Ringing In Harmony With All of Creation Outdoor Service
Pastor Dean Jurgen
September 7, 2008
I begin at the beginning…In the beginning God began with nothing, and created the atoms and particles and pieces that would become the hearvens the earth.
Isn’t it grand? Can you recall standing somewhere and taking in an awesome view? Mountains, hills, sky, trees, water…
Let me ask you a question: when you think of the wonders of creation, which comes to mind first?
- things we see; or things we hear?
- Do you engage God’s creation more with your eyes or more with your ears?
This morning: I want to emphasize the ear. Dr. Leonard Sweet, to whom I am indebted for much of the research behind this morning’s message, has said that it is the ear, and not the eye, which is the gateway to the soul. We prefer eyes over ears because the eyes take us into the world, whereas the ears take the world into us. Hearing is the first of the senses to greet us before we are born and the last of the senses to leave us as we die.
Might it be that the ear – that hearing – is the best place of connection between the Creator and all of creation? As the apostle Paul told the Romans: “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”
So: It is time for some sound theology. Consider the rock and the tuning fork. What do they have in common? They’re both solid; and they both sing.
In 21st century terms, what are the building blocks of creation? What is the essence of this physical creation?
In the 1950s we were taught that the smallest piece of matter was an atom. In the 1960s physicists looked deeper into the atom and discovered that it was largely empty space with something smaller inside: a nucleus.
Later on they looked inside the nucleus and discovered that it, too, was mostly empty space with something smaller inside: protons and neutrons. Later still they looked into the heart of protons and neutrons, and guess what? They are basically empty space with particles inside called quarks and gluons.
Every atom is a solar system in miniature. So, quarks and gluons are truly the smallest building blocks of matter. But, the latest news I know of is that physicists are once again saying “Oops!” For now they know that quarks are really mostly, - you guessed it – empty space within which there is a particle zoo of twelve fundamental particles.
To put it simply, there is much more empty space than material in this universe.
Do you want to know how little we matter? If you took all the empty space away from all 6 billion people alive right now, and gathered our matter together, it would fill the space of one large beachball.
So, why is there a solid wall? Why a solid rock? Not because of particles of matter, but because of the electronic fields between particles that keep those particles in right relationship. Scientists are discovering the truth of Albert Einstein’s theories pertaining to energy and matter – E=MC2 essentially means that energy and matter are two forms of the same thing. Matter is essentially vibrating energy.
Vibrations. All matter is vibrating. Tuning forks… rocks… trees… you and me.
Call it Sound theology. Or call it Sonic spirituality. Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher and mathematician, said, “A stone is frozen music.” Jesus said that if we fail to praise him, the very stones would burst forth in song.
But, hey – wait a minute! Having we been singing this all along?
“This is my Father’s world,
and to my listening ears
all nature sings and round me rings
the music of the spheres.
This is my father’s world
the birds their carols raise.
The morning light, the lily white
declare their maker’s praise
This is my father’s world
he shines in all that’s fair
In the rustling grass I hear him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.”
There is a melody in all creation. The vast empty space between every quark, gluon, proton and neutron in creation is vibrating to the praise and the glory of God. For what is sound? Vibration. Waves of vibration.
We hear something because we pick up its vibrations.
God speaks to us everywhere. But what to some is the voice of God, to others is noise. Do you recall the times Jesus heard a voice from heaven, but others around thought it had thundered?
In the physical world we have ears to hear only a small portion of the vibrations. Some animals hear more than we do. Some whales can hear the sound of other whales thousands of miles away.
But in the spiritual world, how do we have ears to hear the harmony… the symphony of the Creator?
But, hey – wait a minute. Haven’t we been singing this all along?
“Open my ears, that I may hear
voices of truth Thou sendest clear;
and while the wave notes fall on my ear
everything false will disappear.
Silently now I wait for Thee,
ready, my God, thy will to see.
Open my ears, illumine me, Spirit divine.”
Faith comes by hearing. Faith might not be so much a vision thing, but a vibration… a getting in tune with the Creator… a harmonious relationship… a song.
Where is this in the Bible? Start at the beginning. The beginning of the Bible is a hymn to creation. A song. How did God make everything? What was the creative agent?
His voice!
“And God said, let there be light, and there was light.”
Creation was a spoken event.
Creation was sounded forth; literally.
Creation was, as the Beach Boys sang, good, good, good good vibrations.
Sound waves became light waves. The song of the Creator now took on a new wave…. light waves…. so that the song could be seen in a rainbow of color and light. Cosmic vibrations composed the eternal symphony.
Composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein said that the best translation of the Hebrew was not “and God said”, but “and God sang.”
But, hey – wait a minute. Haven’t we heard this before?
Psalm 19:1-4
The melody lingers on. Creation sings God’s praise. What a beautiful mystery it is that God created the world from sound, and the world sounds back praises to God.
The cosmos is not a random, chance vibration… but a musical one. Physicists tell us that the electron shell of the carbon atom follows the laws of harmonics, producing the tone scale C D E F G A. Every atom sings a song.
Researchers at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston have discovered that every heartbeat gives off certain frequencies that are each unique. Call them “heart songs.”
But, hey – wait a minute. Haven’t we been singing this all along?
“I have a song that Jesus gave me,
It was sent from heaven above;
There never was a sweeter melody,
‘Tis a melody of love.
In my heart there rings a melody,
There rings a melody with heaven’s harmony;
In my heart there rings a melody,
There rings a melody of love.”
We’ve always known that.
What do we say when two people are truly connecting with each other? “They’re on the same wavelength” or
“are in tune with each other” or “give off good vibes” or even “make beautiful music together.”
Soldiers throughout history have known about sympathetic vibrations, as have some opera singers. Before soldiers cross a bridge, they break step. Why? Because their cadence gives off a frequency; a sound. If their marching frequency matches the frequency of the bridge, then there is achieved a technical state called “resonance” in which there is a tremendous explosion of energy. Something’s got to give, and it isn’t going to be the song!
You don’t think vibrations have power? What collapsed the walls of Jericho?
Why is it forbidden to sing “Louie Louie” at a Clemson football game? Because a few years ago as the crowd sang it, the stadium began to crumble! Scientists discovered it wasn’t faulty workmanship or materials; it was that the song “Louie Louie” gave off frequencies that perfectly matched the frequency of the stadium.
What does all this have to do with us?
Simply this: we were created to live in resonance with the music of creation. We were created to be in harmony with the song that the composer began when he sang creation into being. When God created you, he created you to be an unrepeatable, irreplaceable part of His song. You and I don’t have an atom in our body that isn’t vibrating; we don’t have an atom in our being that isn’t singing a song.
Our calling is to be in tune… to be in harmony… to resonate the music of the Creator through all creation.
How? With all the vibrations around and within, how do we get in tune with the music of the spheres?
God has given us a tuning fork to the eternal: God’s perfect pitch is Jesus Christ.
Our lives are to be a part of his symphony; God’s melody is to shape us, and mold us, and make us into his image…. his song.
Do you remember the moving end of the movie “Mr Holland’s Opus”? This music teacher is told to look out over the crowd of former music students before him: “Look around you. We are the notes and the melody of your opus. We are the music of your life.”
But, hey – wait a minute.
Haven’t we been singing this all along?
“Come, thou fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy never ceasing
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.”
So, in spiritual terms, the question is not what are you made of, but what are you going to allow to occupy all that empty space?
How little we matter, but how much our matter matters when it is living and vibrating in harmonious songs of praise to our Creator God!
And, (like our closing song says so well), our Master Composer, the Lord of sea and sky, the Lord of snow and rain, the Lord of wind and flame, the Lord of atoms, neutrons and quarks hears the disharmony in His creation and calls us to be composers of harmony with him.
We were created to be in harmony with the music of creation… and our high and holy song is to live out God’s good, good, good vibrations for the broken people, the broken world.