It’s Loud, but When It’s All Together, It’s Music
25 And he stationed the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, harps, and lyres, according to the commandment of David and of Gad the king’s seer and of Nathan the prophet, for the commandment was from the Lord through his prophets. 26 The Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets. 27 Then Hezekiah commanded that the burnt offering be offered on the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song to the Lord began also, and the trumpets, accompanied by the instruments of David king of Israel. 28 The whole assembly worshiped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded. All this continued until the burnt offering was finished. 29 When the offering was finished, the king and all who were present with him bowed themselves and worshiped.
Big tent revivals, worship nights, prayer meetings, even campfires or singing in a car on a road trip… there is just something about a bunch of us singing together. I heard one person say “I live singing because we can all make a beautiful noise that none of us could make alone.” That is about the best description of the group singing part of worship that I’ve ever heard.
It feels funny to call work worship. Or to say that we’re worshipping God when we sit alone in the quiet and pray. One way or another, the most common thing we mean when we say “worship” is all of singing together.
So let’s talk about that.
In numerous places in the Old Testament, significant days were marked and noted by huge groups of people singing. Whether it was the product of Jewish culture or something God was doing in the souls of people — singing quickly became a thing. In this event from Second Chronicles, the music takes some structure and work to set up. They have guys blowing horns and playing stringed instruments (more like a guitar than anything else). The women would have tambourine-like percussion instruments.
It would be loud.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a concert like this before, but sometimes musicians really have fun up on that stage. You can see them interacting, laughing, and genuinely enjoying themselves. Some of this may have been going on in Jerusalem too. They didn’t always get to play like this. This was special. They were going to make some special music and sing to celebrate this sacrifice.
This big party is the first feast day back from Babylon. Back from being in a place where they were too sad to sing their songs, they get together and jam.
It’s not just music for music’s sake. No way. But just like cheering at a ball game or raising your hands up in a cheer when the hero gets back up to beat the bad guy, we sing. We play music. We make noise and get hyped as we express our love and gratitude to Jesus.
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