The heavenly choir is, well, heavenly. Comprised of the nations of the world, it now sings as it warms towards the crescendo that will announce and accompany the return of Jesus Christ to reign.

“What’s that unusual note?” a glorified African singer asks. “I have not heard one quite like that before. It’s unusually beautiful, yet rugged. It sounds like waves and wind, like sun and surf. If music could have a shape, it sounds mountainous.”

“I hear it too!” his Latino friend affirms, “and I’ve never heard anything like it. It’s not from my country or culture, but somehow it makes my note fuller. It’s different but aligned, unique but united.” 

“It’s not Asian,” says a third singing saint, “but I love it. It makes all of us sound better. I thought we sounded great before, but hearing that tone makes me realize our sound is even more sweet. Jesus must really be enjoying this; look at Him beam.”

“I think I see where that marvelous melody is coming from,” a smiling European martyr says. “It’s that young Arab woman over there. Let’s go talk to her.”

The African, Latino, Asian, and European walk over to the young Arab woman to introduce themselves. She stops singing and smiles gracefully as they ask her who she was, where she came from, and when she arrived.

“My name is Fatima. I am from the island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen. I just walked in the door five minutes ago. I am the very first of my people to get home.”

Socotra is a completely Muslim island that as of February 2021 still does not have one believer in Jesus Christ, not one singer in heaven, not even one voice on earth lifted toward the throne. So maybe that heavenly choir is, well, not yet heavenly. But it will be one day when all of God’s singers get home. Fact is, for that to happen, some of God’s singers here on earth will have to leave home. Someone will have to go gospel sing in Socotra.