The Heavens Rejoice

Beloved People of God,

Years ago, I heard Duke Ellington’s Heaven for the first time, and it rocked my world. In middle school I’d stumbled across Ellington (a jazz album misplaced among the blues records), and since then I began to collect his compositions. I thought I knew his sound until Heaven. His soft recognizable piano playing is accented by a crisp soprano voice praying “Heaven come by,” sonically climbing up to the note. I sat there, enraptured by the song. The closest to that yearning for God’s eternal presence was listening to Coltrane’s Love Supreme a few years later. That was until last week.

At an evening of jazz arranged by Taylor Barnett, where Steve Wilson and Daniel Clarke improvised Heaven, I found myself swept up again. All the fundamentals were there, but their interpretation made the song new, fresh, like a thunderbolt of worship. It wasn’t just a saxophone and a piano. It was a testimony.

Together, exploring the book of Revelation, we've sung the songs of eternity. We’ve exalted the Lamb of God who was slain for all nations (Revelation 7.9-12). We’ve praised the Lamb of God because we’ve been ransomed by His blood to bear prophetic witness to all nations (5.9-14; 11.3-13). Now in Revelation 12, we’ve reached the apocalyptic tipping point—Revelation’s core—the place of worship where all time converges before God’s throne. All of Scripture—from Genesis to Revelation— has been telling this one grand story, but now, in worship, we rejoice God’s victory won over all time—past, present and future. “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses [God’s people] day and night before our God,” (12.10b). 

That’s heaven, the eternal presence of God among His people, and looking and longing for that day we sing, “Heaven, my dream / Heaven, divine / Heaven supreme / Heaven come by.”

For His Name’s Sake,

Brett