A New Song
The Rev’d Devin McLachlan
2nd Sunday before Advent, Year C (16 November 2025)
St Bene’t’s Church, Cambridge
Text: Psalm 98, Malachi 4.1-2a, Luke 21.5-19
Sing to the LORD a new song; for he has done marvellous things.
Unexpected, unfamiliar music, a song that rises, unbidden, from the heart.
A new song, rising up from all of creation. A new song. A new song.
We open to God the packed lacquer music boxes of our hearts’ desires, and God answers those prayers with new and unexpected song.
It is not the song we expected. It is not — sometimes — even the song we want, nor the song we think we have asked for. It is a new song.
Make music to the Lord with the lyre, ♦︎
with the lyre and the voice of melody.
With trumpets and the sound of the horn ♦︎
sound praises before the Lord, the King.
There are woodwinds in this song, dulcet tones of blessing, raising up in music a cloud of incense, of blessing. There are trumpets in this song, bright cymbals and clarion trumpets, calling out, calling out good news, piercing notes breaking chains and dullness, proclaiming liberation, with sharp notes reminding: liberation may call for walking four decades in the desert.
There are strings, constant strings, in this song, at times pizzicato, at times legato, lending length and constancy and rhythm because it is a song that runs from day to day, the strong song of the ordinary made new at each sunrise, at each moonrise, in each star and leaf.
And there is silence in this song, long measures of trembling rest, Sabbath between each note, the silent aleph at the start of each page, the silence that spreads her wings at night in this sanctuary.
The silence which is worshiping God in the beauty of holiness,
Sing to the LORD a new song; and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
There are voices in this song, so many voices, in so very many languages. voices of every language, of every nation, of every people, bringing forth the wonder and glory of God.
A polyphonic choir -- dissonant voices resolve into harmony, in God’s ear.
God sings answers to our prayer in unexpected ways,
Good news carried by the most unexpected people, the refugee and the outcast, the stranger in the land
His own right hand and his holy arm have won for him the victory.
It is not an easy song. “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down”
This is no elevator music, no worn-down easy-listening pap.
This new song is full of dynamics and accidentals, the creative strains required to set aright and in harmony a creation that has gone sadly, violently astray.
“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.”
But “the the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings,”
“In righteousness shall he judge the world and the peoples with equity.”
Sound praises to the Lord, all the earth; break into singing and make music.
Let the sea thunder and all that fills it, the world and all that dwell upon it.
Let the rivers clap their hands and let the hills ring out together before the Lord,
Of course there are angels in this song, heavenly host, powers and principalities, thrones and dominions, with their bronze voices, seraphim singing in silver and cherubim in gold.
But never forget that there are earthen voices, creatures here below, claw and caw, roaring and purring and whistling.
God’s plan is not our plan, and we are not the only creatures in this choir!
Watery voices, leviathan whales singing perpetually across the deep, under deep bass breaking waves.
God’s song carries the echos of the ekos, the household of creation, rightly ordered, unpolluted, growing and giving forth.
So tend the earth and shelter creation; Seek God in field and tree and sea and star.
Listen to God’s voice singing out with the sound of the silence of the night sky, and the invisible rush of waters beneath the stones.
Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvellous things.
Unexpected, unfamiliar music, a song that rises, unbidden, from the heart.
A new song, rising up from all of creation. A new song. A new song.
How else can we hold in one measure the destruction of the Temple, and the resurrection of the Son of God? How else can we encompass the certainty of wars and insurrections, and the unshakable promise that not a hair of our heads shall perish?
The old music, the siren songs of power and fear, wealth and tribalism, adorned with beautiful stones — they shall all be thrown down, notes trampled under foot.
We must open to God the packed lacquer music boxes of our hearts’ desires, tuning our voices not to our own wills, but to God’s grace, letting God teach us to sing a new song, a song of the Cross.
It is not the song we expected. It is not the song the world thinks it wants. It is a new song, and it sings of marvellous things.
