BLOG 12/7/14. THE CHURCH BEHIND THE CHURCH: THE LOVE OF MUSIC

BLOG 12/7/14. THE CHURCH BEHIND THE CHURCH: THE LOVE OF MUSIC

Those regular readers of these blogs know all too well by now that I, Bob Henderson, have something of a lover’s quarrel with the church as we have inherited it. But, then, I am also a product of institutional Christianity, and am formed more than I know by its traditions. On the one hand I have this ongoing quest to know that is God’s design for the church in his great salvific plan to reconcile all things to himself through Christ? There must be some essential mission that the church plays for Jesus to tell us that upon his own personal calling and mission to inaugurate God’s New Creation by his own life, death, and resurrection—his role as God’s Messiah—he would build his church. Yet somehow the church drifts and forgets its essence, and become focused on itself and its local survival. How to see behind the church we have inherited to the church as it is designed to be by God?

Then, there begins to sound in my mind that note that the church is also inhabited by the resurrection power of Christ, by the Spirit of God. It is not a merely human entity, but it is created supernaturally by the God who created all things for his glory. Are you with me?

Now it is Advent 2014, and last evening I was watching and listening to a program of Christmas music on PBS of an absolutely awesome British boys choir singing Christmas music in an equally beautiful cathedral in Dublin. Those beautiful voices of pre-pubescent boys, so clear and innocent, singing the great Christmas music of the church—and the question came to my mind: Where does the church’s love for music come from? Why has the Christian church always sung its faith? What is it that has produced so many great musicians, such as J. S. Bach, whose music was the vehicle for the communication of the infinite love of God in Christ?

It all flows out of the nature and being of God. Did you know that God sings? “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing(Zephaniah 3:17). The psalmist says that the morning stars sang together at creation. We are to come into God’s presence with singing. Why? Because music is in the very nature of God. It is the audible expression of his perfections.

Knowing that reality doesn’t answer so many of my questions about how the church has so often gotten distracted from its essence and mission, but it does point me to the God whose creation the church is, and of one of the components with which he has endowed his New Humanity communities. Somehow, the Advent and Christmas celebrations are given such beauty as the church sings it faith in the Incarnation of God in Christ. This reality is not missed, even by those who don’t profess Christian faith. John Rutter, the composer and conductor of such brilliant giftedness, yet who doesn’t profess to be a believer in Christ, has said often that Christmas is made for music.

N.T. Wright has said that among the several common quests of the human heart, is its delight in beauty, … and I would add that this is true because even though we are so defiled by our sinfulness, still we are created in God’s image and therefore beauty and music are those components that are set free in us when we are made new in Christ. God puts a new song in our hearts, and we minister to one another “with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16).

The reality behind the reality, the church behind the church, is the very life and nature of God expressing itself in a totally new human community created in his image and likeness—and it sings!

 

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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