Make A Joyful Noise

Saturday morning is usually “market day” for me – a day to walk into town to the market square a partake of things that delight the senses – the beautiful artistic crafts available from local artisans tease the eye, aromas of meats and vegetables grilling in any cuisine you could imagine – Iberian paella, Venezuelan Arepa, halloumi wraps from Cyprus, fresh baked breads of every sort, croissant, bagels, smoked meats, fresh fish and seafood, German sausage sandwiches to go, shall I go on?

And then there are the ears. At every corner of the square are performers. Some of them are artists from local venues promoting their shows. Others are students from the university. All this working together to create a feast of sight and sound and smell to help you understand that God made a wonderful world – a world of tremendous diversity.

All one needs to do is stand here for a moment and experience it all. Not just the art and the crafts and the foods and music, but the people – the diverse sounds of their voices – languages from every corner of the world – English, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Urdu, Mandarin, Arabic, Malay, French, Afrikaans, Dutch – those were the ones I could identify. I don’t know how many more I could not hear or pick out. And to think, all this compressed into this little market square in this little city.

It makes me wonder what it might have been like on that first Pentecost Sunday so long ago, when, as it is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, those standing about wondered aloud

Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?  Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

What an experience that must have been. What an impression that must have made – to have all those differences fall away in an instant. How marvelous it would be if we might have such an experience ourselves – to have our differences fall away suddenly, so that we could the experience of a fuller understanding of what it truly means to be part of this human family – to understand how much we really share in common and that the things that we see as differences really have no need to be a cause for division, but can be things that delight the senses – and can bring joy to the soul.