Covid-19 - where is the Easter music

Covid-19: where is the Easter music?

Word, prayer and the sacraments are the key means of grace for the people of God. They are the Father’s provision to lead us to his Son in the Spirit as we gather to him and to one another.

The word addresses us with teaching, training, correction and rebuke. Prayers enable our response to God in adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication. The sacraments are enacted drama as they point away from the sign to Christ who is signified. Together, these means of grace nourish the soul and equip us to be the people whose every thought, word and deed is an act of worship.

Song is an important means of these means of grace. It is a normal part of gathered worship (1 Cor 14:26). Through song we can teach the word to another. As Scripture says: Let the word of God dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God (Col 3:17). In that sentence, teaching, admonishing and singing are all means to the indwelling word. Song is also a means of expressing our response to the Lord in thankfulness, lament, petition and more – consider the range of responses embedded in the song book of Psalms.

From earliest times God’s people have used song to praise God and to address one another. The first recorded song was a response to God’s great act of exodus salvation (Exod 15:1). The Bible speaks often of singing with some 225 uses of key words (sing, singing, song, songs). The Psalms urge us to sing with exuberance (Ps 150) and to sing a new song to the Lord (Ps 149:1). Isaiah links that new song to the coming of the Lord’s servant who bears the Spirit and who brings the day when the old yields to his promised new things (Is 42:1-10). The last action of Jesus before going to his arrest was to sing a hymn (Matt 26:30). The heavenly throne room echoes Ex 15:1 as worshippers sing the new song praising the lamb who has brought the ancient promises to pass (Exod 19:1-6; Rev 5:9-10). Singing is in the beginning, middle and the end of redemptive history.

As churches go to livestreamed services in the season of Cov-19, we seem to have hung our harps (Ps 137:2). Equipment issues, copyright protections and social distancing may mean that song has little part in virtual worship. God made us to love with heart, soul, mind and body (Matt 22:37) but livestream seems most quickly suited to a head focus.

Many of us miss the music. Music has an ability to reach into the heart and to help express its deepest feelings. It touches the soul. Of course, Christian singing is no more to be separated from a Christian mind than the mind is to be separated from singing (1 Cor 14:15). Mind and heart always go together as grace enters a person and as we respond to it. Gathered worship without singing seems … well … empty.

Music has a special place in Easter gatherings. The dark songs of Good Friday take us to the agony of Jesus and its necessity in our sinfulness. Hymns like “Rock of Ages” interpret the Cross and teach us to come naked and with empty hands “... simply to your Cross I cling”. And then great Sunday release as we sing “Jesus Christ is risen today – hallelujah”.

Even if livestreamed services cannot have much Easter music for the above reasons, this doesn’t mean that our harps are hung. Individually, or in family units and closed social media groups, we can juxtapose the reading of Scripture, prayers and reflective silence with well-chosen music from our CD collection or sources such as YouTube.

Easter calls us to unhang our harps and to sing the Lord’s new song.