An Ancient Song [Pentecost B - Romans 8:22-27]

 The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Romans 8:22-27

 

An Ancient Song

 

This story, like most stories, starts in the beginning.  It starts in the deep silence of a formless void – the long, breathless pause of anticipation.  And then, just like that, everything happened: an eternity of silence shattered by a single, startling note.  The opening aria of the divine triune being, the God who created all things with a song.  And as the song played the Spirit, the holy Spirit, danced over the face of the deep, floated on the waves of the delicate melody.

 

At first alone, a solo act: God created a chorus.  And each newly made voice was invited to sing along, to layer rich, hauntingly beautiful harmonies beneath the ancient, timeless melody.  The howling planets and the rhythmic crash of plasma waves in interstellar space.  The rocking wash of the sea and the gentle babble of a brook.  The drone of the lurching earth and the explosive bursts of volcanic mountains.  The song of the celestial stars.  And then the cacophony of creatures, from the clicking sea horses of the ocean deep to the croaking raven of the serene blue skies, each adding its curious voice to the chorus.

 

And it was beautiful.  Chaos made to order.  And the song of creation played on and on.  And God, awash in the sound, declared it good.

 

But God was not finished.  There was still one more place in the ensemble.  And so God created humankind and invited us to play our part.  But perhaps we couldn’t quite read the music or else decided we knew a better song.  And the perfect order that we inherited started to come undone.

 

With the snap of Eden’s branch

The lusty bite of forbidden fruit

The pounding introduction of violence by stone on bone

The savage refrain of far too many battle cries

The snap of a whip breaking the dark skin of a slave’s back

The hateful chants of those holding picket signs

The rumble of obliterated mountaintops

The weeping of children as rockets turn civilization to dust

And the abrasive echo of a mallet driving a spike into the splintered wood of the cross

 

We drowned out the song; we terrorized its perfect beauty.  We caused the whole creation to groan, to cry out in anguish for redemption.

 

I find now that I miss a song I never heard.  But though I have not heard the song of creation, it still feels as if I would recognize it immediately.  As if it is hidden in the most ancient corner of my soul, of our souls. 

 

There are moments, when we are still enough to listen, that the ancient melody can be heard above the noise and clamor of our busy world.  It comes packaged in the laugh of a child, in the whispered words of a gracious prayer, in the deep sigh that follows a delicious meal, in the unspoken passion shared by two lovers, in the beauty of a chord so mysterious that you feel it on your skin.  And in the first cry of a newborn baby, a sound so honest and primal it feels it must be the very same song that called life into being.

 

It is true: We tend to often sing the words wrong or lose the beat.  And that is why God, so gracious and merciful, sends us the Holy Spirit.  What the Spirit does is sing with us.  So that we can learn the ancient song and learn to sing along.