A commercial jingle of the 1970s inspired a generation. Created as part of Coca Cola’s “The Real Thing” ad campaign, a British group called The New Seekers eventually sang it as a full-length song that climbed to the top of music charts around the world. But many will never forget the original television version sung by young people on a hilltop outside of Rome. Whimsical as it was, with visions of honeybees and fruit trees, we resonated with a songwriter’s desire to teach the world to sing with the heart and harmony of love.

The apostle John describes something like that idealized dream, only vastly greater. He envisioned a song sung by “every creature in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all that is in them” (Revelation 5:13). There’s nothing whimsical about this anthem. Nothing could be more realistic than the price paid by the One to whom this song is sung. Neither could there be anything more foreboding than the visions of war, death, and consequence that His sacrifice of love would have to overcome.  

Yet this is what it took for the Lamb of God to bear our sin and defeat death. Yet this is what it took for the Lamb of God to bear our sin, overcome our fear of death, and teach all heaven and earth to sing—in perfect harmony.