Reflection - Sing a New Song

by Rev Nigel Rogers

Sing a New Song - Psalm 98:1-9

Psalm 98 invites us to lift our voices in a new song, a song that rises from the sheer wonder of God’s marvellous work. Together with Psalm 97, it forms a duet proclaiming the joyful reign of God over all creation. Yet we might ask: How do we sing joy into a world that so often sings a different tune, one of brokenness characterised by heartbreak, injustice, and exhaustion?

The truth is the song of brokenness is not new. Humanity has been humming it for generations. But the wonder of Psalm 98 is that the song of God’s salvation isn’t just a competing melody, it is a victory song prophetically declaring peace in the relationship between God and the whole of creation.

We know the verses of the old song all too well. They echo betrayal, diminishment, and mistreatment toward others, toward creation, and toward God. Sometimes we are the wounded ones; sometimes, if we’re honest, we are the ones who wound. Whatever the cause, the outcome is the same: a relentless chorus of tragedy, chaos, and pain that threatens to drown out joy, hope and peace.

But Psalm 98 dares to imagine a different soundtrack in the past, present and future.

The salvation it proclaims is liberation, the freedom from what Scripture names as transgression (our betrayals), iniquity (our diminishing of God and creation), and sin (our misalignment with the way of Jesus). Into the stranglehold of brokenness, be it personal, societal, or in the church, Christ steps in and sings a new song. It is a song of wholeness and healing. It is a song that retunes our lives and renews our stories, not by pretending brokenness isn’t real, but by refusing to let it steal our joy, hope and peace.

How does Christ retune and renew our lives? Putting relationships right between people is one thing, but mending our relationship with God is different. We might offer an apology to God as a starting point, but what would we be apologising for? Until we own what we are apologising for, our betrayal, our diminishing of God and God’s creation, our wandering from the way of Jesus, we stand at a distance from the cross.

Yet the moment we acknowledge these things is the moment we step more fully into the heart of Christ’s crucifixion. The love of God revealed in Jesus Christ on the cross becomes the great chorus of the new song, the refrain the church never tires of singing. As the UCA Basis of Union reminds us: “In Jesus Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself… In love for the world, God gave the Son to take away the world’s sin.” The liberation from brokenness in our relationship with God caused by our transgression, iniquity and sin is the marvellous work of Christ, once and for all, on the cross.

This is our song. This is our joy and hope. This is the new melody God invites us to sing - loudly, joyfully, courageously - in a world still longing to hear it and yearning for peace.