God's voice is always musical. . .

One thing I learned from J. S. Bach is that God's voice is music, always musical.  The voice of God is not strictly words but the sound of music – complete with all its harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, form, etc...  It is a language that accompanies the words. I think it a rather modern idea that music exists as its own idiom and that it exists for the purpose of pleasure or the expression of emotion.  Bach taught me that the voice of God is music and this is the language of God.  His Word literally sings.  As a Lutheran Bach came by this naturally.  For us liturgy is simply sung Scripture –whether word for word as it appears in the book or paraphrased.

While for many of us or even most music is a soundtrack and not the screenplay, the success of it all is measured by the words and music that fuse together to become one.  It is surely that way for music in service to the Word.  It does not provide a sound but rather becomes something new when wedded to the Word of God.  The two become one.  It pulls you in and fills you with its peace and harmony.  How sad that it is now almost universally divorced from the context that gives it meaning and power, purpose and majesty. 

Though some reformers were hesitant about music, not Luther.  “First then, looking at music itself, you will find that from the beginning of the world it has been instilled and implanted in all creatures, individually and collectively.  For nothing is without sound or harmony.  Even the air, which of itself is invisible and imperceptible to all our senses, and which, since it lacks both voice and speech, is the least musical of all things, becomes sonorous, audible, and comprehensible when it is set in motion….Music is still more wonderful in living things, especially birds….And yet, compared to the human voice, all this hardly deserves the name of music, so abundant and incomprehensible is here the munificence and wisdom of our most gracious Creator.” in Luther’s Works, vol. 53, pp. 322. 

He commended music as the supreme gift of the divine -- second only to His Word.  “We can mention only one point (which experience confirms), namely, that next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.  She is mistress and governess of those human emotions….which as masters govern men or more often overwhelm them….For whether you wish to comfort the sad, to terrify the happy, to encourage the despairing, to humble the proud, to calm the passionate, or to appease those full of hate….what more effective means than music could you find?” Ibid., 323. 

Again, in a 1530 letter, Luther wrote,“Except for theology, [music] alone produces what otherwise only theology can do, namely a calm and joyful disposition” (Robin A. Leaver, “Luther on Music.” Lutheran Quarterly, 2006).  Luther did not speak of music as the domain for the learned alone nor of something distant but as immediate and profound, for the commoner and peasant equal to the scholar.  From Bernard of Clairvaux to Thomas Aquinas plus those who went before (David and his harp) right down to the modern day, music is given by God from His own heart of congregational song.  Even more than giving a voice back to the congregation again, Luther sought to teach the whole counsel of Scripture through the music of the worship service. Luther said, “God has His gospel preached through music, too.”  He was fond of the rubric “say and sing”  -- not simply as God's directive to us but as God's practice for us, too.

It is God's medium to us in such way that the simple words become song and it is our medium to God in such way that our words become praise.  Can we say too much about it?   For the God who sings is the God we know in Christ by the power of the Spirit.