- Psalm 96 - Read this text online here »
- Romans 11:33-36 - Read this text online here »
What does singing a “new song” mean? First, let me suggest what it does not mean. A new song does not mean we as God’s people are more “cool” or “hip” or “relevant” than we were before. A new song does not mean that since we – as a church -- have learned to apply the latest technological gimmicks, we are somehow more relevant to our generation. While technology is important and helpful to the younger generation (as to us older folks too!), these younger people can see through gimmickry used for its own sake. Church historian and culture watcher David Wells, in his book The Courage to Be Protestant, wrote:
“... the ... irony is that the younger generations who are less impressed by whiz-bang technology, who often see through what is slick and glitzy, and who have been on the receiving end of enough marketing to nauseate them, are as likely to walk away from these oh-so-relevant churches as to walk into them.”Brett McCracken is a 27-year-old Christian who wrote an Internet article titled “The Perils of ‘Wannabe Cool’ Christianity” for the Wall Street Journal last week [August 13, 2010-08-13, (http://tinyurl.com/27e3ner)]. McCracken wrote:
“If ... Christian leadership thinks that ‘cool Christianity’ is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don’t want cool as much as we want real.
[McCracken continues:] “If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. [My bold] It’s because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched -- and we want an alternative. It’s not because we want more of the same.”In the eyes of the younger generations, a new song does not mean something easy or trendy or popular. Actually, no matter a person’s age, whether men or women, children or youth -- we all want to see and experience what is genuine and real. So singing our new song means singing our fresh expression of how God is real and vibrant in our lives.
Singing a new song might even mean discovering for the first time, what our individual new song with God really is. The church calls that new experience conversion. Singing a new song might also mean intentionally renewing our perspective about God as Creator, as Redeemer and as constant Companion. Singing a new song might also mean intentionally refreshing our personal relationship with God. How is our particular individual story – and our communal church story -- connecting with God’s great story of love and grace and forgiveness for the whole of humanity and even for the Earth? The church calls that ongoing spiritual transformation and renewal.
The “new” in “new song” might mean a fresh experience and expression of the greatness of God for us personally and as a church. When we take the time to give some thought to God the Creator, we will realize that nothing – absolutely nothing in all the universe – compares or even comes close to the one and only living God we are talking about.
The greatness and majesty and total pre-eminence of the one and only living God in the midst of the surrounding ancient nations was clearly an issue in Psalm 96. Here are some verses in Psalm 96 from The Good News Bible:
The Lord is great and is to be highly praised;I wonder if we as God’s people need to seek a renewed perspective of God in a “serious way,” as McCracken says. Only then can we sing a refreshed song of the greatness and -- here’s that word I often use -- the awesomeness of God. God is awe-some! Here again is that question I have been using during this series in the Psalms: How do we perceive God? Now, here is another question: How do we experience God? Do we experience God as awesome?
he is to be honoured more than all the gods.
The gods of all other nations are only idols,
but the Lord created the heavens.
Glory and majesty surround him;
Praise the Lord, all people on earth;
praise his glory and might.
Praise the Lord’s glorious name;
In her book Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, theologian and author Marva Dawn wrote about an animated discussion -- as she called it -- with her Grade 9 English teacher over the word “awful”. [Marva J. Dawn, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down (William B. Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 98-99.] Those of you who have been teachers or have an interest in language will especially appreciate her story. Marva wrote:
“I insisted on using awe-full to describe something so exalted as to arouse reverence. [My teacher] preferred that I stick with the word’s common spelling [awful] and its usage to designate something dreadful.
“We should have looked in the dictionary. My old Webster’s [dictionary] lists as its first definition ‘inspiring awe; highly impressive.’ Not until its fourth entry does it supply the definition usually assumed in idiomatic English: ‘very bad, ugly, unpleasant.’
“But the teacher had the final word that day in class. Even at age 14 I felt that a vital perception was being lost -- the sense that something, someone, was higher than we. I longed to verbalize awe-full-ness; my teacher made class awful.
[Marva Dawn continues:] “Today teenagers apply the related word awesome to clothes, food, music, and cinematic effects. [Have you seen the humorous television ad by Tim Hortons for one of its summer drinks? The extra ingredient in the drink has made it “awesommer!”] The word [awesome] is so overused that when people sing [about the] ‘Awesome God,’ they seem to trivialize the Awe-full One and put [God] on the same level as toothpaste and [clothing].
“As our culture has worked hard to establish equality among persons, we’ve somehow put God into that parity and gradually reduced our sense that this is a breathtakingly transcendent GOD we’re talking about.”When I observe God’s creation -- from its vastness to its microscopic detail -- I can’t help but call it “awesome.” Do you too? As Psalm 19:1 says: “How clearly the sky reveals God’s glory!” (Have you seen any of the current comet showers in the heavens? They are truly awesome!) But even in all its beauty, wonder and glory, the creation is a mere reflection of the beauty, wonder and glory of how awesome God the Creator is!
Albert Einstein was a remarkable scientist in the early 20th century, a professor of theoretical physics in Prague, Zurich, Berlin and at Princeton University from 1933 to 1945. Einstein heard the song of the wonder about God in creation. Here is his response when he was questioned whether or not he believed in God:
“I’m not an atheist.... [But] The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws.”Einstein also composed a credo called “What I Believe.” It concluded with an explanation of what he meant when he called himself “religious”:
“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man.” [Walter Isaacson, “Einstein and Faith,” TIME (4-5-07).]I believe Einstein would have said amen to the feelings of wonder and awe in Psalm 96. Listen to these final verses in Psalm 96 from The Message Bible:
“Let’s hear it from Sky,I too want to say amen and amen and amen to these feelings of wonder and awe – not only about the creation but especially for God the Creator!
With Earth joining in,
And a huge round of applause from Sea.
Let Wilderness turn cartwheels,
Animals, come dance,
Put every tree of the forest in the choir --
An extravaganza before GOD as he comes … ”
But I would humbly suggest that the “something behind all that can experienced” that Einstein referred to – whose beauty and wonder reaches humanity, he believed, only indirectly – has actually reached humanity in a direct and focused expression of that behind-the-scenes mystery and glory. Listen to these statements from John, one of Jesus’ disciples, in Chapter 1 of the Gospel of John from the Good News Translation:
“The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father’s only Son. No one has ever seen God. The only Son, who is the same as God and is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”And again as The Message Bible puts it:
“We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son ... No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. [But] this one-of-a-kind God-Expression, [he means Jesus] who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made [God] plain as day.”Singing a new song for us as Christians must include the person of Jesus. There must be in our lives a fresh expression because of a fresh experience of the “realness” of Jesus. I hope that, at some point in Einstein’s life journey, he caught a glimpse of the beauty and awe and glory of God in Jesus. I say that humbly because Jesus Christ is the mysterious source Einstein described as coming to humanity indirectly. However, when Jesus moved into our humanity, the mystery of God was exposed in a clear way in the humanness of Jesus. That is why we often say: if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. Whatever is included in our new song, there must be a fresh appreciation of Jesus and how our individual stories – our lives – connect with his story and thus with God’s story of redemption and love. Recall part of what Brett McCracken, the 27-year-old Christian, wrote in the Wall Street Journal:
“If we [twentysomethings] are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. [My bold] It’s because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched -- and we want an alternative. It’s not because we want more of the same.”Jesus has amazing appeal to people in our world. And he is the reason for the freshness we can experience in our new songs about our new experiences with God.
I am constantly surprised at how many sports figures are vocal followers of Jesus. As the psalm says, they also “tell the glad news of salvation from day to day” to all who will listen. Albert Pujols, the first baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, is a World Series champion, an eight-time All Star, the recipient of three National League Most Valuable Player awards and, according to a 2008 poll of 30 baseball managers, the most feared hitter in the sport. But even more impressive is his life off the field. He founded the Pujols Family Foundation that offers support and care to people with Down’s syndrome and their families and also helps those in poverty in the Dominican Republic. He and his wife provide a loving household for four little children. But most importantly for Pujols, he is a passionate disciple of Jesus. Pujols once told an audience of men and young boys:
“As a Christian, I am called to live a holy life. My standard for living is set by God, not by the world. I am responsible for growing and sharing the gospel.... One way for me to stay satisfied in Jesus is for me to stay humble. Humility is getting on your knees and staying in God’s will -- what he wants for me, not what the world wants. It would be easy to go out and do whatever I want, but those things only satisfy the flesh for a moment. Jesus satisfies my soul forever.” [Tim Ellsworth, “Holy Hitter,” World magazine (2-27-10).]Listen to some of what the Bible says about Jesus Christ as The Message Bible puts it. From the Letter to the Colossians Chapter 1, verses 15-20:
“We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels -- everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body. [The Son] was supreme in the beginning and … he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone…. and all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe -- people and things, animals and atoms -- get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.”And from the Letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 1, verses 1-3a:
“Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature. He holds everything together by what he says -- powerful words!”So, my friends, let’s sing to GOD a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, join us in worship! Let’s sing together the good news of God and God’s wonders for one and all to hear!
May this be so for you and for me.
Rev. Chris Miller
August 15, 2010
OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
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