Episode 30 - The Divine Maestro: Jesus Christ and His Cosmic Orchestra

Prepare to be enlightened as we explore how the Psalms served as the soundtrack to the life and times of Jesus Christ. 

Keeping Jesus at the center, we delve into the richly symbolic soundscapes depicted in Psalms, tearing down the pagan concept of separating reason from passion, and encouraging a balanced approach as taught in the Bible. 

Let's embark on this musical journey together, using it as a tool to deepen our relationship with God and to glorify Him.

In the latter half of our episode, we tackle the intriguing nexus between music and Jesus, the chief musician of the Christ-centered cosmic civilization. 

Removing cultural biases against church and God, we invite listeners to embrace the infinite life of Christ. 

Plus, we'll be giving a sneak peek into our upcoming series on science that will cover topics from biology to physics, and highlight the inspiring lives of Christian scientists. As we set forth on this journey, let's remember to keep our hearts open to the blessings of God. Join us, and let's uncover these diverse aspects of Christ-centered cosmic civilization together!

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

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization, and this is our last one on music for a while. When we watch a film, we may not always be consciously aware of the soundtrack, but that soundtrack Illumines, explains and emphasizes the on-screen actions and words. If there is no music, the film seems entirely different. And if the wrong music is played, it can be hard to understand what's happening. And I don't know if you've ever seen one of those usually like a comedy thing where a completely different soundtrack is placed over a famous film and literally what is occurring on screen seems to be entirely different than it did before, because the music has changed. If sinister music is played at a light moment, we can't follow the plot. It doesn't seem to make sense. Now in the book of Psalms we have the soundtrack to the life and times of God, the Son, the Lord, jesus Christ. So the correctwe need to have Jesus in our minds, in our vision, as we listen to the music and sing the songs of the Psalms. If we put ourselves in the hero role or put ourselves at the center of the stage and imagine that the Psalms are the soundtrack to our own lives, there's loads of things that won't make sense in the book of Psalms, but even in our own life. Rather, the Psalms are the soundtrack to the life and times of God the Son, and this covers not only the time of his birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension, though the overwhelming majority of the music and songs of the Psalms really are focusing on the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, but we also need to have in mind the endless ages before his birth and his time in heaven, at the right hand of the Father and beyond, into the day of judgment and into the new creation future. All of those aspects of the life and times of God the Son need to be in our minds if we are to listen to this soundtrack of the book of Psalms properly. In this divine music book we are shown far more than the range of our own fallen experiences, but we are also caught up into the deeper and greater experiences of the heavenly man, the proper man, the original human, the choir master who leads us and the whole creation and the great congregation in the symphony of life.

Speaker 1: 4:05

As we've seen, psalm 150 describes something of the range of instruments and sounds that church should utilize in our music, but the voice is the primary instrument in the Psalms, even though throughout the Psalms we are reminded of these other instruments, the sound creations, praise, wind instruments, percussion instruments, stringed instruments, trumpet, cymbals, harps. Each of these instruments produces a different kind of sound and all over the world there are endless varieties of these kinds of instruments. And again, it's worth just noting the sheer variety of music that occurs in church. Church innovates in a way that nobody else does. Globally speaking and down through history, there's such an extraordinary range of church, christian music and those different instruments that are validated in the Psalms and where it is urged to use.

Speaker 1: 5:24

Each of these instruments tells us something of the character of the creation and even the very nature of the living God. We've already mentioned this in an earlier episode, but the way that glory comes after suffering, the greatest is the one who serves the most. The one who loses his life is the one who finds life. All of those profound truths at the center of the life of God are demonstrated and exemplified in musical instruments. Like wind, instruments require us to give up our breath. Our breath is our very life, and we must give out that life in order for the instrument to produce the sound that it does. There's a self-sacrificial character to playing a wind instrument. Stringed instruments make sounds only because a string is held in tension and that sense of the glory through suffering and so on is tremendously clear with stringed instruments. And percussion requires striking and beating violence. So if music takes us into the deepest issues of life and truth, then we cannot set words and logic in opposition to music and emotion.

Speaker 1: 7:01

To divide logic from feeling, as we thought, is a classic pagan practice. Let's just think on that a little bit more. In pagan thought there was this is Greek pagan thought especially and in all ways in pagan thought there's this breakdown between music and meaning. Always happens. It's only Christ can hold together heart and head and hands. But there's this sharp distinction between emotions and reason. The ancient Greeks imagined that the gods use had two sons, apollos and Dionysius. Apollos was a god of reason and logic, whereas Dionysus was a god of passion and emotion. These two aspects of truth were separated or even opposed to one another, so that people thought of themselves as either controlled by a polis or controlled by Dionysus. In other words, truth was seen as unemotional logic, whereas emotion was seen as irrational passion. And that kind of pagan heresy obviously is still felt in popular culture, where robots are seen as logical but unemotional, whereas werewolves are unreasoning, controlled by passion. The classic novel of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is another expression of that false opposition between reason and passion.

Speaker 1: 8:53

In the Bible, as we've seen, truth is more than cold logic and more than the heat of passion. Neither an icy logic nor a burning passion are acceptable. Truth requires the right proportion, the right kind of emotion. Luther again expresses this well the balance of the Bible. Luther says I am not of the opinion that all the arts are to be overthrown and cast aside by the Gospel, as some super spiritual people protest, but I would gladly see all the arts, especially music, in the service of him who has given and created them.

Speaker 1: 9:43

The point is this we might enjoy some limited forms of music and perhaps we have quite a varied music collection, certain favourites that seem to reach us and make us smile or make our eyes fill with tears or our feet start dancing. That's good and we might probably be proud of how broad and unusual our musical tastes are. But really we have to sit before Christ and acknowledge we've hardly begun. As we've said, christian churches have produced more variety of music than anybody else in history, precisely because, or most of all, when they are constantly refreshed and inspired by the chief musician. Most of the great musical genres come from Christian churches and singers with a church background Gospel music, blues, soul, all sorts of things, classical tradition, choral music, rap, all of those things. Why is that?

Speaker 1: 11:02

Globally there is this sense of you know, because our own and in my mind I'm aware that some of us, our local church, has perhaps become comfortable in a rut of only one form of musical expression and style of song, and that can easily happen. But in reality, when we're exposed to the full range of global church history from the ages, it's just so extraordinary, the experience of music going back thousands of years, and it can be unnerving to listen to Christian music that's from, say, asia or Africa, or different, all the different countries within Asia and Africa, and so on. Sometimes there's Christian music that I have found like I don't hardly know what I'm listening to. To begin with. It's so different than my normal church tradition and then I come to love it and my heart and mind is expanded by that and it's the contrast, I think, with the pagan ways of handling music which are so regimented and so controlled and so monotone, really so similar.

Speaker 1: 12:38

Many human philosophies and religions try to control, suppress or even ban music. But churches, when they're healthy and in touch with Jesus, have always promoted and developed music. And it's because we find a range of freedom in church or when we go back into history and all the different cultures of the world, with the innovation, the incredible innovation, because we have this freedom, because we're inspired by the chief musician, the greatest composer and conductor of all, the one who brings us the songs of the night when we've lost all hope. It's him who drives us to find music and songs to express all the truth, all the life, all the pain, all the joy we ever know. He's the one who forms us into these churches where we join together all over the world to make music and sing and we can't gather as church, really, without singing and making music. He brings the angelic choirs together to sing the song of creation and Psalm 33, 3.

Speaker 1: 13:52

Again, we keep thinking sing to him a new song, play skillfully. I love the point that it says play skillfully, that we cannot just serve up half-hearted, amateur music. It's okay from time to time and we want to just express something and that's good. But he's inspiring us, commanding us to do better, to learn skills, musical skills and develop new music, new sounds. And then the book of Revelation right at the end of the Bible, the angels and the saints in the highest heaven are repeatedly singing new songs. It says they're new songs, that they innovate with, songs that are so rich and deep that only heavenly clouds are. Perhaps crowds are able to learn such songs. And in case we can't manage to find new songs for ourselves, the Lord, the chief musician, will help us. Psalm 40, verse 3, says he put a new song in my mouth. He will give us new music, new songs.

Speaker 1: 15:10

We might run out of musical ideas with the same old themes all the time. Without naming any particular artists. We can think that so many of our musicians and bands and so on really just try to well, they basically have the same musical idea for far too long and all their career. It's basically the same idea or the same sound over and over again. But this living God has endless musical ideas and themes and styles. We haven't begun to understand the complexity of all the sounds and songs of the natural world the trees, the birds, the whales, the animals, the weather, the stars, the planets all of that and when His people are filled with His Spirit, we make new musical styles and invent new musical instruments as we need. So in church we don't need to be locked into the limited styles and sounds of a local area or a tradition or a moment. I'm always sad, in a way, that when church music ends up being and it sometimes is a kind of poor copy of pagan music and that to me is terribly disappointing because churches hasn't been that historically and globally. We don't need to be so local, regional, temporary.

Speaker 1: 17:07

In our inspiration we have inspiration not only from the whole world but the whole of history and from that living God who makes it all possible. He made us to live life to the full, to experience life and truth in richer, deeper ways. The truth is that God made the heavens and the earth to unite in this cosmic harmony of variety and purpose, with each part having a voice in that one great song. But when we have given ourselves or we return to our deceitful desires and selfish sin, we become hard-hearted, close-minded, turned in on ourselves, we don't know the life of God, we lose our sense of purpose and then that shameful mess of being alienated from God that what we end up with is disharmony and that becomes the loudest theme in our hearts and minds disharmony. And then we can't really make music and sing songs, as we were designed to do. If all we know is that darkness and despair, that chaos and crisis, then, far from being a creative energy that eats us up and we're lost and we become boring and we end up just with the same old, same old stuff Darkness, despair, chaos and crisis. Sin and selfishness are closes down, shut us down, dry us up.

Speaker 1: 19:04

On at least three occasions in the Bible, god tells us that there is no music in the grave Psalm 94, 17,. Psalm 115, 17,. Isaiah 38, 18. There's no music in the grave. The grave is silent Shale, the underworld, that gloomy realm of death where there's just a kind of existence, without music or merriment or life or logic. If we are lost from God, then soon we will be lost to music and life.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Paul Simon said music is forever. Music should grow and mature with you, following you right up until you die, and we would want to say yes, and beyond death and on and upwards into paradise, and beyond that, into the new creation. Music is forever. But then so should you be. You should be forever. Music should not stop with death. You were never meant to die, but to keep on with the life of God for all eternity. And again, I said this before. But the chief musician has a part for every one of us to play in the song of creation and he loves us so much that he died to make sure that we could be part of that great assembly, the congregation of his choir, and that every person should take their place with him in all the new songs that will come forever and ever. Think of all the songs, all the music yet to be written, things that we cannot imagine Now.

Speaker 1: 21:13

I remember years and years ago, watching an old film I think it was based on Little Mermaid. It was a black and white film, I think from the 20s or 30s and hearing a piece of music in it that haunted me for years, because it was so un. I was a little boy at the time and it was a piece of me. I'd never heard anything like it in all my life and I thought what a piece of music. And I kept trying to find that piece of music. And it was because there was something new and it touched me and reached me in ways that I'd never encountered before. And that was just that, just this little film that was from 100 years ago or whatever, and that's.

Speaker 1: 22:00

I don't know if you've had that experience of hearing a piece of music that just takes your breath away and it seems to burst life and light into you or seem to hint at horizons that are beyond that you can't quite see or thought, or it seems to stir memories that you're like a nostalgia for a world that you've never known, and so on. All of those things there are, all those songs yet to be, and what will they be like in that new creation future with songs and music? And you and me, we were designed to be part of that and this chief musician died for us so that we wouldn't miss out on being part of that. He died to take away the disharmony and that chaotic mess so it could be never remembered again, never heard from again. And then he rose from death so we could know resurrection and have life and light and music and meaning, even now in the depths of darkness and death. So we don't want to waste this gift of life and the gift of music and the ability to sing new songs.

Speaker 1: 23:23

If we love music. We love Jesus, the chief musician, and let's not be limited by the cultural prejudices against church and Christ and God. We want to open our hearts and minds to the broad, open space that is the infinite life of the chief musician. He is the divine emperor, and I'm just so aware of how crushed we become, how tiny a view of ourselves and life and society we tolerate and we just at the moment. I'm very aware of how people are excited or angry about politicians because they either have not delivered on fixing all the problems of the world or they some people imagine that this next one is going to do that, or whatever it is. And it's so sad when we're like that, when Christ has designed us to already be part, we've designed us to be part of these church families where we share life together and already begin to taste of something far more than the little kingdoms and cultures of this present age. He already wants us to taste of and hear the distant sound of the music of eternity. He became one of us so that he could bring us into this infinite life of him. The chief musician Lived and died, rose from the dead, so that there's always light in darkness, always hope in despair always, this offer of life and music and meaning.

Speaker 1: 25:26

Well, with all those things in mind, we've come to the end of this study on music in the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilisation and we want to next begin to think about science. Now, we can't do all of science in one little series. There's several series we're going to attempt on science. We'll do an initial series looking at science in general and then in future ones we're going to zoom in to look at biology, chemistry, physics. We're also going to have a look at some of the individual scientists who were Christian. What did they believe? What did they achieve? How did their life work in doing science in the way that they did it? All of those are the things we're going to explore.

Speaker 1: 26:29

But we'll not do them all consecutively because there's other subjects we want to look at to do with history and geography and art and food and architecture, and also we're going to intersperse some one-off episodes where what we're doing essentially is taking just one aspect of the Christ-centred cosmic civilization that we might cover in just a single episode. There's quite a few of those that I've prepared scripted. It's not like part of one will do over three or four weeks, but maybe just a single thought, a single aspect of this that we want to engage with. So I hope you'll stick with us on this journey and I know some episodes are more full than others and longer than others, and some of the themes we engage with you might like more than others, but I pray God's blessing is on you as we explore this together.