Psalm 150
Worth Green, Th.M., D. Min
Without a doubt the most popular musical instrument in the Bible is the trumpet. The trumpet is mentioned more than 100 times. For starters it is mentioned in books traditionally assigned to Moses. It is mentioned in the historical books, in three of the four Major Prophets, by a bunch of Minor Prophets, and in the Psalms. It is mentioned by Jesus and by Paul. It is far and away the instrument of choice for St. John the Divine, the author of the Book of Revelation.
In obedience to God’s command, Joshua used trumpets to help bring down the walls of Jericho. The people of Israel routinely used trumpets to announce the new moon, to accompany a sacrifice, to sound the alarm, and to call people to worship. The sound of the trumpet is hard to ignore; it commands attention. Perhaps that is why Jesus warned that when we give alms and perform acts of charity and kindness, we should not announce it with a trumpet. And both Jesus and Paul indicate that the End of the Age and the Advent of the Lord will be announced by Trumpets. In 1st Corinthians 15, St. Paul says, “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead in Christ will be raised, and we shall be changed.” Some people caution that Paul’s mention of the trumpet is poetic in nature; but maybe not. If I were God, and I were putting on a big production like the end of the age I would use trumpets.
Of course, there are other musical instruments that are mentioned in the bible.
In Psalm 150, many musical instruments are mentioned. In verse 4 we read: “Praise him (that is “the LORD God”) with strings and pipe!”
I am sure that the Psalmist refers to a pipe that was a much simpler instrument than the bagpipes that were played here this morning, something more akin to the pan flute.
I like the flute, especially as Mona K_________ plays it; but I am not a big fan of the pan flute. My wife discovered the best use for it. Several years ago, when she had trouble sleeping, she would put on a CD of Zamfir, and we fell asleep listening to the haunting and melodious sounds of his pan flute. Most music keeps me awake, but not the pan flute. It never really got my attention.
When someone starts to play the bagpipes it get’s our attention. No one would ever choose a CD of bag-pipe music to help them fall asleep at night. Like the trumpet, bagpipes are hard to ignore. The music of the pipes is too raucous, too stirring. The bagpipes are associated with battle—the pipes provided the Regiments of Scotland with a musical Rebel Yell, with weddings, and with funerals. Some have suggested that, in simpler times, the pipes were played at funerals to make sure the dead were truly dead before they were buried. Br. David C_________ said they were played to announce the death, because the music of the pipes carried so well over the hills.
The truth is most people are anything but middle of the road with regard to the bagpipes.
When I was in Edinburgh back in 1999, I had a nice conversation with a man of that city. When he found out I was from North Carolina he asked me if I were a Southern Gentleman. I told him that I aspired to be. Then, though we were in sitting in the very shadow of the Castle where they hold the Tattoo,
he told me that, in Scotland, the very definition of a gentleman is a man who can play the pipes, but does not.
Other people love the music of the pipes. When I was at the 1st Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, N.C. for the baptism of my grandson, it was the Sunday for “The Kirking of the Tartans.” During the Kirking of the Tartans, members of the various families in the church with Scottish roots marched into the sanctuary wearing their kilts and carrying the tartan of their clan. Naturally, the followed in the train of a piper in full highland regalia playing the bagpipes. I am a Green, Stout, and Easter, but just beneath the surface I am also Henderson, McNeil, McCreary, and McCollum. And on that Sunday, I was proud to remember it. On the whole, I prefer the Kirking of the Tartans to the Hanging of the Greens.
Likewise, Dr. David C___________ is a real bagpipe aficionado. David not only plays exceedingly well, and exceedingly often, he also teaches the pipes. I am told that, with a little persuasion, he may even be willing to teach the pipes here at New Philadelphia. If you occasionally like to roll your rrrrr’s you might even want to be a student.
I decided to use David’s contribution to our morning worship to put together a sermon of the place of music, and musical instruments in the Bible. I have already mentioned the trumpet. What about the pipe?
In Genesis 4:21 we read that ”Jubal was the father of all who play the lyre and pipe.” By contrast the trumpet is not mentioned until the book of Exodus. And songs and singing are not mentioned until Genesis 31. By that time we have passed through the prehistory of Israel, and through the story of Abraham, and Isaac, and we have come to the story of Jacob. This situation is this: Jacob has fled the camp of his father-in-law, Laban, for whom he has worked many long years. He has fled because he was fearful that Laban would take back his daughters, Leah and Rachael, whom Jacob has wed. When Laban catches up with Jacob he says to him,
“Why did you flee secretly, and cheat me, and did not tell
me, so that I might have sent you away with mirth and songs,
with tambourine and lyre?”
There are three basic types of songs. 1) Songs with words and music; 2) Songs sung a capella, without musical accompaniment, 3) and finally there are songs without words, music only. I wonder which came first in the musical history of our race, the lyrics or the score?
Perhaps we can discern the development of our musical history, by studying how music develops in the life of a child. Psalm 8 says that the glory of the Lord above the heavens is chanted by the mouths of babes and infants. Many a child celebrates life with a series of “ooohs” and “aaahs,” not really words, but more akin notes. Next come the bata-bangs and bata-booms of music played on pots and pans. Primitive man would have used hollow logs. Finally, sometime after the child learns to talk, he learns to sing. Does the history of the individual child parallel the history of our race?
Scholars think that the book of Job may be the single oldest book in the Bible. Job seems to tie the words to the music, and the music to the words. He says that people “sing to the tambourine and the lyre, and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.”
Modern songwriters are divided upon which ought to come first, the music or the lyrics. Lyricists give preference to the words. Composers give preference to the music. Those who write both say that they sometimes begin with one, and sometimes with the other.
A more telling question maybe, “Which came first the music or the misery?”
You may not know it, but some music in the Bible is deeply steeped in the tradition of what we now call “the Blues.”
The prophet Micah foretold a day when the enemies of Israel would take-up a taunt song against her, and the people themselves would wail with bitter lamentation, and say, “We are utterly ruined.” (Micah 2:4)
Psalm 137 is one of the most famous Psalms of the Babylonian Captivity. In verse 4 the Psalmist despairs of any music saying, “How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?”
I think the blues are first personal. The blues grow up out of something that happens to me, or to you, as an individual. We tend to think that our hurt and our pain is our own. We hug it to ourselves. It makes us unique. We resist allowing ourselves to return to family and friends. Then something happens, and we come to see that the hurt is not just personal at all. It is a shared hurt. When we hurt, we are also hurting alongside others.
On a deeper level, the blues are communal. We sing our sad songs in a community of those who share our troubles and our sorrows. Blues music complains about everything from the Big Boss man who is not so big, “just tall, that’s all,” to the Boll Weevil, that eats away at the cotton bolls, and steals our livelihood. Blues music complains about working hard under a hot sun, and sleeping cold under a leaky roof. It always finds an audience. It always speaks to others who share the predicament of the one who sings it.
Above all, blues music speaks of lost opportunities, and unfaithful lovers. Many blues songs, like many country ballads, end up being just another “somebody done somebody wrong song.”
I am going to tell you something you may not know: God was a blues man! In Isaiah chapter 5:1 God speaks through the prophet and the prophet speaks of God saying:
Let me sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He digged it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
That song is about God’s care for Israel, and about how she turned her back on God, and did God wrong. In other songs of lament, God speaks through his prophets of how Israel turned her back on Him, and committed adultery with other gods on every hilltop and under every tree. Leadbelly, B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughn got nothing on God when it comes to singing the blues. Indeed, I like blues music, and I like soul music, but no music I know can compare to the marvelous Moravian Passion Chorales, particularly when accompanied by a Moravian Band.
There is no greater suffering that God’s suffering. Catholics say that Jesus suffers each time a priest offers a mass. We may scoff at that, but should we? The great 20th century Scottish theologian P.T. Forsyth, a Presbyterian, wrote that Christ suffers until the end of time. He suffers the great suffering of unrequited love.
Of course, the best use of music is celebration! Psalm 150 is the last of the Psalms. I think it is fitting that the Book of Psalms, which was the hymnal of Ancient Israel, ends in a summons to praise. It says to praise God in his sanctuary, right here, right now. It says to praise him in his mighty firmament, for truly the LORD God fills heaven and earth. You remember Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple: “Heaven and the highest heavens cannot contain Thee, how much less this house that I have built.” Psalm 150 says to praise God for his might deeds, deeds wrought on behalf of his people, deeds like the calling of Abraham, and the Deliverance at the Reed Sea, and raising Jesus from Death. It says to praise him for his exceeding greatness, for truly “Is anything to hard for the Lord,” the creator of the heavens and the earth, who summons the dead back to life, first in Christ, then in those who belong to him. The Psalm ends with suggestions as to how to praise God. It says:
To praise him with trumpet sound; (Loudly!)
To praise him with lute and harp; (Softly…)
To praise him with timbrel and dance; (I suppose that means that if we can’t sing, we can still shake it. Most Moravians would be content to tap their foot along with the music.)
To praise him with with strings and pipe; (Some have suggested that this is the sophisticated sounds of an orchestra.)
To praise him with sounding cymbals, and with loud crashing cymbals. (Use anything that makes noise to praise God!)
It says, “Let everything that breathes, praise the LORD!” Charles Haddon Spurgeon was called the Prince of 19th Century Preachers. He would not permit an organ in his church, though it is the Queen of all the instruments, because he though no instrument to could rival that directly created by God, the human voice.
And the people said, “Praise the LORD!”
Finis