Flash Mobs and the Everlasting Song

The other evening my husband wanted to show me a flash mob on YouTube. We ended up watching at least twenty in different cities around the globe, including tango dancers in Budapest and swing and Charleston dancers…somewhere else.

Dancin' in Denver, November 2011

This is a great one:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87qT5BOl2XU. My sketchy research suggests "Ode to Joy" is the favorite of flash mobs globally.

In Minneapolis in November 2015

One symphonic performance started with a young girl playing a phrase on a simple wooden flute to a man who echoed her notes on a bass. Slowly, casually, other instrumentalists wandered over until a full orchestra shared Beethoven’s joy.

When the music ended, performers dispersed as if nothing special had happened.

Meanwhile, a line from a hymn kept tapping my shoulder and whispering in my ear, a line from “All Hall the Power of Jesus’ Name.”

O that with yonder sacred throng
we at His feet may fall!
We'll join the everlasting song,
and crown Him Lord of all.
We'll join the everlasting song,
and crown Him Lord of all.

It turns out there are several more verses to the hymn that I’ve never sung, and alternate wording to verses I have sung. For example, one version substitutes “all the sacred throng” for “yonder sacred throng.” No way! I will never give up “yonder” to sing “all the.” How boring! I will continue to honor the ancient, venerable words.

But anyway, as I delighted in the flash mobs, and my husband and I wistfully agreed we wished to participate in one, I thought about Heaven and the everlasting song. When I get to Heaven, I expect to find yonder sacred throng of people already singing songs of praise to Jesus, like a flash mob at a huge mall. And I’m going to run—not slowly or casually—to join them. Will I have my ukulele? I don’t know. Will I have learned to play Ray’s accordion? I don’t know. Will I wait for the next verse to start before finding the Alto I part? I don’t know. Will my soprano range be restored? I don’t know. I can only imagine.

The crowd singing the everlasting song will never disperse, if another old hymn tells the truth.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.

And another hymn exclaims,

What a day that will be,
When my Jesus I shall see,
And I look upon His face,
The One who saved me by His grace;
When He takes me by the hand,
And leads me through the Promised Land,
What a day, glorious day that will be.

Yes! What. A. Day.

Until that day, I’ll keep singing with my church family. And with my school family. And with Don and Dave in the morning on the car radio. And with the Mad Dog Baptist Choir. And often with only my ukulele and God.

And if you’re organizing a flash mob, text me.

If there are ukuleles in Heaven, they will always be in tune.