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Music, Ritual, & Meaning

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Music, Ritual, & Meaning (CaD Ps 118) – Wayfarer

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.
Psalm 118:29 (NIV)

Music plays such a fascinating role in the human experience. Music has the power to express thought and emotion in ways more potent than the mere words themselves. Music has a unique ability to bring people together in unity, even complete strangers. It happens in sporting events, in religious events, civic ceremonies, and virtually every birthday party you’ll go to or happen upon. Music is typically a part of every funeral service. I personally can’t hear Taps without it stirring emotion in me.

Last week I mentioned in these chapter-a-day posts that Psalms 113-118 make up series of songs known at the Hallel in Hebrew. They are the songs sung throughout the Hebrew feast of Passover. Today’s chapter, Psalm 118, is the final song. The lyrics were originally written to be a song of Thanksgiving that the king would sing with the people after a great victory. The “king” does most of the singing the way this song was structured, singing verses 5-21. In verses 22-27 the people rejoice over what God has done. The king then sings the final two verses.

What I found interesting as I read through and mulled over the song in the quiet this morning, is that it’s traditionally believed that Jesus and His followers were eating the Passover meal together the night He would be betrayed and arrested. If this is true, it is very possible that when Matthew records “When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives” it was Psalm 118 they were singing.

With that in mind, I went back and read the lyrics again, this time I imagined Jesus singing the part of the king and His followers the part of the people. Jesus knew what was about to happen. He predicted it on multiple occasions and he pushed the buttons that put into motion the political mechanism that would seal His earthly fate. I read the lyrics, placing myself in Jesus’ sandals, knowing what was about to happen the next day and on the third day.

It gives the lyrics a whole new layer of meaning as He sings:

The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.
    What can mere mortals do to me?

I will not die but live,
    and will proclaim what the Lord has done.

Open for me the gates of the righteous;
    I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord
    through which the righteous may enter.

And as his disciples sing:

The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
    and it is marvelous in our eyes.

When, after the resurrection, Peter is brought to trial before the very same religious leaders who put Jesus to death, it is this lyric that Peter quotes back to his accusers (Acts 4:11). Could it be that Peter was, at that moment, remembering singing those lyrics that fateful night just weeks earlier when he himself rejected and denied knowing Jesus?

And then I thought of Jesus, knowing that He is about to be betrayed, arrested, beaten, flogged, mocked, and crucified, singing the final words of Psalm 118 and it being the last song He would sing on His earthly journey:

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.

In the quiet this morning, I once again find the irony (perhaps divine appointment?) of reading these songs during the season of Lent when followers of Jesus focus our thoughts and spirits on Jesus’ final days, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. Music plays a part in the remembrance, just as Psalm 118 likely played a part in Jesus’ remembrance of God’s breaking the bonds of Hebrew slaves and delivering them out of Egypt. Music, ritual, and meaning are threads that connect the three human events. The Exodus, the Passion, and my celebration of the Great Story in this season.

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My Inmost Being

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My Inmost Being (CaD Ps 103) – Wayfarer

Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Psalm 103:1 (NIV)

In a few weeks, I will mark a milestone in my spiritual journey. It was a frigidly cold February night in 1981 when I decided to become a follower of Jesus. It’s been forty years.

The number 40 is significant in the Great Story. It is the number of trial, testing, and ordeal:

Noah’s flood resulted from 40 days of rain.

Moses lived 40 years in Egypt, then led the Hebrews through the wilderness for 40 years.

Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by the Evil One.

The resurrected Jesus appeared to his followers over a 40 day period before ascending to Heaven.

Ezekiel laid on his side for 40 days as a word picture of the sins of the kingdom of Judah.

Elijah fasted for 40 days on Mount Horeb.

So, I’ve found myself meditating on my spiritual journey of late as I mark the milestone. I had been raised going to church as a child, but the experience for me was largely about ritual. It was something I did because it was what my family did each week. It’s not to say that it wasn’t without its lessons and benefits, but it was largely a weekly physical routine and family ritual to be endured. After completing my confirmation coursework at the age of 13 my parents told me that I could decide on my own if I wanted to go to church or not. So, I stopped going.

What happened a couple of years later on that cold February night was something completely different than anything I’d ever experienced. It was not a religious ritual or physical routine. It was something that happened in my inmost being. I opened my spirit and invited Jesus to come in. I made a spirit decision to surrender myself to following Jesus, whatever that might mean. Something was spiritually birthed in me that is still growing 40 years later.

Jesus gave His followers a word picture about the most religious people of His day. He said that religion was an ornate marble crypt you might see in your local cemetery. It looks beautiful, majestic, and expensive from the outside as you’re driving by, but if you step inside the crypt you’ll only find darkness, cobwebs, and decomposing bones.

If find that a really accurate description of my spiritual experience before that February night forty years ago. I physically went through religious rituals. I mentally considered the things I was taught. I took a class, learned what was required to take a test, and got a piece of paper telling me I was now a member of the institution. Yet, there was no spiritual change.

In today’s chapter, Psalm 103, King David pens the lyrics to a really beautiful song of praise to God. When David was still a kid, God called him “a man after my own heart” and Psalm 103 is a testimony to the intimate Spirit relationship David experienced.

In the very first verse David says that it praise comes from his soul. The Hebrew word he uses there (nepes) alludes to “breath” or the “essence” and “life force.” He then states that his “inmost being” (the Hebrew word is qereb) praises. This word alludes to the intimate interior of the heart that is the seat of thought and emotion. In other words, David is not calling his listeners to trek to church each Sunday and go through the ritualistic motions. This is David, who once got so intense in his worshp that he peeled down to his tighty-whities as he danced and publicly embarrassed his wife. David is calling his listener to an experiential rendevouz with the Creator. He is calling for an all-out ecstatic expression that comes from the depths of one’s soul. A personal exhale of life force in a euphoric song and dance with the divine.

In the quiet this morning, I find my spirit stirred by David’s spirit and the words it motivated in his lyrics. Dude, I get it. It isn’t about empty religious ritual and rote mental and physical machinations. That’s just a crypt. It’s about that which is spiritually alive in me that has to get out. It’s what the prophet Jeremiah described: a fire shut-up in my bones. It’s that life that was birthed in my inmost being forty years ago. I look back from 40 years further down life’s road and find that it only grows stronger within me, even as my body grows slowly weaker.

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Fill in the Blank

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Source: Doug Floyd
Source: Doug Floyd

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
     my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield and the horn of my salvation.
He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior—
    from violent people you save me.
2 Samuel 22:2b-3 (NIV)

Anyone who has followed my blog for any length of time knows that I’m a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien. If you pick up a copy of the final book of his Lord of the Rings trilogy and quickly page through it, you’ll find something rather interesting. There are hundreds of pages of supporting documentation and appendices at the end. These aren’t necessary to the main storyline, but provide those who want to explore the world of Middle Earth with a ton of extra information. For example, in the Lord of the Rings films there is a romantic storyline between Aragorn and Arwen that is only hinted at in Tolkien’s narrative. The story of Aragorn and Arwen is actually found tucked into the appendices at the end.

The final few chapters of 2 Samuel are similar in nature to the appendices at the end of Tolkien’s trilogy. David’s storyline starts in 1 Samuel, continues in 2 Samuel and basically ends with the restoration of the kingdom after Absalom’s rebellion. For the next few chapters we are given some supporting documentation including, in today’s chapter, a copy of the lyrics to one of David’s many songs.

As I read David’s song lyrics I wondered why this one was chosen for the appendix to David’s story. I asked myself in what ways this song is a good summation of David’s life and experience. One of the things I noticed about it was the way David bookended the song with the metaphor of God as rock, fortress, stronghold, and refuge. So much of David’s life journey hinges on those many years living in the caves in the wilderness of southern Israel and, in particular, in the cavernous fortress known as the Cave of Adullam. For David, the word picture of God as rock, fortress, stronghold, and refuge is very personal to his own journey and experience.

But what about me? I appreciate David’s word picture, but rocks, caves, fortresses and strongholds have not been party of my personal journey living in Iowa. If I were writing a song and wanted to paint a word picture of God that is personal to my own journey how would I fill in the blank at the end of the lyric “God is my __________” ?

That’s what I’m pondering today. Check back with me in a day or two and I’ll tell you what I came up with. (Feel free to think of your own and share it with me, btw)

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Messiah’s Soundtrack

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The BlacklistThe Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies     
a footstool for your feet.”
Psalm 110:1 (NIV)

Now that Wendy and I have had a few nights free to sit on the couch together and enjoy some entertainment, we’ve been wading into the backlog of our DVR queue to enjoy a few of the new shows from this fall. This past week we’ve been making our way through The Blacklist, which we’re finding to be a unique and well written show. The other night we were watching one particular episode in which I thought that the music choices they made to play beneath the action were brilliant. At the beginning of the show, the anti-hero, played by James Spader, is seen being led in shackles by FBI agents. In the background we hear The Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil. Later in the episode as the plot is revealed in a flurry of action we hear the unmistakable rhythm of Nina Simone’s Sinner Man (“Oh sinner man, where you gonna run to?”).

Music makes such a huge difference in the telling of a story in television and film. It’s amazing how some songs become iconic and take on layers of meaning that were originally never intended in the writing.

In the catalog of David’s song lyrics (a.k.a. The Psalms), Psalm 110 stands out as one of the most unique and important that David penned. In the nearly 1000 years between it’s writing and the public ministry of Jesus, the lyrics had already be considered “Messianic” (e.g. about the coming messiah) by Jewish scholars. In particular, there are two verses of this song that are of particular importance.

The first verse (see above) was actually quoted by Jesus in an argument with the religious leaders who were trying to trap and kill him:

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”
“The son of David,” they replied.
He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. Matthew 22:41-46 (NIV)

In writing “The Lord said to my Lord” Jesus teaches that David was writing about two persons of the trinity: “The Lord (God, the Father) said to my Lord (God, the Son [Jesus])” having been inspired by the third person of the trinity (God, the Holy Spirit) to write the prophetic lyric. Jesus’ point was that David did not call the Messiah his progeny, his son, or his child. The messiah was “Lord” and authority above his own earthly throne.

The other important and prophetic lyric comes in the fourth verse:

The Lord has sworn
    and will not change his mind:
“You are a priest forever,
    in the order of Melchizedek.”

In the Old Testament there is a clear distinction between the offices of priest and king. God established in the law of Moses that only descendants of Aaron from the tribe of Levi could be priests. After the monarchy is established (which we just read about this past month or so in the book of 1 Samuel), God establishes that the messiah will come from the royal line of David. David was from the tribe of Judah. And so, we have a conundrum. The messiah cannot be purely from both the tribe of David and the tribe of Levi.

David provides the answer to the conundrum by writing in reference to a shadowy, footnote of a figure from the book of Genesis:

Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High…. Genesis 14:18 (NIV)

Long before the law of Moses was given, establishing the rules of who could become a priest in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, there lived in Salem (an ancient form of “Jeru-Salem”) a king named Melchizedek who was also a priest of God Most High. Little is known of Melchizedek, but he blessed Abraham, the father and patriarch of Israel. The order of the priesthood from Melchizedek is far older and more mysterious. But David points to Melchizedek as the model of the messianic King-Priest combination, and in doing so also establishes his authority as God’s king on earth with limited, but very real priestly responsibilities.

Forgive me this foray into a little arcane lesson of prophecy and theology. As I mentioned in the outset of this post, soundtracks add layers of meaning to a movie or television program. The Psalms are the soundtrack of God’s story. The more you study them, the richer they become in depth and meaning. And, the more they compliment  your understanding of everything else you read in God’s Message.

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God from a Distance; God who is Near

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from a distanceO Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive,
    so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.
Psalm 86:5 (NLT)

For the past week or so we’ve been reading lyrics of psalms penned by Asaph during a period of time when Jerusalem was under siege by Babylon and eventually captured and destroyed. In those lyrics I felt a sense of God being distant, almost like a stranger. They feel to me like a corporate national cry from afar to God of whom they’ve heard about but do not necessarily know intimately.

This morning’s psalm written by David felt like a sudden and sharp contrast. The lyrics are a very personal plea to God who is near, intimate, and personally known:

  • I am devoted to you.
  • You are my God.
  • I give myself to you.
  • I call…you will answer
  • With all my heart I praise you
  • I will give glory to you
  • Your love for me is great

I am reminded this morning that our view of God is often dependent on our experience and perspective. I know many for whom God is a distant, angry, and judgmental entity because that’s the view they were presented when they were young. Others I know view God as a unknowable father who has abandoned them. For some, God is simply a stranger they’ve heard about from many different people but have never personally met.

I feel much more like David. My experience is of a thirty plus year relationship with an intimate, personal Father God of love, compassion, grace, mercy, provision, forgiveness, and patience. The songs of my heart sound much more like David and little like those of Asaph.

God is not that far off. God is longing to know and be known. As Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened.” I have found along the journey that there is a difference between observing God from a distance and actually asking, seeking, and knocking.

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The Healthy Act of Human Expression

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The Scream by artist Edvard Munch. Lithography...
The Scream by artist Edvard Munch. Lithography, 1895. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How long, O God, will you allow our enemies to insult you?
Will you let them dishonor your name forever?
Psalm 74:10 (NLT)

The lyrics of this song of Asaph were written during a period of history when his country had been besieged and destroyed. The prophet Jeremiah is commonly attributed to have described the conditions of the same event in his own lyric poem we now know as Lamentations. The city of Jerusalem and Solomon’s wondrous temple were destroyed. Women and children were slaughtered. Many were enslaved (like Daniel) and taken back to Babylon. Those unfortunate few who were left in the desolation of the city were literally starving. The rich bartered their family treasures and heirlooms for a loaf of bread. The poor who had no other means were reduced to cannibalism. It was not a pretty sight.

Tragic circumstances and events are part of living in a fallen world. The news of late has been of tornadoes that killed small children when an elementary school was hit, of religious zealots publicly hacking a man to death on the street, and unspeakable horrors inflicted on human beings on both sides of armed conflict in Syria and in multiple conflicts in Africa. I listen to those who argue that the human condition is continuing to evolve and get better, who believe that there is increasing good in mankind. Then I read the world headlines and find continuous evidence that humanity, despite technological and societal advances is (as the Talking Heads put it) “the same as it ever was.”

We could debate this question over a pint or two. The truth remains that we will all face various levels of tragedy in our respective life journeys. We all have questions for God. There is something in us, as children made in the likeness of our Creator, to express ourselves creatively and metaphorically. Asaph and Jeremiah picked up their styluses and wrote songs and poems to try and express the unanswerable questions that plagued their souls at the incomprehensible horrors they witnessed. Art, in all of its many forms, heals.

Today I am reminded that creative expression is a prescription for my spiritual and mental health. I will experience and witness tragedy. The question is not “Will it happen?” but “What will I do with it when it happens?” I can stuff it and cover it over until it begins to eat me away from the inside out in unhealthy ways, or I can get my questions and emotions out into the light of day where they can be acknowledged and lose their destructive power. Asaph wrote a blues song. Jeremiah wrote a lyric poem. Edward Munch painted “The Scream.” Eugene O’Neill wrote the play A Long Day’s Journey into Night. These are examples most everyone knows. But most expressions are not public expressions. I myself have written pages and pages of words and lyric thoughts no one will ever read. They are not for public consumption. But, I wrote them. I wrote them to get out my questions, to make my case, to express my anger, sadness, doubts, pain, frustration, hopelessness, and to scream at God. I transmitted them from my mind and soul through my pen and onto the page.

What have you done with your own tragedies?

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Just What I Need in the Moment

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Chapter-a-Day Psalm 69

Save me, O God,
for the floodwaters are up to my neck.
Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire;
I can’t find a foothold.
I am in deep water,
and the floods overwhelm me.
Psalm 69:1-2 (NLT)

It’s been a crazy week, and things are about to get even crazier. Wendy and I are in production week with shows this weekend and next. I have two project deadlines for work this week (one is done, one is not) and have two major client deliveries next week. In the midst of it, Wendy and I had to make a road trip south for two days. You can feel the tension in our house from the sheer anxiety of “Oh my goodness I have so much to do and the task list keeps getting longer while the time gets shorter and I don’t know how I’m going to get it all done and could the phone PLEASE stop ringing because I don’t want to answer it and have MORE things piled on top of the mountain of things that need to be accomplished or I think I’m going to go TOTALLY insane (breathe, Tom, breathe….remember to breathe)!!!!!”

One of the things I love about the Psalms is the way you can read one particular lyric from one particular psalm and it can be packed with so much meaning. Sometimes one line, phrase or a particular verse can speak to you right where you are in a given moment on your life journey. Today is a great example. The first two verses of Psalm 69 leapt off the page this morning because it so perfectly expressed what both my head and my heart are feeling in this moment. It was like a tailor made prayer just for me this morning. I read it and my spirit groaned, “Yes, God, yes. That’s what I’m feeling. I feel like I’m drowning.” [Then, the song Flood by Jars of Clay suddenly became a soundtrack for the rest of the psalm]

The psalm also came with a much needed word of encouragement that is my take-away for today:

The humble will see their God at work and be glad.
Let all who seek God’s help be encouraged.

 

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Chapter-a-Day Psalm 44

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English: Compact Disc player carousel for thre...

Wake up, O Lord! Why do you sleep?
    Get up! Do not reject us forever.
Psalm 44:23 (NLT)

Go through almost any CD and you’ll generally find a wide mixture music. A fast paced, energetic song will be followed by an introspective ballad. The next song will have driving intensity and a powerful social message, but the following track will be a sweet song of love. Record producers know that you can’t put together a CD with ten tracks that all sound the same. Variety is the spice of life. As life’s journey contains both peaks and valleys, we need music to express the breadth of the human experience.

When reading through the book of Psalms, we can never forget that it is a catalog of musical lyrics. It was carefully compiled by ancient record producers. Like the CD that slides into the dashboard of our car stereo, the psalms contain a diverse selection of songs which speak to an immense variety of life circumstances.

Everyone experiences crushing defeat from time to time. The greatest sports teams of all time still lose some of the time. Watch the Biography Channel and you’ll see that every person who has reached the heights of success has had to experience tremendous loss on their way up. There is a time for everything under the sun. There is a time for victory, and there is a time for defeat.

The lyric of today’s psalm come out of the confusion and questions which rise up in our hearts and minds after a crushing loss. In those acute moments of despair we remember past victories and when things were good. We feel the injustice of the defeat in light of our self-righteousness. We feel alone and abandoned as if God decided to sleep in and forget about us.

Music reminds us that we’re not alone. Turn up the blues and we find encouragement that others have been there before us. We sing along and our negative emotions find a healthy outlet of expression. Keep listening. Keep singing. The next track on the CD reminds us that these feelings of abandonment and despair are momentary. Better times are just a song away.

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Chapter-a-Day Psalm 1

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Blessed is the man 
    who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked 
or stand in the way of sinners 
    or sit in the seat of mockers. 
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, 
    and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, 
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
    Whatever he does prospers. (Psalm 1:1-3 NIV)

If you’ve ever had a bout of insomnia (I have occasional stretches myself), you’ve likely found yourself watching television in the wee hours when you’ll find infomercials for various multi-disc musical compilations such as “Soft Rock of the 70s.”

Our journey into the Psalms might well begin like a cheesy early morning infomercial complete with perky and beautiful middle-aged couple or elderly has-been musicians who are uber-excited about the hits of ancient Hebrew worship. That’s because you can consider Psalms as a book of lyrics to a giant musical compilation. These were the greatest worship hits of ancient Israel. The cool thing is, not only did the producers put together this compilation book of lyrics (c. 300 B.C.), they took great pains to arrange the song lyrics in very specific order so that that entire collection is a work of instructional art in and of itself. The compilation is a single work of art made up of 150 works of lyrical/poetic art.

The first two songs (Psalms 1 and 2) were chosen as introduction to the entire book. They have no title, but act as a lyric overture to the entire compilation. Take notice of the bookends. The first line of Psalm 1 and the last line of Psalm 2 start with “Blessed is….” The message being that those who journey through this compilation, those who delight in God’s Message (Psalm 1:1-2) and take refuge God (Psalm 2:12) will be blessed.

Today, I’m excited about creativity. I’m grateful that Creator God inspires musicians, poets and writers. I’m knocked out by the artistic detail of those who compiled the Psalms and creatively assembled this volume in such a way that it added layers of depth and meaning to the compilation itself, extending the metaphorical value of the individual songs themselves.

The deeper I journey into God’s Message, the more layers of meaning I peel away, the more I’m blown away at how limitless it is.

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Wendy’s Birthday Present Weekend

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Lyric Opera House

Wendy’s birthday was back in December, but she will tell you that I feel a lot of pressure that time of year. Wendy’s birthday, Christmas, and our wedding anniversary fall within ten days of each other. So, I’ve got to come up with a lot of gifts in a short period of time.

Last year I picked up on something Wendy said during a normal evening conversation. She’d never been to the opera. That started the wheels spinning. The other thing I know about Wendy is that she loves to spend time with her friends. So, the conspiracy began to plan a trip to the opera with our friends, the Vande Lunes.

The only problem in the plan was that the best time to get to the opera was March. So, Wendy got the tickets on her birthday, but this past weekend was the actual experience.

We headed to the Windy City on St. Patrick’s Day, arriving in time to have a pint o’ Guinness at an Irish pub up the street from our hotel. Friday night we dressed to the nines for our dinner at the Opera House followed by a performance of Bizet‘s Carmen.

The ladies, of course, wanted to shop with some of our free time. We also enjoyed some great food, some well earned naps, and a fun night at the piano bar up the street. Our weekend was perfectly capped off with a trip to the House of Blues for their Gospel Brunch. We couldn’t be more thankful to the Vande Lunes for sharing the experience with us.

Happy Birthday, my love!

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