope. All our worship is but prelude, a rehearsal for that divine worship which will never end.
To love God and enjoy God forever-that, sisters and brothers, is our chief end, our purpose, our destiny. To join that vast throng in unending adoration and ceaseless praise-that is the hope for our soul’s delight. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! “Sing praise to God who reigns above, the God of all creation, the God of power, the God of love, the God of our salvation, with healing balm my soul is filled and every faithless murmur stilled, to God all praise and glory!” Amen and amen.