The Standing Ovation No One Planned

On June 2, 2022, crowds gathered along the Mall in London for Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee concert. As the final notes of the national anthem swelled, something unscripted happened. The applause didn't stay polite. It grew. It rolled backward through the crowd like a wave — past the barriers, past the screens, down the side streets — until an estimated one million people were clapping, stomping, and cheering in unison. No conductor led them. No cue card prompted them. The sheer weight of the moment pulled the response out of them.

That is the picture the psalmist paints in Psalm 98. The rivers clap their hands. The mountains sing together. The seas roar. Creation itself cannot hold back its applause because the King is coming. This is not polite worship. This is not checking a box on a Sunday morning bulletin. This is the involuntary eruption of praise when you finally see what God has done — His salvation made known, His righteousness revealed before the watching nations.

The psalmist says, "Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things." Not might do. Has done. The victory is already won. And when that truth lands in your chest, really lands, the response is not something you manufacture. It pours out of you the way applause poured through those London streets — because some things are simply too glorious to meet with silence.