In our meeting the other evening we sang the song "King of My Heart" by Bethel Music. The chorus (which we repeated ad nauseam) goes:
You are good, You are good, oh oh
You are good, You are good, oh oh
You are good, You are good, oh oh
reminiscent of Gerald's "Peace will come..." in Adrian Plass' Sacred Diary. It set me thinking... The endless repetition should, I suppose, be excused as a literary device denoting emphasis. The song argues "You're never gonna to let me down" (also repeated) because "You are good". What, I wondered, goes through people's mind when they sing this? Is it good like chocolate? A gooey sort of goodness that makes me feel... well... good? I think not.
God, as portrayed in the Bible, is more like "terribly good" or "awfully good" - in each case employing the proper meaning of the adverbs, as in "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. " and "let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him".
The children's introduction to Aslan (in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) illustrates this well:
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
And later on Mr Beaver tells the children: "He's wild, you know. Not like a tame lion."
You won't find many other Bible references to God being good. Here's one where Jesus quips "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." According to Strongs, the Greek word used means "good (in any sense)" and the Hebrew word used in the OT means "good in the widest sense". Maybe this is more helpful than at first meets the eye. Whereas we consider "good" as a description of God as in "God is good", I suggest that we have it upside down and that it would be better to say "good is God", i.e. that God is the definition of true goodness. We know a thing to be truly good if it is like God. Which rules out the chocolate argument.
This goodness of which we speak is not a license for our lazy behaviour. Paul sums it up by "What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid."
During certain songs & pieces of music I have experienced a moment of what you might call spontaneous "praise" or "worship". I'd explain this as an overwhelming sense or recognition and gratitude (indeed, what is gratitude other than recognition? - however, all recognition is not gratitude!) that there is something / someone who is by essence goodness, truth, light and as a result, hope. There is in these moments a very real impulse to lift my hands and join in what one might understand as a pre-existing and continuous angelic anthem of praise. "Great is Thy Faithfulness" must surely have been born out of some similar experience.
ReplyDeleteI should explain that these moments are few and far between and that most songs we sing in church need not apply. However, the experience is there, and this I believe in good faith is what (at least some of) the folk at Bethel are reaching toward with this song, though I personally find (perhaps due to my upbringing) the exaggerated vocal affectation, emotion, hand and body gestures and so on, to be offputting.
Agreed that goodness & truth - the real thing - is terrifying; as the sunlight was to the ghosts of "The Great Divorce". We are naked and ashamed before it, and yet if I understand the promise aright we may be at the same moment clothed and in our right mind.
I'm attempting at present to understand music as a vehicle - one of many similar. Different people find different vehicles conducive (a better conductor) to their destination; it is also worth noting that there are different intents, different destinations. Is a wave of emotion the destination, or just (a part of) the vehicle itself? Some vehicles are better than others; can a vehicle itself be wrong? (Yes, if it has only one purpose, and that an evil one.)