When Barbara Brown Taylor was recently asked to preach on “Word and Music” for a special service, she began to search out what Jesus had to say about music in the Gospels. She found very little, and what little was there was not very complimentary. But then she looked up the use of the word “hymn” in the Gospels.
As she describes it in an essay in the Christian Century:
“After I had searched sing, song, music, play and the names of at least six ancient musical instruments, I tried hymn and struck the jackpot. According to both Matthew and Mark, it is possible that Jesus sang at least once. On the first night of Passover, after he had shared his last supper with his friends, they did one last thing together before they headed out into the night. ‘When they had sung the hymn,’ both evangelists say, ‘they went out to the Mount of Olives’ (Matt. 26:30, Mark 14:26).
How had I missed that verse? How many Maundy Thursday suppers had I sat through without ever asking what that hymn was or why we were not singing it, in our dogged attempt to remember everything Jesus had done that night? It only took a minute with a study Bible to discover the answer and confirm it with a rabbi: if Jesus and his friends were singing a hymn after supper, there is every reason to believe it was the Hallel—Psalms 113 through 118—sung during evening prayers on the first night of Passover from Jesus’ day to our own.
Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his faithful ones.
O Lord, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the child of your serving girl. (Ps. 116:15–16)
I know there are others ahead of me on this, but this is the first time I have heard Jesus sing—the Lord to whom I pray praying to the Lord. Now the words will never lie quietly on the page again. If this essay reaches you in time, find that hymn so you can sing it with him on Maundy Thursday. Jesus may only have sung once, but when he did, the Word Made Flesh became Music as well.”
The full essay is here.