Trumpet Medley
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle C
Object:
Listen to the sound of the trumpet. What do you hear?
Sounds evoke feelings, of course. And so what you and I hear takes place as much in our hearts as in our eardrums. What a sound elicits in our hearts depends upon our experience and association with that sound.
Some sounds, you know, are so inherently appealing that their effect is almost universally positive: a baby's giggle, for example, or the sounds of nature on a quiet summer evening come to mind. By contrast, certain other sounds have a predictably negative effect: the proverbial fingernails on a chalkboard or the deliberately unsettling sound of a smoke alarm.
Of course, you and I live in a time when we can be rather selective about the sounds that we hear. Much more so than previous generations.
It used to be that every telephone sounded essentially the same. Today, however, we can program our phones to play all sorts of pleasing or amusing personalized ringtones. Even the term is becoming a misnomer, for the younger generations may not associate phones with "ringing" at all.
My wife's cell phone, for instance, used to be set to meow like a cat when someone called it, which generated some memorable reactions in certain group settings when the phone rang. I have friends whose phones offer a brief excerpt of classical music. I've heard teenager's phones that are programmed to say something when someone's calling, like "Pick up the phone" or "It's for you." And we can even program specific ringtones for specific callers.
Likewise, the alarms we set to awaken us in the morning is another area of tremendous variety now. Once upon a time, alarm clocks simply rang. Then some electronic versions offered an alternative: the buzz. Now, however, we can awaken to all sorts of sound effects, voices, messages, programming, and music.
Beyond all of that, with small digital devices, we can now have our chosen music with us almost anywhere we go. Our automobiles, computers, radios, televisions, and phones enable us to listen -- on demand -- to a smorgasbord of information and entertainment that was unthinkable a generation ago.
Still, all of the freedom and selection we presently enjoy when it comes to the sounds we hear only serves to reinforce the same basic truth: namely, that sounds evoke feelings. Strong feelings. That's why we find it so desirable to be able to choose our sounds.
Some sounds, of course, are neutral. Or at least situational. My spirit may always be cheered by the sound of a baby's innocent giggle, and I may always be annoyed by the shrill and strident smoke alarm; but some other sounds are more variable. They evoke different feelings on different days.
Let us imagine, for example, a teenage girl, who is awaiting a phone call from the boy she likes at school. Rumor has it that he may like her, too, and is thinking of calling her to ask her out on a date. Meanwhile, let us also imagine that, living in that same house with the girl is her middle-aged father, whose doctor recently ordered a certain battery of medical tests. Those test results will serve to confirm or refute the doctor's grim suspicions and the father's worst fears. The doctor has promised to call with the results sometime this afternoon.
When the telephone rings in that house, what happens?
The teenage girl and her father hear the same sound. It is the same pitch and decibel level for both. The sound waves that reach each one's ears are identical. However, the internal reaction of the two people is vastly different. The sound of the phone instantly fills the teenage girl with excitement. The same sound grips her father with apprehension and anxiety.
Well, the prophet Joel called for the sound of a trumpet. What feelings would that evoke? How did the trumpet sound?
The prophet Joel speaks from the vantage point of late Old Testament history. We consider some earlier Old Testament texts and settings to see how trumpets had been used in ancient Israel. We find there a wide range of uses for trumpets. The instrument and pitch could have been the same in every instance, but precisely how it sounded to the people who heard the trumpet depended upon the setting and the circumstance.
The first mention of a trumpet in scripture is found in Exodus 19. The setting is Sinai, the daunting mountain of God. To the children of Israel gathered there, we observe that the sound of the trumpet meant the appearance of the Lord. The trumpet is mentioned several times in the account (see Exodus 19:13, 16, 19; 20:18), although interestingly there is no reference to a human trumpeter. This is, apparently, a supernatural trumpet, perhaps corresponding to the trumpet that will accompany Christ's return and the great resurrection of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16). For the people in Sinai's shadow, the trumpet signaled the awesome presence of God.
To the later generations of Israelites, who lived in observance of the Mosaic Law, the sound of the trumpet meant the beginning of some festival, some holy day, or a meaningful religious observance. Most notably, the trumpet marked the beginning of the year of jubilee, which came around once every fifty years. It was an occasion of liberation for Israel, as debts were cancelled, slaves were released, and family land was returned. Charles Wesley famously captured the feel of the moment in a hymn, saying, "Blow ye the trumpet, blow, the gladly solemn sound. Let all creation know to earth's remotest bound: The year of jubilee is come, the year of Jubilee is come. Return, ye ransomed sinner, home."1
Generations later, the psalmist declared, "Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our festal day" (Psalm 81:3). That suggests to us that the trumpet was used routinely to signal the beginning of special times and sacred observances. What the ringing of the church bell has meant to so many souls in more recent generations would have held the same meaning in the trumpet sound for the ancient Israelites on so many holy days.
To the people who served in the armies of Joshua or Gideon, meanwhile, the sound of the trumpet had a very different association. Trumpets, you recall, were literally the instruments of victory in the famed conquest of Jericho, as well as in Gideon's later defeat of the enemy Midianites. The trumpets did not merely signal the attack: The trumpets achieved the victory.
To the associates of Nehemiah, on the other hand, the sound of the trumpet signaled a warning (Nehemiah 4:1-20). Those who endeavored to rebuild Jerusalem's walls lived under a constant threat. The coworkers were stretched out over a considerable distance around the perimeters of the vast building project, and so the trumpet became the means of communicating an urgent message quickly to all involved. The trumpet blast indicated an attack, and it called the people together to mobilize against the common foe. The sound of that trumpet would have had the alarming quality of a civil defense siren in our day -- a piercing warning of trouble and danger.
What we hear goes beyond merely the vibrations of the sound waves against our ear drums. What we hear penetrates our hearts.
Dr. Ivan Pavlov, for all of his assets and accomplishments, is most famous for his dog. "Pavlov's dog," you recall, was trained to associate the sound of a bell with feeding time. Consequently, Dr. Pavlov discovered that the sound of the bell eventually prompted his dog to salivate.
I suppose that if Dr. Pavlov had habitually beaten his dog after ringing the bell, the sound of the bell would have come to mean something quite different for the poor animal. His reaction to the bell would likely have been to recoil rather than to salivate.
On this Ash Wednesday -- this first day of the season of Lent -- we are invited to hear the sound of the trumpet. God spoke through the Old Testament prophet Joel, calling out, "Blow the trumpet in Zion." Indeed, he says it twice.
And when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, what did they hear?
"Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble," Joel said, "for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near" (v. 1). So the trumpet in that day must have sounded like the trumpet at Sinai: The signal of the breathtaking prospect of the coming and the presence of the Lord. The sound of the trumpet triggered reverence and awe.
"Blow the trumpet in Zion," Joel said, "sound the alarm on my holy mountain! ... Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come" (vv. 1-2). So Joel's trumpet announces not just the coming of the Lord, but also the coming of an army -- a frightening and devastating army. The trumpet was a warning, as it was in the hearts of Nehemiah's companions. The sound of the trumpet evoked alarm and fear.
"Yet even now," the Lord said through Joel, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing" (vv. 12-13). Fear and alarm are not the goal in themselves, you see; they are a means to an end. By awakening the hearts of the people to impending danger, they will be prompted to call upon the Lord. Since they have distanced themselves from him by their sin, that means repenting and returning to him. The sound of Joel's trumpet, therefore, carries a tune of liberty and relief -- the sound of freedom and forgiveness for the people, as with the jubilee trumpet.
"Blow the trumpet in Zion," Joel says again. "Sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy" (vv. 15-16). Joel's trumpet signaled a great convocation. Like the ancient trumpets that inaugurated holy days and festivals, this trumpet told the people that it was time to come together to worship. The trumpet was an invitation.
On this first day of the season of Lent, God's word to us comes through Joel, and Joel calls for the blowing of the trumpet. Listen to the sound of it. What do you hear? We hear a whole medley of instructions and emotions: as we are duly awed by the presence of the Lord, as we are rightly alarmed by our sinfulness, as we rejoice in the freedom and forgiveness God offers us, and as we set aside all else in order to come together in sacred assembly to worship him. Amen.
_________________
1. "Blow Ye The Trumpet, Blow" words by Charles Wesley, 1750. In the public domain.
Sounds evoke feelings, of course. And so what you and I hear takes place as much in our hearts as in our eardrums. What a sound elicits in our hearts depends upon our experience and association with that sound.
Some sounds, you know, are so inherently appealing that their effect is almost universally positive: a baby's giggle, for example, or the sounds of nature on a quiet summer evening come to mind. By contrast, certain other sounds have a predictably negative effect: the proverbial fingernails on a chalkboard or the deliberately unsettling sound of a smoke alarm.
Of course, you and I live in a time when we can be rather selective about the sounds that we hear. Much more so than previous generations.
It used to be that every telephone sounded essentially the same. Today, however, we can program our phones to play all sorts of pleasing or amusing personalized ringtones. Even the term is becoming a misnomer, for the younger generations may not associate phones with "ringing" at all.
My wife's cell phone, for instance, used to be set to meow like a cat when someone called it, which generated some memorable reactions in certain group settings when the phone rang. I have friends whose phones offer a brief excerpt of classical music. I've heard teenager's phones that are programmed to say something when someone's calling, like "Pick up the phone" or "It's for you." And we can even program specific ringtones for specific callers.
Likewise, the alarms we set to awaken us in the morning is another area of tremendous variety now. Once upon a time, alarm clocks simply rang. Then some electronic versions offered an alternative: the buzz. Now, however, we can awaken to all sorts of sound effects, voices, messages, programming, and music.
Beyond all of that, with small digital devices, we can now have our chosen music with us almost anywhere we go. Our automobiles, computers, radios, televisions, and phones enable us to listen -- on demand -- to a smorgasbord of information and entertainment that was unthinkable a generation ago.
Still, all of the freedom and selection we presently enjoy when it comes to the sounds we hear only serves to reinforce the same basic truth: namely, that sounds evoke feelings. Strong feelings. That's why we find it so desirable to be able to choose our sounds.
Some sounds, of course, are neutral. Or at least situational. My spirit may always be cheered by the sound of a baby's innocent giggle, and I may always be annoyed by the shrill and strident smoke alarm; but some other sounds are more variable. They evoke different feelings on different days.
Let us imagine, for example, a teenage girl, who is awaiting a phone call from the boy she likes at school. Rumor has it that he may like her, too, and is thinking of calling her to ask her out on a date. Meanwhile, let us also imagine that, living in that same house with the girl is her middle-aged father, whose doctor recently ordered a certain battery of medical tests. Those test results will serve to confirm or refute the doctor's grim suspicions and the father's worst fears. The doctor has promised to call with the results sometime this afternoon.
When the telephone rings in that house, what happens?
The teenage girl and her father hear the same sound. It is the same pitch and decibel level for both. The sound waves that reach each one's ears are identical. However, the internal reaction of the two people is vastly different. The sound of the phone instantly fills the teenage girl with excitement. The same sound grips her father with apprehension and anxiety.
Well, the prophet Joel called for the sound of a trumpet. What feelings would that evoke? How did the trumpet sound?
The prophet Joel speaks from the vantage point of late Old Testament history. We consider some earlier Old Testament texts and settings to see how trumpets had been used in ancient Israel. We find there a wide range of uses for trumpets. The instrument and pitch could have been the same in every instance, but precisely how it sounded to the people who heard the trumpet depended upon the setting and the circumstance.
The first mention of a trumpet in scripture is found in Exodus 19. The setting is Sinai, the daunting mountain of God. To the children of Israel gathered there, we observe that the sound of the trumpet meant the appearance of the Lord. The trumpet is mentioned several times in the account (see Exodus 19:13, 16, 19; 20:18), although interestingly there is no reference to a human trumpeter. This is, apparently, a supernatural trumpet, perhaps corresponding to the trumpet that will accompany Christ's return and the great resurrection of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16). For the people in Sinai's shadow, the trumpet signaled the awesome presence of God.
To the later generations of Israelites, who lived in observance of the Mosaic Law, the sound of the trumpet meant the beginning of some festival, some holy day, or a meaningful religious observance. Most notably, the trumpet marked the beginning of the year of jubilee, which came around once every fifty years. It was an occasion of liberation for Israel, as debts were cancelled, slaves were released, and family land was returned. Charles Wesley famously captured the feel of the moment in a hymn, saying, "Blow ye the trumpet, blow, the gladly solemn sound. Let all creation know to earth's remotest bound: The year of jubilee is come, the year of Jubilee is come. Return, ye ransomed sinner, home."1
Generations later, the psalmist declared, "Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our festal day" (Psalm 81:3). That suggests to us that the trumpet was used routinely to signal the beginning of special times and sacred observances. What the ringing of the church bell has meant to so many souls in more recent generations would have held the same meaning in the trumpet sound for the ancient Israelites on so many holy days.
To the people who served in the armies of Joshua or Gideon, meanwhile, the sound of the trumpet had a very different association. Trumpets, you recall, were literally the instruments of victory in the famed conquest of Jericho, as well as in Gideon's later defeat of the enemy Midianites. The trumpets did not merely signal the attack: The trumpets achieved the victory.
To the associates of Nehemiah, on the other hand, the sound of the trumpet signaled a warning (Nehemiah 4:1-20). Those who endeavored to rebuild Jerusalem's walls lived under a constant threat. The coworkers were stretched out over a considerable distance around the perimeters of the vast building project, and so the trumpet became the means of communicating an urgent message quickly to all involved. The trumpet blast indicated an attack, and it called the people together to mobilize against the common foe. The sound of that trumpet would have had the alarming quality of a civil defense siren in our day -- a piercing warning of trouble and danger.
What we hear goes beyond merely the vibrations of the sound waves against our ear drums. What we hear penetrates our hearts.
Dr. Ivan Pavlov, for all of his assets and accomplishments, is most famous for his dog. "Pavlov's dog," you recall, was trained to associate the sound of a bell with feeding time. Consequently, Dr. Pavlov discovered that the sound of the bell eventually prompted his dog to salivate.
I suppose that if Dr. Pavlov had habitually beaten his dog after ringing the bell, the sound of the bell would have come to mean something quite different for the poor animal. His reaction to the bell would likely have been to recoil rather than to salivate.
On this Ash Wednesday -- this first day of the season of Lent -- we are invited to hear the sound of the trumpet. God spoke through the Old Testament prophet Joel, calling out, "Blow the trumpet in Zion." Indeed, he says it twice.
And when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, what did they hear?
"Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble," Joel said, "for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near" (v. 1). So the trumpet in that day must have sounded like the trumpet at Sinai: The signal of the breathtaking prospect of the coming and the presence of the Lord. The sound of the trumpet triggered reverence and awe.
"Blow the trumpet in Zion," Joel said, "sound the alarm on my holy mountain! ... Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come" (vv. 1-2). So Joel's trumpet announces not just the coming of the Lord, but also the coming of an army -- a frightening and devastating army. The trumpet was a warning, as it was in the hearts of Nehemiah's companions. The sound of the trumpet evoked alarm and fear.
"Yet even now," the Lord said through Joel, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing" (vv. 12-13). Fear and alarm are not the goal in themselves, you see; they are a means to an end. By awakening the hearts of the people to impending danger, they will be prompted to call upon the Lord. Since they have distanced themselves from him by their sin, that means repenting and returning to him. The sound of Joel's trumpet, therefore, carries a tune of liberty and relief -- the sound of freedom and forgiveness for the people, as with the jubilee trumpet.
"Blow the trumpet in Zion," Joel says again. "Sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy" (vv. 15-16). Joel's trumpet signaled a great convocation. Like the ancient trumpets that inaugurated holy days and festivals, this trumpet told the people that it was time to come together to worship. The trumpet was an invitation.
On this first day of the season of Lent, God's word to us comes through Joel, and Joel calls for the blowing of the trumpet. Listen to the sound of it. What do you hear? We hear a whole medley of instructions and emotions: as we are duly awed by the presence of the Lord, as we are rightly alarmed by our sinfulness, as we rejoice in the freedom and forgiveness God offers us, and as we set aside all else in order to come together in sacred assembly to worship him. Amen.
_________________
1. "Blow Ye The Trumpet, Blow" words by Charles Wesley, 1750. In the public domain.
