Episode 26 - Between Stars and Psalms: Contemplations on Cosmic and Sacred Music

Ever wondered what the cosmos sounds like? 
What if the universe had its own music? 

As we journey through this auditory exploration of the universe, we'll uncover the intrinsic musicality of the cosmos and the potential to tune into the vibrations of stars and other celestial bodies. 

This adventure will take us through the findings of a fascinating NASA article on stellar sound waves and the interpretation of these cosmic vibrations by composer Holst in his work, the Planets. 

We’ll consider the divine symphony of the cosmos and ponder on the humbling thought that our inability to hear this celestial concert may reflect more about our limitations than the universe itself.

Shifting from the celestial to the spiritual, we explore the profound power of music in worship. 

Drawing from the joyous and exuberant Psalms, we delve into how they invite us to join this universal symphony with instruments of praise. The discussion takes a contemplative turn as we reflect on Charles Spurgeon's vision of heavenly music, underlining the importance of creating music and songs here on earth, as these are the melodies we’ll carry into the afterlife. 

Brace yourself for a thought-provoking journey as we connect the dots between music, the cosmos, and spirituality, and gain a renewed perspective on the harmonious interplay of these elements.

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Well, welcome to the next of our Christ-centered Cosmic Civilization podcast. As we continue to think about music Now, we've just been thinking about the way we could think of the universe in terms of vibrations, waves of energy, that the whole of the universe can be understood as intrinsically musical at the very deepest levels. And if our ears could be attuned to all such extraordinary vibrations, it might seem as if the whole universe was singing or playing as an instrument with energy and noise. Nasa has a fascinating article about stellar sound waves and the idea, this taking up this idea that there are these vibrations across the whole of the second heaven, but that we can, we, yeah, there is this possibility of tuning into the vibrations of the stellar bodies and then hearing it. So this is what they say about this we can't hear it with our ears, but the stars in the sky are performing a concert, one that never stops. The biggest stars make the lowest, deeper sounds like tubers and double basses. Small stars have high-pitched voices like celestial flutes. These virtuosos don't just play one note at a time either. Our own sun has thousands of different sound waves bouncing around inside it at any given moment. Understanding these stellar harmonies represents a revolution in astronomy and this is NASA, continuing on with the quotation says by listening for stellar sound waves with telescopes, scientists can figure out what stars are made of, how old they are, how big they are and how they contribute to the Milky Way galaxy as a whole Fascinating. You can look that up if you Google or whatever search engine you use, the symphony of the stars or the science of stellar sound waves, you'll be able to get to that and hear it.

Speaker 1: 3:15

The musical composer Holst, of course, produced that famous work called the Planets, in which he creates a kind of musical theme and expression for each of the planets in our solar system. But that was his kind of interpretation of that and basing it upon these ancient ideas about the character of each of these planets. But with this assertion from NASA, it's more possible to listen more directly to the music of the planets and the songs of the stars and so on. And that goes back to our earlier thinking about the second heaven that, in a modernist perspective, space is. Well, it's called space, which is ridiculous. But also the silence of space is. The idea that is silent, dark, cold, lifeless is so deep within that modern pagan imagination. But in truth it is far from being silent and cold and lifeless. In reality, the cosmos is filled with this vibrant symphony of the stars singing to the glory of God, just as the book of Job tells us that the stars singing together.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Whether the fact that we cannot hear it or need special equipment to create a kind of version of it that we can hear, that almost certainly says a lot more about us than it does about the cosmos that we've already understood that we are excluded from the life of the universe. We are cat-locked within a very small piece of the entire heavens and the because we're dangerous. It's not safe to allow corrupt, godless human beings to venture out across the universe, and so the curtain that separates us from the highest heaven but it also. We are really so extremely limited in how far we can go at all into the second heaven at all and our ability to perceive, hear, see. We only see a very, very small range of what is available to see. We only hear what a very small amount that is available to hear. All of that is speaking far more about us than it is about the cosmos. If we only had ears to hear, what would we hear? In across the whole of the cosmos, all creation sings. The Bible asserts that so often in different ways. All creation sings. Sometimes we join in in our own way, and when we do as church, that is of immense importance and has repercussions for the cosmos itself.

Speaker 1: 7:08

A guy called Jeff Thulman in 2018 produced an amazing exhibition called Under the Sun, in which he allowed this. We've already just mentioned that our own sun, s-u-n, is filled with all kinds of sounds, and he produced an exhibition which kind of gave expression to that. This is what he says the sun roars with thousands of resonant sounds that cease at the vacuum of space, but analysis of the oscillations of the sun's mass enables scientific reproduction of its sounds. The Under the Sun exhibition features these modelled solar sounds scaled to the range of human hearing, and then it gets played out in what was St Peter's Church in New York. So it's fabulous again. If you can find that, do some research to find that.

Speaker 1: 8:13

That's absolutely delightful again, trying to enable us to kind of poke through a little bit of that curtain or veil that is over humanity. That to just give us a little sense of what we perhaps could hear. Were we not so ruined and exiled? Well then, the Father, son and Holy Spirit have filled the universe with the music of creation. The birds greet the sunrise with song, the trees clap their hands in a drumbeat of praise when the wind blows, the seas and the lions roar in their strength, the grasshoppers rub their legs to make their evening song, and as we see, the sun and the stars and the planets sing in grandeur that is beyond our hearing. And then we think of those whales that perform these fabulous musical compositions that spread throughout all the oceans of Earth. The sheer diversity of the music of creation is overwhelming All over the world. The range of sounds and songs from the creation itself is an incredible testimony to the creativity and imagination of the living God, even in this fallen condition of the creation.

Speaker 1: 9:58

The music of heaven has the sound of many waters, according to Revelation 14. Charles Spurgeon is such a brilliant preacher and theologian I think probably the greatest theologian English speaking for 200 years perhaps. But he invites us to imagine this grand symphony of sound when he was preaching on Revelation 14, 1-3, december 28, 1857. He says this it's said to be like the voice of many waters. Have you never heard the sea roar and the fullness thereof? Have you never walked by the seaside when the waves were singing and when every little pebble stone did turn chorister to make up music to the Lord, god of hosts? And have you never, in time of storm, beheld the sea with its hundred hands clapping them in gladsome adoration of the most high? Have you never heard the sea roar out his praise when the winds were holding carnival singing, the dirge of mariners wrecked far out on the stormy, deep but far more likely, exulting God with their hoarse voice and praising him who makes a thousand fleets sweep over them in safety and writes his furrows on their youthful brow? Have you never heard the rumbling and booming of ocean on the shore when it has been lashed into fury and driven upon the cliffs? If you have, you have a faint idea of the melody of heaven. It was, as the voice of many waters Brilliant, by Spurgeon.

Speaker 1: 12:12

As so often, the sheer diversity of the music of creation testifies to the depth and range of sound that the living God enjoys and wills. Though we can never match his creative variety, we too should long to join in and lead the constant worship of all creation. That's what our destiny as church is Not just church when we gather on Sundays though that is an immensely important part of this, but our life as church 24-7, the way we are to use and joy, create, explore music in all of life. The Book of Psalms ends by commanding us to take up the great variety of instruments and join in with the symphony of the universe. We've already explored that, how we are to lead the creation in praise.

Speaker 1: 13:22

Here's a quotation from Greg Strawbridge's book A Biblical Theology of Music. He says music is used to praise God joyfully and loudly Psalm 47.1, melodically, psalm 98.5, and with a variety of instruments Psalm 153-5, from chordophones, which would include liars and harps, to membranophones, that's timbrel, so that's those instruments with stretched strings, that's the chordophones, the membranophones, like a membrane that is beaten, the acoustic thing To earophones, that's wind instruments, flutes, shofars, pipes, to metallophones, symbols, that's the striking together of the clashing symbols. So the Psalms, chordophones, membranophones, earophones and metallophones, all of them are urged upon us. And then Greg goes on. Such praise is associated with bodily movement and common expressions of joy and gladness, such as dancing Psalm 3011, 149-3, and 154-4.

Speaker 1: 14:55

The Psalmists command praise with skill, psalm 477 and Psalm 333. To make, to quote make his praise glorious, psalm 66, verse 2. The Psalms frequently call the nations to make the sounds of praise that's in Psalm 66, 67 verse 4, 22 verse 27, 117, 1 and 108, verse 3. A Fitting close to the Psalter is the call for all that has breath To him, the worth of the maker, psalm 150, verse 6. So that's this wonderful Summary there from Greg Strawbridge, that of the way, the variety of the instruments for one, and Then also the idea that all the nations are called to get involved with, I suppose, all the instruments, and this tremendous celebration of joyful, loud, holistic, veried, instrumental worship that includes bodily movement. It's a vision of life that is expressed with great freedom and joy, and this taking advantage of the Possibilities that the living God has written into creation, although although we cannot match his creative Brilliance and genius, or even that what goes on in the highest heaven, of course, but that we are being encouraged to, to explore, develop, engage enthusiastically, passionately, with variety. And that idea of sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord a new song, the idea that don't just stick with Songs, that from the past that you're comfortable with, but develop new songs, new music, new instruments, new Possibilities of music, and that's why, as we'll see in a future episode, the church is by far the the most the engine of musical variety throughout the world. I Just need to make a side note, though, because I did briefly mention in an earlier episode that Calvin and then, through Calvin, some aspects of the reform tradition but let's just stick to Calvin for now.

Speaker 1: 17:39

Calvin doesn't like musical, didn't like musical instruments, or he certainly Finds, doesn't, doesn't see, like the Psalms clearly love musical instruments in church and just see, and presumably in general Calvin does not. And and he has this. It's a difficult thing because, given all those references in the Psalms so enthusiastically positive, how is he going to impose his own Dislike of musical instruments or his hesitance about musical instruments? Because I think, to put to put him in context, he Thief is, is caught within his own culture and is projecting onto the Bible his own cultural prejudices, and that he sees that the he or feels that the church of pre-Reformation times, or even non Reformed churches of his own time, were too preoccupied by music and musical instruments, rather than what what he thinks they should have been doing is, instead of Celebrating music in that way, they should have been paying attention to Bible study in in as simple and non ornamented way as possible and, for him, the pursuit of musical expression in a church context is dangerous and childish and distracting, not at all enhancing worship, but diminishing it. So let me give you some examples of this.

Speaker 1: 19:36

In his commentary on Exodus 1520, from 1559, he just quite outright says musical instruments were among the legal ceremonies which Christ, at his coming, abolished and therefore we, under the gospel, must maintain a greater simplicity. So that's the idea of using musical instruments in church. His commentary on Psalm 81, verse 3, from 1557, he says with respect to musical instruments, the Levites, under the law, were justified in making, were correct to make use of instrumental music in the worship of God, it having been his will to train his people, while they were as yet tender and like children, by such rudiments until the coming of Christ. But now, when the clear light of the gospel has dissipated the shadows of the law and taught us that God is to be served in a simpler form, it would be foolish and mistaken to imitate that which the prophet recommended only upon those of his own time. Now, we'll just pause on that a second. We'll just give it, we'll get. We've got another couple of these of what he says. But I think we just need to pause on that for a second, because what he's done is said. Here's something the Bible clearly teaches. I don't like it and therefore what I'm going to do is say this is culturally located in the time of the psalmist and the, or Moses or whatever. This cannot possibly be relevant to us today. And the reason we pause on this is the day we today see people make this move about the scriptures on a far wider range of issues than just musical instruments.

Speaker 1: 21:41

And there's this concern that when Calvin does this for presumably what he feels are good motives, that the end justifies the means that he feels let's have much simpler forms of service. And he believes he takes it for granted that in the New Testament the services did were presumably similar to what he was trying to do in Geneva. He perhaps felt very little music of any kind, except perhaps just the human voice. What is evidence is for imagining that's how apostolic churches, if they were organized that way. He doesn't really have any, he just assumes that that's what was going on in the first century and so on. But he has this desire to recommend very simple, non-musical church services, and so he makes this move and it's. I think we, looking back at this, are quite uncomfortable because we see how quickly that is extended to moral issues and doctrinal issues From both the Old Testament and New Testament. People do that now and say this is culturally contained only within the Old Testament, as Calvin did, or it is culturally only contained in the New Testament, as many do today. And we have moved beyond that.

Speaker 1: 23:23

In his sermon on 1 Samuel 18, 1-9 from 1561, he says instrumental music, we maintain, was tolerated on account of the times and of the people, because they were as children. But in gospel times we must not have recourse to these unless we wish to destroy gospel perfection and obscure the full light of Christ. In a word, musical instruments are in the same class. This is what he's doing. He's saying just as the law had things like sacrifices, lampstand, altar cloth for the tabernacle, whatever the physical items that were around the worship of God, then Musical instruments are in that same category as animal sacrifices, candles, oil, lamps, things like that. And he says that those who use them, calvin says, are reverting to a sort of Judaism, as if they wanted to mingle the law and the gospel and bury our Lord Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 24:39

In his commentary on Psalm 71, verse 22 from 1557, he says we are not, indeed forbidden, to use in private musical instruments, but they are banished out of the churches by the plain command of the Holy Spirit, when Paul in 1 Corinthians 14-13 lays it down as an invariable rule that we must praise God and pray to him only in a known tongue. So the idea there is because musical instruments are not. It's a language that is not human words. Therefore it is forbidden. We'll just have a couple more quickly. Psalm 149, verse 2, from 1557, he says the musical instruments mentioned. And he says the same sort of thing in his commentary on Psalm 150, that the musical instruments that are mentioned in the Psalms were peculiar to the infancy of the church. Nor should we foolishly imitate a practice which was intended only for God's ancient people and this idea that these instructions were culturally contained and not for us today.

Speaker 1: 26:14

We'll just have one more from him in this Daniel 3.7, he here has the idea that God obviously doesn't enjoy music and he takes that as obvious. God is not interested in human music or instruments at all. So it's in reference to Nebuchadnezzar has all that wide range of musical instruments playing in the pagan worship? And Daniel 3.7, calvin's commentary says the Chaldeans thought to satisfy their God by heaping together many musical instruments. For, like other people, they supposed God was like themselves. For whatever delights us, we think, must also please the deity. Hence the immense heap of ceremonies in the papacy, since our senses delight in such splendours. Hence we think this to be required of us by God, as if he delighted in what pleases us. This is indeed a gross error. So again, he projects his own dislike of musical instruments on to God and assumes God obviously doesn't enjoy music, or at least not music played by human instruments, even though God in the Bible clearly, just under sheer straightforward text of the Bible, says that he does and wants us to do it. So again, we're not.

Speaker 1: 28:08

I don't necessarily want to draw huge conclusions from this, but it did leave a legacy in certain strands of reformed church life and Christian life that not only weakened music and musical instruments in certain strands of church life, but it also has led to something of Jack Black. We thought about Jack Black with his idea that rock and roll music comes from hell. I think Calvin would probably agree with Jack Black that they'd probably be on the same page, jack Black enjoying it, calvin frowning about it, but both feeling all this strong, powerful, joyful, loud musical instrumentation is more to do with the devil than the deity. I think they probably agree on that, and one enjoying it, the other hating it. But I think there's a problem there and that legacy is not not good and it's not true to scripture.

Speaker 1: 29:29

But this idea with Spurgeon he had that kind of he's in the reform tradition but he has this much more joyful appreciation really of music in the whole of creation and for us also. And he says he's in that sermon on Revelation 14, 1-3. He speaks about the music that fills the highest heaven and he says this, and I love this idea it is said of all these worshippers that they learned the song before they went there. At the end of the third verse it is said no man could learn that song but the 144,000 which were redeemed from the earth. Brethren, we must begin heaven's song here below, or else we shall never sing it above. The choristers of heaven have all had rehearsals upon earth before they sing in that orchestra. You think that Die when you may. You will go to heaven without being prepared. Nay sir, heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. So what a fabulous vision there that the people who sing, the 144,000, symbolic of that great crowd that no one can number. That is also mentioned in Revelation 14. That great crowd are singing a song that comes from their redemption on earth and I find that Spurgeon there what a fabulous vision.

Speaker 1: 31:19

That, in other words, it is extremely important for us to develop the new songs and the instruments and the music and the hymns and songs and everything here and now on earth, because those are the songs that we learn to sing in that intermediate state of heaven while we wait for the resurrection future. We take with us the songs that we have learned on earth. Whether that is absolutely true I don't know, but Spurgeon argues persuasively there. In other words, the glorious music and song of the highest heaven is music prepared on earth, and the music we sing on earth is not evil or profane simply because it is earthly. Rather, the physical and the earthly were well, they were declared to be very good in creation, and the physical and the earthly has been taken up into the very life of God in the incarnation and eternally affirmed in the resurrection. Far from dismissing our musical efforts in this passing age, we need to take them seriously as a prelude to the music of heaven and the consummation of all music in the new creation.