Revelation 5:11 Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. ¹² In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!" ¹³ Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!" ¹⁴ The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped.

How long have you been Lutheran? Whether you have been Lutheran for 100 years or are a brand new Lutheran today, you realize that there are certainly things about ourselves that we can poke fun at. For example, Lutherans believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud. Lutherans drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament. Lutherans still serve Jell-O in the proper liturgical color of the church season. And Lutherans like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.

As Lutherans, we certainly do love to sing. We have a rich heritage of music within the Lutheran Church. There are famous Lutheran composers like Bach, Mendelssohn, and Handel. We have great Lutheran theologians who were also great Lutheran hymn writers like Paul Gerhardt, Martin and Werner Franzmann, and certainly Martin Luther. We have a rich heritage of singing within the Lutheran Church. Pastor Kraus, in his sermon for Epiphany’s 80^th anniversary said Epiphany has always been blessed with musical gifts and talents. It is with godly pride that we enjoy the cantors, choirs, ensembles, and instrumental talents God has blessed us with in this congregation. Today is a wonderful, visible and audible example of those musical blessings.

The Lutheran Church is rightly called the singing church.

Some of you have heard of Garrison Keillor who hosts a public radio show about fictitious Lake Wobegone, Minnesota. This is what Keillor had to say about singing with Lutherans.

"I have made fun of Lutherans for years - who wouldn't if you lived in Minnesota? But I have also sung with Lutherans and that is one of the main joys of life, along with hot baths and fresh sweet corn. We make fun of Lutherans for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese potlucks. But nobody sings like them.

"If you ask an audience in New York City, a relatively "Lutheran less" place, to sing along on the chorus of "Michael Row The Boat Ashore" they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear. But if you do this among Lutherans, they'll smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the road!

Lutherans are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony. It's a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little head against that person's rib cage. It's natural for Lutherans to sing in harmony. You're too modest to be soloists and too worldly to sing in unison. When you're singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it's an emotionally fulfilling moment.

"I once sang the bass line of "Children of the Heavenly Father" in a room with about three thousand Lutherans in it. And when we finished, we all had tears in our eyes, partly from the promise that God will not forsake us, partly from the proximity of all those lovely voices. By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other."

We need this singing. We need to come together to join our hearts and voices in praise of our God.

I asked our shut-ins, "What do you miss most about not being able to come to church?" One member replied, "Your sermons." He then said, "I thought that’s what you were looking for." I laughed. Then he agreed with everyone else to whom I posed that question. They all missed the music the most. You can read sermons online or hear them on DVD or watch them on TV. You can read your Bible on your own. But you cannot truly duplicate the music we experience in a worship service.

We each have our own problems. Maybe it is finances or troubles in your marriage. Maybe it is loneliness because you have lost your spouse to death or worry because someone you love has cancer. Maybe it is anger or fear or depression or arthritis or migraines. Whatever problems plague you, it is part of human nature to shut down, to become withdrawn, to focus on ourselves. Thus our problems because larger than life. They become all-consuming. They threaten to overwhelm us.

Satan uses these problems, this self-centeredness, to drive a wedge between people and Jesus, between people and the body of Christ – the Church. He loves it when he is able to magnify our weakness and shortcomings so that we do not see the magnitude of the love of Christ. He enjoys it when our focus is so narrow that we only see pain and misery and miss the fantastic hope and joy God offers. He relishes the times we maximize our crises and dilemmas, while at the same time minimizing God’s blessings and miracles.

One of God’s remedies for our shortsightedness and self-centeredness is uniting in worship with fellow believers. While you are singing a hymn, for those few minutes, you are able to forget your problems. While you are listening to that choir or trumpet solo, you are able to enjoy a blessed preview of the choirs and trumpets in heaven. For about an hour, you ca put aside your loneliness or self-centeredness as we unite with fellow believers in worship of our God.

Even if the pastor preaches a "stinker" of a sermon, you can be confident that you heard a sermon in song that day. Even if you can’t remember the point of the children’s devotion, you will remember the words and the melodies of the hymns you sang. You’ll remember how they made you feel. Even if our little children can’t read, they will belt out the hymns or liturgical songs they know and love.

As Lutherans, we don’t like to show too much emotion. But there aren’t many dry eyes on Good Friday as a soloist sings "Were you there when they crucified my Lord." In the Easter Vigil, I could hear my 7 and 10 year olds singing Moses song, "Let my people go," and my eyes filled up with tears of pride. It is hard not to enjoy and smile, as we get faster and faster, when closing an Easter service with "The King of Glory Comes."

Here we are able to put aside for a while the massacre at Virginia Tech. Here we are able to see God’s hand in the war in Iraq. Here we may not focus on the popular news of the day, but instead focus on sin, grace, forgiveness, life, and heaven.

Sermons may speak to the head. But hymns speak to the heart.

People are longing for God. Where will they find him? In the shifting sands of the inner life or on the solid rock of the Word of God? People may enjoy listening to Toby Keith, Justin Timberlake or Lawrence Welk. But they find lasting peace and joy by singing, "Beautiful Savior," "Amazing Grace," or "I’m But a Stranger Here."

The Lutheran Church has a rich legacy to offer in our worship. Here is reality, not symbolism. Here we have real contact with God; not as we come to him, but as he comes to us. He meets us in the proclamation of the Word. Here the Son of God distributes his actual body and blood for the assurance of the forgiveness of sins. Here the people of God gather to offer their thanks, their praise, and their prayers. Here is the real thing!

This is the kind of worship that lifts the heart while it exalts Christ. This is the kind of worship that brings us before the throne of God. This is the kind of worship through which we receive power to live on this earth as God would have us live. And this is what Lutheran worship does!

These hymns we sing are just practice for the anthems of praise we will all be singing in the choirs of heaven. The apostle John was invited to witness one of these choral pieces. He heard the saints, angels, and all creation join in singing the Lamb’s victory song.

John tells us, "Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. ¹² In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!" ¹³ Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!" ¹⁴ The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped."

It takes a lot for Lutherans to get excited about something. It doesn’t always seem fashionable or cool to demonstrate our obvious delight and therefore sing with absolute joy.

And yet we have just heard that it will not be that way in heaven. While on earth, we who are the heirs and beneficiaries of God’s grace in Christ, often worship in a subdued manner. While heaven itself undergoes an explosion of praise and thanksgiving centering upon the Lamb who was slain, Jesus Christ.

Why? Why does Jesus deserve this praise? Why is he worthy of power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and praise from us and from all creation?

We sing his praises because we had a plethora of penalties upon us. We sing of his glory because we had opted for pain, but through is pain he gave us perfection. We sing of his wisdom because we had chosen ignorance, but he offered us eternal knowledge. We sing of his honor because we had decided on horror and hatred, but through the horror and hatred he endured, he gave us hope and happiness. We sing of his love because we had spit in his face, turned our backs on him, and cursed his sacrifice, yet time and again he extended his divine hand of grace and blood-bought forgiveness.

See the Good Shepherd who was also the perfect, sinless Lamb of sacrifice. See him hang upon the cross so that you would know that what you have done would be gone; so your future would have hope; and so you would be forgiven and learn to forgive. See him rise from the dead and offer his grace. See his nail-pierced hands extended to you. See how those hands swept aside sin, Satan, and death so you might never be alone again; lost again; fearful or hurting again. See Christ’s death and resurrection connected to the waters of baptism, so that it might bring his forgiveness, his reconciliation, his power, and his peace to Kristin, Madison, and Brooke. See the Lamb who was slain in this world so you might live in his world.

Since Christ was slain, now heaven is ringing with praise to him for gaining followers "from every tribe, people, language, and nation" and making them "a kingdom and priests to serve our God" (Revelation 5:9-10).

When we gather as believers to sing, it is merely a preview of what we will sing with the multitudes of angels, saints, and creation while in heaven. The Lutheran Church is the singing church for it is our heritage and our eternal future to sing to our Savior of the glory, honor, and praise he deserves. Let us sing, ""Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain, Whose blood set us free to be people of God!" Saints above and saints below have every reason to join in this song of the feast of victory.

If you have been Lutheran for any length of time you realize that as Lutherans, not only can we sing in four-part harmony, but Lutherans are the sort of people you can call up when you’re in deep distress. If you’re dying, we’ll comfort you. If you’re lonely, we’ll talk to you. And if you’re hungry, we’ll bring you a tuna salad.

And as Lutherans, you also realize that when you come to worship, you are going to sing. You will sing God’s praises. You join your hearts and voices in the glorious victory song to our Lamb who was slain. For the Lutheran Church is the singing church. That is our heritage and our eternal future. We sing now and we will sing forever, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!" Amen!