Psalm 98
The traditional Latin name for this Sunday of the church year is “Cantate.” It means “Sing,” and is taken from Psalm 98, which for many centuries has been associated with this Sunday.
We chanted a portion of this Psalm a few minutes ago. But it would be beneficial for us to consider the lines that we sang in the light of their broader context, in Psalm 98 as a whole.
There is a segment of people in the wider Christian church that is always seeking after innovation. People who think in this way have little regard for inherited traditions or familiar customs: in church music, and in other areas of church life as well. Everything always needs to be new and different.
And those who approach their faith and worship in this way often quote from the first line of Psalm 98, which they consider to be an endorsement of continual change and modification in the worship of the church:
“Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!”
Yet as we look at the lines which follow this exhortation to sing a new song to the Lord, we see that the motivation to do so is not to be found in an unsettled human craving for constant innovation, but in the marvelous works that the Lord has accomplished for human salvation.
One of the ways in which the terms “old” and “new” are used in the Christian world, is in how the apostolic Greek Scriptures are differentiated from the Hebrew Scriptures of the ancient nation of Israel. In this context – which is a biblical context – the “New Testament” is now about 2,000 years old.
The sacrament that Jesus instituted for his church, which he described in part as the new testament in his blood, has been going on, unchanged, for 2,000 years. So, “new” and “old” are relative terms – especially when viewed from God’s eternal perspective!
In Psalm 98, right after the Psalmist exhorts us to sing to the Lord a new song, he tells us why we should do so:
“For He has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory. The Lord has made known His salvation; His righteousness He has revealed in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”
This recounting of the Lord’s saving works certainly does have a prophetic “feel” to it, because it is describing things that happened, in the fullest and deepest sense, only when Christ came into the world, and commissioned his church to bring his saving gospel to all nations.
This gospel declares to all who hear it – in all nations of the earth – that Jesus died on the cross to atone for the sins of the world, and then rose in victory over sin and death on the third day.
This gospel also declares to all who hear it and believe it, that the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed and credited to their faith, makes them fully acceptable to God; and causes them to be a part of God’s new, holy people, comprised now of both Jews and Gentiles.
Through the Prophet Ezekiel – as God speaks of the messianic age, and of the baptismal blessings that he will bestow upon his people in that age – he tells us:
“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you… I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.”
From within the new spirit that we now have, through the working of God’s Spirit within us, we do indeed sing a new song: because the Savior whom we now know, and who now knows us, makes all things new for us.
Psalm 98 continues:
“Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. Sing to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of a psalm, with trumpets and the sound of a horn; shout joyfully before the Lord, the King.”
As we sing and even shout our praises and thanksgivings to God, we employ musical instruments. In history the followers of Zwingli and the Puritans prohibited the use of instruments in church, and today a group called the Churches of Christ likewise prohibits instruments.
Because the New Testament does not command harps and trumpets, they think that the New Testament prohibits harps and trumpets. But what Psalm 98 declares, it declares across the centuries, and across the earth.
Obviously we don’t want instruments in church that simply make noise, and that distract us from the message of the psalms and hymns that we sing. But the new song of the New Testament is to be sung with harps and trumpets, and with any other appropriate instrument that can serve a sacred text by carrying it into the minds and hearts of worshipers.
Our culture in general used to be a singing culture. Families would gather in the living room or in the parlor, sometimes around a piano or a violin that one of the members of the family could play, and they would sing songs: folk songs, and religious songs.
Men who congregated in the community tavern would sing drinking songs. And when people went to church, they would sing hymns. Especially in the worship of God by his grateful children would the joy of song find its proper and most natural place.
The Christian faith has always been characterized by singing, even as the angels sing their endless songs to the Lord Jehovah in heaven. With the use of some distinctive terminology to describe the angels, the Book of Job tells us that when God created the world,
“The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”
But today, what one often sees is that the members of a family seldom gather together in the same place at the same time – for singing or for anything else. Instead, the individual members of a family each listen to recordings of their own generational music over the radio or on their devices.
When people gather in bars nowadays, their eyes are often glued to a TV, or even to several TVs, showing a football game, a baseball game, or some other sports competition. There is no singing.
And those who do still go to church – which is an ever decreasing percentage of the population – now often go to churches that are performance-oriented, where they watch and listen to a praise band perform for them. They hardly ever sing themselves.
I’ve noticed over the past couple of years, at funerals, that many, if not most of the non-members in attendance, don’t join in with the singing. They don’t even open the hymnal. It’s as if they don’t know how to sing anymore.
This is a very sad thing. And it is especially sad, because at a deeper level it may very well mean that they are not singing – and probably not believing – the new song of salvation from sin, death, and the devil that the New Testament gospel of Jesus Christ puts into the hearts, and onto the lips, of his people.
Indeed, this message of salvation is like a song, even when it is not literally going forth in the form of a song. It is like a song because it is filled with a depth of feeling in the way a good song is, and draws our whole being into itself in the way a good song does.
And as we proclaim and sing out in various ways our confession of Christ, every day of our lives, we are accompanied and supported by various instruments, not just literal musical instruments, but also the instruments of our vocation: by which our love for God is manifested in love for the neighbor, as we serve him with earthly tools and earthly goods in this earthly life.
Psalm 98 continues:
“Let the sea roar, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell in it; let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, for He is coming to judge the earth. With righteousness He shall judge the world, and the peoples with equity.”
God is the maker of this physical world. But the earth was cursed because of human sin, so that it would bring forth to Adam and his descendants – after his fall, and after our fall in Adam, thorns and thistles.
Yet as St. Paul tells us in his Epistle to the Romans, “the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God,” even as we will be delivered from temporal and eternal death – by the grace of our heavenly Father in his Son – in the resurrection on the last day, for the final judgment.
The Lord tells us through Isaiah the Prophet:
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create.”
And so we, and the earth that we inhabit, now sing a new song also of this wonder that God will someday bring forth, as the Holy Spirit instills within us a hope-filled certainty that God will keep his promises.
Because Jesus has forgiven our sins, has covered our imperfections with his perfect righteousness, and has made us to be his new creation – and a new people who serve him in faith – we do not fear the judgment that is to come. We know that he will vindicate us, and all who have suffered for his name’s sake.
And so we join in the joyous song of all creation that celebrates the goodness, the love, and the faithfulness of our Triune God.
God does warn us and correct us when we sin. Our Father in heaven chastises those whom he loves, as does a good earthly father with respect to his misbehaving children. But the repentance that God’s law works in us whenever it is needed always leads us to faith and to the forgiveness that faith receives.
God’s words of warning are serious and must be taken seriously. But for us who know Christ, his words of warning are never his last words to us. His words of pardon and peace are his last words, and his eternally enduring words.
These are the words by which we remember him, as he continually fills us with the remembrance of all that Jesus has done to redeem us: in the special sacrament of remembrance through which Jesus comes to us again and again, and in his gospel in general as it is preached to us again and again.
And so we step out of Psalm 98, into Psalm 30, for the words with which we conclude:
“Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. …”
“I cried out to You, O Lord; and to the Lord I made supplication: … ‘Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me; Lord, be my helper!’ You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness: to the end that my glory may sing praise to You, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.” Amen.