Sing Praises

The last 5 hymns in the hymnbook of psalms are the “Hallelujah” psalms. Hallelujah means “praise the Lord.” How good it is to sing praises to our God! It is good to breathe deep and sing loud, to smile wide and stand tall, to forget what anybody next to you hears or thinks and just praise! It is good to be so filled with joy that you can’t hold it back! We all know what it feels like…

Are you ready?…(sing Tiger fight song) Go Tigers Go! (ring cowbell) Souooooiiiiii…Rocky Top, you’ll always be… Some of us have songs and cheers that make our pulse quicken, right? That we can’t resist joining in?

It is good for us to worship. We are made to worship. Singing is good for us. When we sing endorphins, the hormone that tells us we are experiencing pleasure, are released in our brains . And the hormone oxytocin is released, the hormone that relieves stress and anxiety. Cytokines and immunoglobulin A, proteins that boost your immune system, increase. Inflammation decreases. Singing is being used to improve outcomes in treating cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and to help with depression and anxiety. Singing makes us healthier. It doesn’t work to just listen to music, the health benefits come from being part of the music.

The Old Testament describes worship: King David and all of Israel were dancing before God with all their might, with song and lyres and harps and tambourines and cymbals and trumpets (I Chronicles 13:8). Songs of praise should be offered with all our might. The football stadium should be mimicking the Sanctuary. All our joy, all our thanksgiving, unleashed in praise of God!

Do you remember the last time you were overwhelmed with joy? When you praised without being self-conscious? Walter Bruggemann suggests that complete self-abandoning praise is the “culmination” of cycle in life of testing, risk, and now resolution. When we have been challenged, and we have been faced with loss, and now we have come to the other side, we respond in praise.

Pediatric nurse Elizabeth Burke tells about a ritual in the hospital where she works. It is a “last chemo” ritual, joy bubbling out of relief and thanksgiving, but coming only after great challenge and risk.
Megan, the physical therapist, plays the trumpet. Nurse Carly is on the tambourine. James from dietary holds the triangle high in the air. Nurses with bells and kazoos congregate. “All together a nightmare in percussion and brass – a…cacophony of caterwauling with discordant voices, raised in praise in the Pediatric Oncology Unit.” To the tune of Happy Birthday, they sing “Happy last chemo” to Henry.

Elizabeth describes the celebration,
“We sang a joyful noise unto the Lord, as five-year-old Henry joined the celebration by adding maracas to the jam. The guest of honor delights, claps, spins, and sings. He has claimed the victory that is his. He beat the odds, beat the cancer, so now we let him beat the drum.
Our “Happy Last Chemo” song means this is the last time poison is injected through a central line and into Henry’s veins. The joyous occasion makes way for other famous lasts soon to follow – last time we draw labs, the last time he needs a blood transfusion, the last time he pretends there is a slumber party happening in hospital room 337. Henry’s health care team revisits other scripture passages promising the last will be first.
With last chemo we dare imagine Henry as a first grader. He can now have his first haircut since it is the last time he will be bald. It is the first chance in a long while for us to say “yes” to swimming in his neighbor’s pool, “Yes” to helping his grandfather feed the farm animals and “yes” to playing in the mud. Such things seem worthy of a blast from the horn of a ram and we are decidedly jubilant in this hour of need and praise.”

When we have come through hard times and suffering and things are the way they are supposed to be, praise is the only language we have. The Psalms challenge us to take the long view even if we are in the midst of hard times and suffering, and to praise God for all that is holy and wonderful, for God’s mighty acts throughout history, to praise God for who God is.

The psalm this morning has 3 verses, each one in Hebrew begins with Hallal Ki. That Ki is a very important little word. Hallal, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. Ki, for, because. Why do we praise the Lord? Praise the Lord BECAUSE: he is gracious, he heals the brokenhearted, is abundant in power and lifts up the downtrodden. Praise the Lord BECAUSE: he is the source of rain and grass and food, and his joy isn’t in our strength and power, but our worship, his pleasure is our hope in his steadfast love. Praise the Lord BECAUSE: he builds you up, satisfies you, and sends you out to the earth.

Praise the Lord because he has breathed breath into you! Hallelujah! How good it is to sing praises to our God! Hallelujah! How good it is to be so filled with joy that you can’t hold it back! Hallelujah! All our joy, all our thanksgiving, unleashed in praise of God! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Amen.