And remember as you serve them, sing for those who have no song.
Sing a joyful alleluia, praising God in all you do,
And remember as you witness, God is singing over you!
---Wesley Forbis, 2000
This fall our First Bells are learning a handbell setting of
the American folk hymn ‘Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley’. I love the
arrangement, and I love the bluesy folk tune. I even love the poignancy of
thinking of Jesus turning his face toward Jerusalem, alone among his circle of
friends and followers in understanding what lay ahead for him. But I am,
perhaps, just as content not to sing the hymn, and to play it instead; for the
second verse begins, “We must walk this lonesome valley, we have to walk it
by ourselves….” And friends, I am not sure
that is the calling we have received in Christ. Because, when we do it best,
walking with Jesus is walking
together with our brothers and sisters, sharing our joys and pains, our
successes and failures, our tears and laughter, our burdens and strengths. When
we do it best, we live life together.
This second verse of this relatively new hymn addresses the being
there-ness of the Christian life: we stand
up, we cry out, we share, all on behalf of those who, for whatever reason,
cannot. And then a line lovely and true --- “…sing for those who have
no song.” Even more than lending voice to
the voiceless, this phrase brings to mind the Old Testament image of ‘standing
in the gap’. When there was a breach, or gap, in the walls of a town, a
defender would stand in the breach, defending those within at the spot where
the wall was weakest. Leaders including Moses were known to have figuratively stood
in the gap where God’s people were weakest, being strength for them in their time of need.
When we stand in the gap, when we sing for those who have no
song, when we bear each other’s burdens --- then we live life together, and
become Christ’s body, here, in this place. Alleluia.
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