Excerpted from Keep Awake, an Advent Guide for Lectionary Year A from the North Carolina Council of Churches.
Psalm 96
O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord; bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples.
For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised;
he is to be revered above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Honor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts.
Worship the Lord in holy splendor;
tremble before him, all the earth.
Say among the nations, “The Lord is king!
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
He will judge the peoples with equity.”
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar and all that fills it;
let the field exult and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord, for he is coming,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness
and the peoples with his truth.
By now, you’ve likely heard Burl Ives encouraging you to have “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” or maybe you have joyfully joined in as The Temptations crooned each part of “Silent Night.” These Christmas standards and others carefully selected for cantatas and neighborhood caroling aren’t on the playlist the psalmist admonishes readers to sing in Psalm 96.
This royal psalm is a call to lift our voices because God is the king of God’s people. Thus, this singing should provoke something beyond the excitement that Santa is coming to town. David Bland explains, “Singing to the Lord activates within us a desire to practice the Lord’s justice.”
Imagine informing family members that this year’s after-dinner sing-along will include a melody that calls us to address gun violence, mass incarceration, food and housing scarcity, and other societal problems that cannot be handled entirely by dropping a few dollars in a canister while shopping. Like Psalm 96, this song will be sung not because God is bringing joy to the world but rather because God is bringing judgment to the world.
“What is there to sing about?” some may ask while looking back at our collective and personal struggles of the past few months. Today’s text nudges us to sing not because all is well or because we have a perfectly curated Christmas celebration awaiting us. No, we sing with exuberance because God will make all things new, just, and right in our unjust world.
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