Make a joyful noise, all ye people
You know how certain people in churches (preachers) complain that other people in churches (slackers) will go to football games and scream and yell and cheer when their team (the Broncos) are playing for 3 or 4 straight hours? Then they’ll tell you (with grave disappointment) that you need to be cheering for Jesus because He made the ultimate touchdown when He came to earth to die for our sins.
No? You’ve never heard that? Oh, must just be my tribe (aka my own particular people-group/slice of ecclesia-pie), I guess.
Anyway, especially back in the days when a true test of righteousness (or “churchianity” perhaps) was going to be about whether you attended the Sunday night service on Super-Bowl Sunday, the topic would come up.
{I may have even used this particular brand of “worship-motivating” my-pious-self in times past, *gulp} Shhhh….don’t tell.
If the speaker was really fired up, he might add, with a slight hint of disdain, “There aren’t three people here who would stay for a three-hour sermon, let alone get on their feet and shout,” hoping, I am sure, that the whole crowd would suddenly erupt in cheers and actually start acting like they were at a football game, doing some sort of spiritual wave.
A few vigorous “amens” would shoot back to get points with the pastor, those Sunday-night-faithful-head-bobbers letting their fellow-pew-dwellers know, Well, I’ll never stay home to cheer sports teams on a Super Bowl Sunday night when I can be here cheering for the Son of God!. Uh-huh!
Since Sunday night services have gone the way of sawdust floors and dinners on the ground, we have all been set free from that particular law of sin and death associated with cheering on our football teams so zealously and then failing to do the same for the pastor, er, for Jesus on Sundays. Whew, thank-goodness!
The Broncos won Sunday!
Just in case you missed it, the Denver Broncos had a good Sunday. They won a play-off game which means they’ll face their arch nemesis this week to see who goes to the super bowl. The devil is coming to town in the form of a man named Tom Brady and his merry band of Patriots, and all true Coloradoans loathe him with a passion.
Home runs
I don’t really even like football and I don’t understand a lot of the details (I DO know getting home runs is important….JUST KIDDING, simmer down. I know they’re touchdowns). Please don’t bother trying to explain it to me, I’m fine with the little I know. I know enough to cheer for the guys wearing the right colored uniforms…usually. Sometimes I do have to ask Dave which uniforms we are cheering for that day. But I digress.
Sunday’s game was right here in the Mile-High City. That works in the home team’s favor, generally, I think. One thing the fans did really well was make a lot of noise. And when our team was doing great, it was “joyful noise” and happy cheering, for sure! But they also made some strategic noise and LOTS of it when the other team had possession of the ball. From what I could tell, it made it very difficult for the opposing QB to execute a good play against {my} team, (go, Broncos!). And so, in the case of this particular game, a certain quarterback actually threw a bit of a fit and his team got a penalty for holding up the game.
Now, I know this is a little simplistic because I don’t totally understand the game, so I am going by what the talking heads were saying, but, think of it – the Denver Broncos, the team – they are on the field doing everything they know to do in the face of their opponents who have come to crush them. And maybe that would be enough. But then these crazy fans in the seats become so loud, so uproariously vocal and physical, clapping their hands, stomping their feet – they actually send the opposition into a state of extreme confusion. The thunderous roar of the crowd threw the “enemy” off his game. The fans in the stands were so loud – they confused and confounded the plan of the opposing team! How cool is that?
The Bible is actually full of incredible stories of sound and noise being part of winning battles. The sound of Judah sending up praises at the front of a battle meant a victory at the end. And who can forget the Walls of Jericho, a city God promised to His people? They marched around that city once a day for 6 days, then on the 7th day, they marched, but the priests started blowing those ram’s horns and the people were told to SHOUT. They did and those walls came down, God’s promise was theirs!
“So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat. Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.” Joshua 6.20
There are other examples in the Bible where just a thundering sound or some major noise caused enemies to flee. Like the story in 2 Kings 7 of the lepers who were starving to death and decided to just go to the enemy’s camp and ask for food, figuring they were going to die one way or the other. But God caused such loud noise to surround their entrance, the sounds of many horses and chariots reverberating throughout the valley, that the Syrian army just took off as fast as they could, leaving their camp and supplies and food intact. That is crazy! That is a win!
And I was just thinking, maybe, as the Body of Christ, we should be watching out for each other, for those times the opposing team, aka “the enemy of our souls,” comes marching in to our home field. And maybe when we see the thief coming to steal, kill and destroy, when we see a strategic offense being mounted against “our team,” aka our brothers and sisters in the Lord, our family from the Household of Faith, well, maybe we should just start yelling and screaming and stomping and shouting the house down. Maybe we could be making some holy battle-noise to drive the devil back, confuse and confound his plan against one of our people!
I was thinking I’d like to be a person like that, a person who will stand up for others facing huge obstacles by making such a fuss, resisting so decidedly that the devil runs the other way, flees like a frightened chicken.
Well, don’t be surprised if I start screaming like a banshee the next time I see the enemy picking on you. I am, after all, a Pentecostal preacher’s daughter. I should try to put that to good use, shouldn’t I? I’d even show up on a Sunday night to be a part of something like that!
Little bonus: Yes, I seriously raised my kids on this – listen to the whole thing, no kidding! Just came to my mind as I was about to publish! :)
Jericho: The Shout of Victory, by Carmen
Oh, and GO, BRONCOS!