Sing a New Song

Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord all the earth!

Psalm 96 bursts forth with a command, a delightful privilege, to sing something brand-new. This new song is an opportunity to delight in, and magnify the Lordship of God. Interesting to me that we should hear this from one of the oldest song books in the world. More than any other complaint about the church over the course of my life, new music has faced ongoing criticism and rebuke. People from every denomination, liturgical to charismatic have fussed about every new type of music that has been presented in church as being nominal, giddy, nonsense, theologically inaccurate, repetitive, too rhythmic, and a host of other charges. It’s almost as if newness is a scourge that damns music as rising from the pit of Hell.

This grieves me to my core. When I hear people criticizing current music that is being written for the purpose of lifting Jesus to his rightful place and placing me in a posture of humble homage, it places them in a seat of judgment ascribing motive to the writer of the song and the heart of the singer. Who placed them in that office that affords them that place reserved to God except in the case of the most egregious behaviors wherewith we have laid the burden of judgment on some of our must trusted legal minds?

I would say that all our complaints have weight, but they have nothing to do with the age of the music. In every era there have been songs that have lacked depth, have had messages that were silly, had rhythms that waltzed right off of the dance floor, repetitions that reduced the words to a mere handful, or had theology problems that put them in a place that they would be thought edging close to heresy. In fact, there are songs that I grew up singing in the hymnal from the earliest days of my childhood that fit each one of these charges but these facts did not stop their publication from churches who were striving very much to help attenders become worshipers of God.

It is this newness that is one of the marks of the churches who are most involved in spreading the gospel of Jesus. One of the criticisms I have heard is that music should not be offered as a way of evangelizing sinners but as an offering to God. This is true, but the criticism assumes the motivation of a new song is evangelism. This is not fair. The heart of the worshiper is a creative heart because creativity is part of the nature of God. He is always doing something new. The heart of the worshiper, therefore, will always be doing something new as well. Was J.S. Bach at one time doing something brand new? Was Fanny Crosby or Haldor Lilleneas out of place for writing something new? How about Carl Boberg who witnessed a powerful storm with crashing thunder and then as soon as it passed heard the sweet song of a bird sifting in through an open window and wrote the poem that became “How Great Thou Art”. That was new in 1885. Were the hearts of these worshipers writing new songs attempting to evangelize or engaged in worship? I, for one, have decided to select the highest motive to each of these and believe they were enthralled in God’s presence and from their pens flowed newness.

There are styles of music I appreciate less than others, but this is no reason for me to judge the singer or the writer. It’s a matter of personal taste. However, I should as heartily raise my voice for one style as for the other for through the music and poetry, my heart should worship too. It is in these unfamiliar places I can discover the heart of worship. The music is not for me it is from me, a gift to my Maker. A song that is new or new to me is the finest of songs for it allows me to celebrate the amazing creativity of God and his life that breathes into and out from a poet’s heart, new.

Prayer for today:

Father, create in me the heart of a true worshiper, not bound up with rancid criticism or judgments but a heart that is feasting in your presence, offering to you a sacrifice of praise, and adoring you as my Savior, my God. Amen.

Pastor Wes