"Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands." - Psalm 100:1
Oh, how times have changed.
It was September of 1969. I remember walking into the auditorium of Jackson Elementary School for the first time as a first grader in Kingsport, Tennessee. It seemed huge, and it still does in my memories.
There were all these kids: 1st graders, 2nd graders, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th. And there was so much chatter. Buzzing conversation. Laughs and joyful cries.
Then, in the distance, onto the stage, out she came. Large. White-haired. The Principal.
I don't even remember if she saId anything, but the auditorium became eerily silent, like the modern-day silence when great big Santa Claus walks out into the presence of the tiny elves on Christmas Eve in the movie, Polar Express.
And then, with one great breath and in one great voice, the whole auditorium, Principal and all the kids therein, launched into Psalm 100, "Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD, he is God. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good. His mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. Amen."
I was mesmerized. It was like heaven. Like a throng of angels declaring God's word for all the world to hear.
I'm confident that no one ever taught the Psalm to us first graders. We just learned it by hearing it spill forth from the hearts of others, morning after morning after morning.
Oh, how times have changed.
No, I don't mean that the government won't let us share Bible verses in school assemblies anymore.
I mean that, well, I mean that I wish more people spent time with God's word so as to know God's word so they could speak God's word to one another. And in so doing, impart a foretaste of heaven to a world that is starving to hear it.
I myself am working on it daily, and I encourage you to do the same, because I want to be for others in 2014 what others were for me in 1969--angels, inviting me to joy in the LORD by way of the word of God, spoken from the heart in public.
Times may have changed. But the hunger of the human heart for God's word hasn't.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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