Psalm 118:4
Palm Sunday, 2004

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

New Revised Standard Version

It is Palm Sunday, 2004, and the morning that Daylight Savings Time cuts an hour from our sleep. But because of the time change, I was able to see the early sun through the tree thickets as I drove to grab a breakfast biscuit, and the verse above sounded like a gong in my head:

     This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

At that moment, it wasn't important that this little nugget is sandwiched between a Messianic prophesy in verse 22 and a cry for help in verse 25. It was more than enough just to see the early light and rejoice!

And at that moment, my cell phone rang. The wizard of a sound technician that was to run sound for the contemporary services at 8:45 and 10:00 was on the way to the hospital with his wife. I promised them my thoughts and prayers, and as I hung up, I restated, "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad..."

Stop the car! The line at the drive-thru is never this long on Sunday mornings! Oh, well, this is the day the Lord has made, and it must be okay that I'll be a little later getting to church. I found new reason to rejoice and be glad when I arrived at church at 7:05 and found that friends had put up equipment on Saturday that I had come in early to do! Well! This day the Lord has made is looking much better! Now, all I need to do is rehearse with the quartet that is singing for the 7:45 service -- they should be here any minute...

And at 7:25, one of them arrived. Okay, this is the day the Lord has made, and I will rejoice in serving with those whom the Lord has provided. We're singing an old favorite hymn, and we can do it two part if needed -- except that my "old favorite" was completely foreign to the other singer. (Lord, the day You have made is coming loose at one of the seams here!)

A little bit of practice and part rehearsal, and the other two singers show up just before the service, but that's okay because we can rejoice and be glad in two parts as easily as we can in four.

The 7:45 service is well underway, the music is fine, the sound system all set and running, so I duck into the office to call around for substitute sound technicians. As I noticed who was out of town and unavailable, the list got very short... only one name left. She is a very capable technician with a great attitude, and I knew she'd help if she could... but her husband was in the sanctuary preaching the 7:45 message, and could she get herself and her two children to church in 45 minutes?

I called... and the phone rang four times, the answering machine started, and I just hung up. Well, this is the day the Lord has made, and the Lord has a plan for how I can rejoice and be glad in it, but it's going to take patience at a time when I'm running short of it if I am to see God's plan...

I headed back into the sanctuary, just to hear the preacher interrupt his message and apologize that his cell phone had just rung! Oh! His wife must be at home after all! I rushed back to the office to call back, and apologized for not leaving a message and causing her to think it was her husband who had called. Of course, she said, she would be glad to fill in on sound, and her mother-in-law was there to watch the two children and bring them in for the 11:30 worship service. See! This is how the Lord made this day, and I indeed was very glad in it!

One worship service now over, and plenty of time to practice my guitar accompaniment with the soloist for the 8:45 and the 10:00 services. That meant I had to leave wireless units sitting out with notes for the three actors playing disciples in the drama instead of helping them put them on, but this is the day the Lord has made, and I need to rejoice with guitar for this service.

Oh, and the assistant pastor was losing his voice, so would I also present the background for and read the scripture passage this morning? Of course, if that's how the Lord has made this day, I'm sure that will be fine... and my acoustic guitar volume was set too low on the sound board, and I wrote down a couple of wrong chords for the solo, and I wish I had called the substitute sound tech earlier so she would be here by now... and we started the 8:45 service at 8:50, but the Lord wants us to rejoice and be glad anyway, so maybe we can make up that five minutes somehow?

I had only a couple of minutes to brief the sound tech about the six wireless microphones, where I had plugged in my guitar ("that's in Band-1 this time, not Solo-2 like I usually do"), and left her in control of the 22 live inputs on the sound board for this service. The scripture reading went well, and the soloist and I sat at Stage Left waiting for the phrase in the drama that was our cue to start...

But the floor mic had been moved for the children's story, and the two actors depending on that floor mic were not in range of any other microphones. They could have been heard, if it weren't for the feedback coming from the three actors with wireless microphones, who had enhanced the realism of their costumes by putting the microphones under their shawls rather than where I would have put them. The brave tech tried everything she could, but finally had to let the actor's voices alone carry the 350-seat sanctuary. And the Lord rejoiced and was glad, because this made the congregation sit up and pay attention to the unamplified voices, and the solo fit in so well with the drama, and the pastor's message invited us all to live a life of endurance, following the example of our Master, and I rejoiced and was glad, for the Lord had made it a very good day indeed... so far...

... until the younger sister of the 10:00 sound tech told me at 9:55 he couldn't make it. Before I had a chance to undo my rejoicing and being glad, one of my 11:30 sound techs caught me and asked me if I needed help. (Lord, you have indeed made this quite a day!) I rejoicingly gave him a quick rundown on the service, and an even quicker rundown on the 22 live inputs for this service and how they differ from the 12 live inputs at the traditional service he usually works. He's such a smart young man, I thought as I again was sitting at Stage Left with my guitar and the soloist waiting for our cue, and he seems to have things well under control, even though I can't remember if I told him my guitar was plugged into Band-1 or Solo-2...

And the cue comes, and I start the acoustic guitar softly under the final lines of the drama, and I am rejoicing and being glad... and as the drama finishes I slide the volume control up on the guitar pickup as I continue to play and my rejoicing has turned to concern that my guitar is no louder than it was, and there's starting to be a hint of feedback. I see no rejoicing or gladness in the soloist's eyes at all when I nod for her to start, and I turn towards her and play more loudly so she can hear the guitar... but the song is beautiful, and she sings the verses so smoothly, and the lyrics rejoice that our God has an unrelenting love for us, and as the bridge transitions toward the final chorus, the sound for my guitar suddenly comes on very loudly for one beat while I violently swat the volume control all the way down to zero, and the song finishes... and the sermon starts, and I ease my way back to the sound board to find out what happened!

I told him Solo-1, not Band-1. All the rejoicing and gladness escaped me like air from a balloon. The microphone on Solo-1 was within 15 feet of my guitar, so he could hear the guitar on that channel, but it wasn't nearly as loud as he knew it should be, and he was still trying to figure out what was wrong when he noticed the signal light blinking on Band-1 and in curiosity unmuted that channel... and watched me slap at my guitar the next instant...

But this is the day the Lord has made, and even in our most embarrassing mistakes, God calls us to rejoice and be glad in it. What the Lord made could not be undone by my failure.

I knew the sound tech for the traditional 11:30 service had attended the earlier services and everything would be solidly under control. All I needed to do was to rehearse the anthem with the choir, rehearse my solo with the pianist, and find my Bible with the notes on the scripture reading.

The choir gathered in the rehearsal room, and I was ecstatic to have nine altos, along with a full compliment of basses and tenors... and two sopranos? Where are the sopranos? I usually have about ten, and my three strongest sopranos are missing! It was more relief than rejoicing when the soprano count grew to five, and I talked two of the altos into singing soprano to balance the sections. We spent more time than I had intended working parts, but the choir anthem held together, and the sections the composer wrote as loud and high sounded quite sweet with the softer sopranos, and the choir adjusted nicely, and as we completed the rehearsal, I am drenched in sweat. The pianist and I run the solo at a fast clip, and the service starts while I wander the back tables to find my Bible.

No time to think, for the service schedule is tight, and it is time to lead the congregation in the processional hymn. As I sit them down, I invite them to open their Bibles as I explain the social context around the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and I am struck, finally, by the words of the prophet who had foretold that our King would be humble, riding on a donkey.

And I could not help but to rejoice as I continued reading the scripture and trying not to drip sweat on my inkjet-printed notes, for the Lord who made this day wants me to serve in humility, too, confident not in my abilities to recruit and train workers, plan worship services, and execute those plans flawlessly, but confident that God would take these worship services, just as God had done all morning long, and make them effective, beautiful, and Holy.

I don't remember the choir anthem, for I was too glad at that moment to be directing those faithful followers of God in praise of Jesus who lived an amazing life of love to assess the specifics of how the music went. The same drama cued my solo this time, and all I remember is the slow, mournful rejoicing that God would send His only Son for us.

This was a wonderful day that only God could have made, and I am so glad God allowed me to be a part of it.