Skill Builders
'How Can I Keep from Singing?'

My Dear Shepherds,
Who could’ve imagined a year ago that on Easter 2020 virtually every church in America, and countless others beyond, would be closed and silent. How, in heaven’s name, can Christians celebrate Christ’s resurrection when we cannot sing together?
We will come to Easter Sunday as reluctant soloists, with only our own voices, without the band or choir, guitar or organ. Now we really must sing by faith, not only our faith in Christ but our faith that our single voices will be joined with countless others “before the throne of God above,” that our solitary wavering alleluias do not echo in our empty room but are heard by our risen Christ in harmony with the “tongues of men and angels” in the vast throne room of the Triune God.
We sing this year, more sobered by mortality, by our frailty, and the fragility of the so-called life around us. The ashen specter of death has come close to home. My wife and I have lost two dear friends to this ...