Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth.

Sing to the Lord, praise his name,

proclaim his salvation day after day.

Declare his glory among the nations,

his marvelous deeds among all peoples.  Psalm 96: vs 1 to 3. 

 

Sing, says the Psalmist, sing!  And we do it at Christmas more than any other time.  It seems a natural way of worship  -  but why? Why does singing have a special significance?  What is going on when we sing to God rather than just speak? Is it just poetic licence on the part of the writer? — And all he really means is ‘praise and worship God’.  

 

Anyway, what if you feel you can’t sing, are you missing out? This is all about the human voice, and its deep connection with our inner being and with our identity.  We have the most incredible range of expression at our disposal. We can use our voices to communicate love, hatred, comfort.

 

We can tell the mood or the intention of someone even when we can’t understand a word they are saying.  When someone has a voice which is full and relaxed we feel that person is on top of things, whereas a tight, strained, sharp voice makes you feel tense and anxious.

When I was a professional singer the hardest thing to conquer was fear  because it always showed in your voice.

 

Just imagine if we took all the voices in church one day and mixed them up and handed them back at random. It would be ghastly.   Then imagine going home with that different voice and phoning your family.  They wouldn’t believe it was you. Whatever you said to prove otherwise — how could you be you without your own voice?  Why do you think they distort someone’s voice on news reports when they want to remain anonymous? Our voice and our identity are inextricably linked. 

Indeed I would go one step further  - our voice is produced by our breath - the self same breath that keeps us alive, our life-breath.

This is why being called to sing to God is so important and powerful. By the use of our voices we are offering to God our very selves.   Our identity, who we are, our very life-breath all offered freely to God in praise. 

No wonder feelings run so high when it comes to music in church.  If what is going on is hard to relate to,  then we feel cut off from one of our most profound means to drawing close to God. Of course if the reverse happens and we are as it were ‘in tune’ with the music being offered, then something seems to happen which is greater than the sum of its parts.  If we join together in praise, then it becomes at one and the same time both personal and corporate. We become a worshipping community - and something is going on which words alone cannot describe.

The Swiss Theologian Hans Kung tried to define this further dimension that music moves you into. He finds, he says, ‘traces of transcendence’  which reveal how wafer-thin the boundary is between the human and the divine. 

Kung is particularly moved by the music of Mozart, and claims that “To listen to the adagio of the Clarinet Concerto, for example, is to perceive something wholly other: the sound of an infinite which transcends us and for which beauty is not enough description   ...To describe such experience and revelation of transcendence, religious language still needs the word God.”

When we use our voices to praise God, then not only do we offer to God our deepest selves, but through the nature of music God draws close to us.  By sharing in music we share in the power of God as creator, and we can we grow to an understanding of what it is to be created in God’s own image.  

We may dismiss the delight in singing carols, especially by those who only pitch up once a year, as a cultural warm, fuzzy experience. Perhaps it is far deeper than that.  Transcendence and transformation are only a breath away.

 

The Revd Rosie Harper is Vicar of Great Missenden and Chaplain to the Bishop of Buckingham.