The Night a Nation Held Its Breath and Then Roared

On October 13, 2010, a steel rescue capsule broke through two thousand feet of Chilean rock and delivered the first of thirty-three trapped miners back to the surface. Florencio Avalos stepped out into the floodlights, and the Atacama Desert erupted. Horns blared across the camp. Families screamed and wept. A billion people watching on television joined the chorus — strangers in coffee shops in Tokyo and living rooms in Kansas found themselves cheering for men they had never met.

But here is what struck me: nobody organized that celebration. No event planner scheduled the tears. No conductor cued the shouts. When rescue finally arrived, praise was the only possible response. It poured out of people the way water pours downhill — naturally, inevitably, without rehearsal.

That is exactly what the psalmist describes. "Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things." The seas roar. The rivers clap their hands. The mountains sing together. Creation itself cannot contain its praise because the Almighty has made His salvation known. His righteousness has been revealed before the eyes of all nations.

Psalm 98 is not a command to manufacture enthusiasm. It is a portrait of what happens when people — and all of creation — finally witness what God has done. The rescue breaks through. And the only response left is to sing.