Notes of Joy

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

June 15, 2014

Notes of Joy

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning

when God created the heavens and the earth,

the earth was a formless void

and darkness covered the face of the deep,

while the Spirit of God moved over

the face of the waters.

Then God said, ‘Let there be light’;

and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good;

and God separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light Day,

and the darkness he called Night.

And there was evening and there was morning,

the first day.

How many times have we heard these words,

the story at the very beginning of the Bible,

the story of the very beginning of this earth,

the very beginning of life?

For all the times you and I have heard these words,

don’t they still give you goosebumps,

doesn’t your heart beat a little faster

as you hear these words,

as you listen and imagine,

as the author of this text must have,

imagine God at work,

God at work creating,

creating even before God set the boundaries of time.

These are not words to be taken literally

any more than we take literally

Jesus’ instructions to us

to cut off our hands or feet if they cause us to sin.

(Mark 9:43)

These are words to savor,

to stir our thoughts and imaginations.

Close your eyes and picture,

as the writer must have,

God’s Spirit brooding,

brooding, as some translators tell us,

over the formless void;

brooding as God thought,

“what do I do with this,

this mass of rock and water,

this great mass hanging in space,

colorless, lifeless,

cold, silent?

What shall I do with it?

What shall I make of it?”

Imagine that God wondered

what to do with the darkness that hid

what God knew was there,

the darkness that smothered the waters,

the rocks, everything.

It seems so logical that the first thing

that God decided to create was light.

Light to chase away the darkness,

light to flood over the waters,

light to splash about the dirt and rock,

light so that God could see every bit

of the great hulking mass we call earth.

Light that revealed the utter lifeless of the void,

light that revealed the drabness,

light that magnified the silence.

In the light God saw as only God could see

that there was work to do,

creative work,

so God carried on.

How could the waters reflect

the brilliance of the blue sky

if there was no blue sky above?

The land mass cried out for color

for greens and reds,

golds and yellows,

oranges and purples.

                          

The waters needed a purpose,

something more than just being there,

being wet, being coldd

The waters needed life:

fish, plants and other creatures.

The land mass needed life, too,

life that wasn’t rooted,

life that moved about

over and through the land

and through the sky,

so God created insects, birds,

and all kinds of animals.

But perhaps more than anything else,

the void needed sound;

sound to reflect life.

God’s creation needed to sing,

to sing to the one who created,

each bit of creation singing its song to the Creator,

songs of every kind: booming thunder,

leaves rustling,

bubbling, babbling rivers,

birds chirping, singing, squawking –

everything with its own sound,

all singing notes of joy to the Creator.

God the composer of the symphony.

The writer Franco Ferruci

pictures God telling us,

“I imagined an earthly orchestra

that resembled the heavenly one.

…The forest, [the seas, the sky]

became …full of musicians …..

And It was all performed for me;

I was at once the audience and the composer.”

(The Life of God)

This is God’s magnificent creation,

a creation alive with music,

music all around us, God’s music,

notes of joy from the depths of the ocean

to the clouds in the sky.

To read this story literally is to miss the wonder,

to miss the music.

To read the story literally

is to make ourselves equal to God

as though we were there,

as though we understood the mind of God,

the creative powers of God.

We don’t understand;

all we can do, all we should do, is marvel.

We are not reading facts here;

We are reading about God our Creator,

God the great composer of life

here on earth and in the heavens above.

We are reading of God who didn’t create

and then stop;

we are reading of God who creates still.

Creation is something that began

and continues even now.

It is something that has gone on

for more than 13 billion years,

and will continue for …only God knows how long.

Evolution is not word that we should shun,

we should embrace it,

for in our evolving understanding

we see all around us an evolving world

filled with the sounds of an evolving symphony,

God’s music, playing all around us –

here on this earth, and in the stars above,

notes of joy added with every new breath,

every new creation,

every evolving moment.

Measures are added,

harmonies are added,

instruments are added –

all deepening and broadening God’s music,

filling the very universe with life,

with joy,

with love.

God created and continues to create

and we God’s children are part of

that ongoing creation,

with our own songs to sing, songs of praise to God.

We sing every moment of our lives.

We sing harmonious notes

as we live as Jesus calls us to live:

lives filled with compassion, kindness, goodness,

mercy, patience,

And we sing discordant notes when we turn from God,

when we pursue our own will,

when we act with selfishness, anger,

arrogance, self-righteousness, judgment.

The sound of a woman crying in fear,

the sound of child whimpering with hunger,

the sound of man sighing with hopelessness –

these are notes God did not write,

notes that God does not want as part of his music.

Voices raised in argument,

strife, contention, anger.

These are not the sounds of God’s harmony.

God’s music reflects the love given us

through our Lord Jesus Christ

who was there with God even before time

as the gospel of John tells us:

“without him, not one thing came into being,

and what has come into being in him was life,

and the life was the light of all people.

And the light shines in the darkness

and the darkness did not  - could not – overcome it.”

(John 1:3-4)

“To live God’s song,

to be His music,

to know a harmony with Christ,”

These are the words we’ll hear our choir sing

in just a few moments.

These are words that remind us of God’s call to us

to live God’s song,

to sing God’s song

in and through our lives,

a song of harmony and joy

that’s been playing for billions of years here on this earth,

and even more billions of years throughout the universe.

Perhaps someday we’ll capture not only the light of stars

that lie near the very beginning of creation

but the sound of those stars

as they sang their first notes of joy to God.

After all, don’t we read in scripture,

“the morning stars sang together”

as the heavenly choir shouted and sang for joy.

(Job 38:7)

Listen –

the sound is all around us,

the music that has been there since the beginning:

God’s song.

And you and I are called to sing God’s song,

to live God’s Song,

to be part of God’s music,

every one of us singing notes of joy.

Listen, as all creation sings,

“Glory to God in highest heaven!”

AMEN