COP30 - 21 November 2025
Sing with Creation

Reflection

In Psalm 98 the Psalmist (person unknown) calls us to celebrate. We are called to sing! Not just the people who enjoy singing and not just the people who can hold a tune. All of us are called to raise our voices in song. And it’s not just any song, it’s to be a new song. We paused here to wonder what new song we could possibly add to the zillions that God must have heard. Then we realised that if we’re singing because of the things that God has done, there will always be new songs to sing (and possibly every song sung with our imperfect voices sounds different to God? 😉).

The Psalmist talks about the unbelievable things that God has done, the victory God has won through his own skill and strength. We are told that he saves, that he does what is right, that he keeps his promises and that he remembers his unfailing love. Perhaps the Israelites remembered their rescue from Egypt as they sang, or their return from exile in Babylon? Our thoughts naturally turn to Jesus and what his death obtained for us. We have much to sing about.

We wonder whether the VOICE translation underplays what we’re called to do next, with its ‘raise your voices’ when other translations tell us to ‘shout’. The King James Version calls us to ‘make a joyful noise’ where ‘noise’ comes from the Hebrew word rûa‘ meaning (figuratively) ‘split the ears with sound’. There’s now absolutely no worry for anyone who can’t hold a tune because there is no tune, just a raucous sound of whoops and cheers and shouts as God’s people let rip in appreciation of who he is and what he’s done.

Then perhaps things calm a little as the musicians join the fray, with harps and trumpets and horns and some beautiful melody, and the rest of us close our eyes and let the air, filled with joyful sounds, turn our hearts towards our Creator God.

By now we’re all ‘praised out’ and if it was left to us, we’d orchestrate a diminuendo finish and return to the rest of life, but the Psalmist has a grand finale in mind that we could not ever imagine. Our voices, which we thought were louder than anything could be as they joined with others across the world, now fade into the background as creation lifts its voice.

The sea rumbles and roars, and all the creatures in it shout their praise, the rivers applaud, the mountains join in. Everything in and on the earth is now praising its Creator God together, as one. And surprisingly, we, who have done much to spoil creation, are still invited to stand with it, before God, in praise, realising for once how small and insignificant we are in the context of all creation. The reason for our combined praise? God is coming to judge, and his judgement will be a righteous and just judgment.

And there we leave Psalm 98 and finish our fortnight of reflections, reminded that these voices we were given by our Creator God are to be raised in praise, but they must also be used to speak his justice into the world. It seems an apt thought to end with.

Response

Three hundred and six years ago, (in 1719) the clergyman Isaac Watts published a book of poems, in which each poem was based on a psalm which he paraphrased to point towards Jesus. Psalm 98 gave rise to two poems under Watts’ quill, the second, based on verses 4-9, he  titled 'The Messiah’s coming and kingdom'. You can read it in the succinctly titled 'The Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and applied to the Christian State and Worship' available on the Project Gutenberg website.

The poem has been set to music on several occasions, most notably by the American composer Lowell Mason in 1848, to a tune attributed to George Frederic Handel, and many of us probably sing it at least once a year, during December. It is 'Joy to the World',  the Advent/Christmas hymn that was never intended to be such!

Here’s an unaccompanied rendition which we hope you enjoy, and if you find yourself singing it this year as part of your Advent observances or Christmas celebrations, let it remind you that your voice matters!

Joy to the World from the Timeless Truths online library (click on the link to play).