Psalm 98, with its promise of a sea and mountains singing, takes these imposing natural features and turns them into a praise choir.
1 Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.
2 The Lord has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
3 He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
4 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music;
5 make music to the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
6 with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
7 Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy;
9 let them sing before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.
-Psalm 98
I’m a big fan of Christmas music. Seriously, you can check out my recent Christian History Almanac Weekend Edition counting down my favorite Advent and Christmas songs. And any connoisseur of holiday music knows that a few strange lyrics may have become commonplace in our singing. Consider “Wassailing” from here we come “A-Waissaling.” It was initially a Norse expression of cheer approximating “be well.” Yuletide tradition had people going out at night, wishing each other well, and giving out a warm beverage. Before long, the beverage became so associated with the saying that the drink and toast became one. And why are we so adamant about figgy pudding? In “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” the caroler insists that they won’t leave until they get some gelatinous fig sauce…how strange. And the “12 Days of Christmas” would take an entire article to exegete.
As a young man, I remember singing “Joy to the World” and thinking it's strange that in the second verse, we sing about “fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains” and that they, too, “repeat the sounding joy.” It might seem strange that inanimate objects are joining the choir, but these words come to us from Psalm 98.
In Psalm 98, we are given the common Biblical refrain to “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things,” and this call is not just to we mortals but to the whole earth. We read verses 7 and 8: “Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy.”
In fact, the father of modern hymnody, Isaac Watts, wrote “Joy to the World” as a paraphrase of Psalm 98.
The tradition Watts came from practiced what is sometimes called “exclusive Psalmody”; that is, the only songs that could be sung came from the Psalms. But you might see how that would cause a problem for Christian worship. Sure the allusions are there, but exclusive Psalmody made mentioning Christ in song impossible. And so in 1719, Watts published his Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Apply’d to the Christian State and Worship. This would create a bridge from exclusive Psalmody to the singing and writing of modern hymns as we know them.
Watts’ interpretation of Psalm 98 in “Joy to the World” is a conscious Christological interpretation. It helps to enlarge our picture of the good news. The individualization of faith has led some to perceive Christianity as a kind of heavenly insurance policy, possibly understood as “in exchange for believing in Jesus, I get to go to heaven when I die.” But the good news is so much bigger than that. Contrary to the popular notion and shorthand, our destiny isn’t “going to heaven when we die” but instead being part of the new creation. Revelation 21:1 reveals at the end of the age, “Then I saw ’a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” It is why on my podcast, The Christian History Almanac, I end with the benediction of “the redemption of all things” not as a call to universalism but rather that God is making all things new.
It’s why Joy to the World promises, “No more let sins and sorrows grow / Nor thorns infest the ground.” God’s promise fulfilled in Christ is that the curse in Genesis 3 is completely reversed. The new heavens and new earth are a new Eden. Watts reminds us that blessings flow “far as the curse is found.” Psalm 98, with its promise of a sea and mountains singing, takes these imposing natural features and turns them into a praise choir. And while we moderns might think of nature as serene (as opposed to urban jungles), the Psalmist and Watts know that nature can be rough. Thorns can prick, oceans can drown, and woe to the person caught under the mountain raining boulders.
The good news is that the whole world will be redeemed. The world was created good and will not be abandoned for an ethereal heaven with harps and clouds. The entire world will be redeemed, and the whole world will rejoice. And that’s the meaning of Christmas.
