Advent 2020 Reflection – Day Twelve

Psalm 43 v 3 -5

³ Send me your light and your faithful care,
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you dwell.
⁴ Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre,
O God, my God.

⁵ Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

Reflection

One of the great joys of a terrible period of isolation has been the ability to praise God by singing together as a music group. Initially each of us singing in our own homes and the resulting recordings being stitched together. Since regulations have allowed, singing together in a Covid compliant way. I know that all of us feel very special to be able to sing and somewhat guilty that whilst we sing others are not allowed to sing in church.

Music is a great part of my life both in secular and sacred songs. As we sing inspired words to beautiful tunes which praise God we are lifted up into his presence. It does not matter to me if these are the simple words of chorus type songs or in the sweeping theology of more formal hymns. It is not what we sing but why we sing. We need to sing like the Psalmist, who sings because of his joy and delight in God and his desire to give to God the best of his talents in music and singing.

I think it is also a great help that when we struggle to find the words to lift in prayer we can open our hymn books, open our hearts and lift our voices in joy and delight and be drawn into God’s presence.

A few years ago, I selected my top ten hymns and put them on the “old” website. It was a phenomenally difficult process. I started with a list of more than a hundred and had to be very harsh to get down to the ten and even during the process some of the hymns changed. How we feel at a specific point in time affects the words that we want to praise God. It is our hearts crying out to our God.

Silence

In our silence today we think of the hymns and songs which fill our hearts and the reasons why they are special to us.

Carol

I have chosen as the carol today Tell out my soul which is number 186 in Singing the Faith. Written by Timothy Dudley-Smith.

It is a joyful hymn which reflects Mary’s desire to express her joy and delight at the news the angel has brought her of the child she will bear. As I said in my reflection it is her heart crying out to God because she can do nothing other than sing.

Prayer

Loving God we thank you for the gift of music and the inspiration that you have given to hymn and song writers through the centuries. Lord we long for the day that we will be able to come together as your people and open our hearts and voices to once again raise our songs of praise to you. We thank you that in music and singing we can be lifted to sublime heights of worship. In the presence of the Holy Spirit our hearts can be warmed and our souls inspired by the words we read and the tunes we sing.

May we, like Mary, respond to your call with words of acceptance and joy. Amen.

Copyrights

All images today are from Pixabay.com free for commercial use no attribution.

Bible passage from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Tell out my soul – Timothy Dudley-Smith
Copyright 1961 Hope Publishing

Reflection and Prayers: Chris Hancock

Hatfield Road Methodist Church CCLI: 4955 Streaming: 989812