When the Music Preaches

     We all know the story of Jesus’s final hours before his arrest. He and the disciples share a final meal, where he washes their feet, breaks bread, and blesses the cup. Then they go to Gethsemane where Jesus prays and the disciples nod off. But tucked between meal and garden, Mark and Matthew include a detail that’s easy to miss:

“When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” (Mark 14:26/Matthew 26:30)
     It’s the only place in the Gospels where we are explicitly told that Jesus sang. Of course, he may have sung often—it just didn’t make it into the written accounts. But both Mark and Matthew thought this moment was worth preserving. Why? Most likely because Jesus and his disciples were singing Psalms 113–118, known as the Hallel, a collection of hymns of praise sung during the Passover meal. The words would have been familiar: songs of God’s faithfulness, deliverance, and enduring love they had sung since childhood. That Jesus raised his voice in song just before betrayal, trial, and crucifixion reveals something profound—when facing the darkest night, he turned to music, to worship, to the familiar, to the words of Scripture set to melody.
     That small note in the Gospels is a reminder that music is not an accessory to faith—it’s at the heart of how God’s people have always expressed themselves. Singing ties us together, teaching us truths too deep for mere speech, lifting our prayers beyond what our own words can carry.
     The earliest Christians understood this. Paul writes in his letters that believers are to speak to one another “with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts” (Ephesians 5:19). In Colossians 3:16 he adds, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.” Paul doesn’t treat music as background noise or that part of worship that we have to do. He sees it as central to community life, a way of teaching, encouraging, and proclaiming faith together.
     Even outsiders noticed. In one of the earliest non-Christian descriptions of Christian worship, Pliny the Younger, a Roman governor in the early second century, reported to the emperor that these peculiar followers of Christ “were in the habit of meeting before dawn to sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.” Singing marked them out. Long before church buildings or hymnals or choirs, Christians were known as a people who sang.
     Across the centuries, the Church has never lost that song. The style may change—chant, chorale, gospel, praise chorus—but the impulse is the same. Music carries us when words falter. It gathers us into one voice when life pushes us apart. It teaches children, comforts the grieving, strengthens the weary, and gives joy to the grateful.
     Think of the songs that have carried you through: maybe an old hymn learned at grandma’s side, or a chorus that played on repeat during a hard season, or a refrain that gave voice to your prayers when you couldn’t quite find the words yourself. Music connects our faith to memory and emotion in a way few other things can.
     Of course, Christians have long debated the “right” kind of music for worship. Traditional hymns often draw us in with rich theology and layered language, slowing us down to reflect on the meaning of the words. Contemporary praise songs, on the other hand, lean on repetition, accessible lyrics, and musical flow to help worshipers enter a spirit of prayer and praise. Each has its strengths, and each helps us approach God in a slightly different way. The diversity of song is part of the beauty of the Church’s worship.
     As we move into this new season, we will begin a sermon series exploring some of the Church’s most beloved hymns—and perhaps a few less familiar treasures. Together, we will look more closely at their words, and also at the stories of the writers whose faith and struggles gave birth to these songs. My hope is that as we explore the roots of these hymns, they will take on new life in our worship.
     ​So when we gather this fall and raise our voices—sometimes strong, sometimes stumbling—we are stepping into a stream that flows through millennia of believers: from Paul and Pliny, through the disciples and Jesus himself, all the way back to the psalms of Israel. In learning and worshiping, in navigating melodies and harmonies, we add our voices to the great chorus of praise that spans time and place, heaven and earth.

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