Sing a song!

O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land, which his hands have formed. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice!

- Psalm 95:1-7

I need to remind myself sometimes that the Sundays in Lent are not actually in Lent. They are not counted among the forty days, so any discipline I may have undertaken for Lent may be suspended on Sundays. That’s not an excuse for slacking, of course, but rather an opportunity for rest and refreshment, as Sundays should always be.

This blog has felt a little heavy lately. So on this Third Sunday in Lent, let’s remember the joy of singing. It seems sometimes that singing is a dying art in our culture. We hire professionals to sing the national anthem instead of singing it together. We look to those who burst with natural talent when we could be singing ourselves. Very few people are actually tone deaf; they’re merely untrained.

So today, sing! Sing along with one or the other of these songs about … singing. May music always be for you water in the desert, a spring of living water bubbling up as evidence of the Kingdom of God all around you. From 1976, here’s Earth, Wind & Fire.