Firbush Retreats Firbush retreats are organized and led by Robert T. Walker. Firbush retreats are designed to make the best theology accessible to as many people as possible and especially those not trained in theology and often not familiar with routine technical terms. They combine times of worship and prayer with reflection on a theme related to Torrance theology. For more information see https://tftorrance.org/firbush. ----------- June 14, 2018 Firbush Retreat Summer 2018 Jeremy Begbie, "Music and Theology III" https://tftorrance.org/node/1641 The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides for their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:00-00:10 Okay, well, you must be exhausted. So I'll keep this to ten minutes, alright? 00:10-00:14 It'll be about an hour or so. 00:14-00:21 A quote from Tom Wright, who's been behind quite a bit of this, there's no doubt. 00:21-00:28 "Christians need to sense permission to exercise their imagination in thinking ahead into God's new world 00:28-00:34 and to do such fresh forms of worship and service as will model and embody aspects of it. 00:34-00:41 We need to have this imagination energized, fed and nourished so that it is lively and inventive, 00:41-00:47 not sluggishly going around the small circles of a few ideas learned long ago." 00:47-00:55 What I'm suggesting here is that music is one way in which our theological imagination, 00:55-01:03 but we don't mean fantasy, by the way, obviously, our theological imagination can be re-energized and re-nourished. 01:03-01:12 And in this session, now, we're moving on to the second part, which talks three and four, music for theology. 01:12-01:17 So we've been thinking especially about music from the perspective of theology. 01:17-01:24 We're not leaving theology behind. We're not saying music becomes the new criterion of all truth. No. 01:24-01:29 But we're saying oriented through scripture to the triune God. 01:29-01:39 How can music, the world of music, everything that's involved with music, help us penetrate that gospel more deeply, 01:39-01:48 understand it more deeply, sense it more deeply, and indeed think about it more deeply, which is theology, 01:48-01:52 so that our theology can be that much more faithful. 01:52-01:55 And in particular, I'm going to look at two themes. 01:55-02:03 The theme for this morning is hope. The theme for this evening, or late afternoon, I think it is, is freedom. 02:03-02:15 I'm going to ask, what can music do to energize or re-energize, or help us reimagine a theology of hope and a theology of freedom? 02:15-02:21 To get us started on this theme of hope, just a very basic point about hope, 02:21-02:24 and that is, well first of all it's just a dimension of life. 02:24-02:28 George Steiner, a strange writer in many ways, but a very interesting one, 02:28-02:36 "The two validating wonders of mortal existence are love and the invention of the future tense." 02:36-02:42 In other words, the invention of the future tense itself speaks of hope, 02:42-02:47 that we actually dare to believe in a different, better future. 02:47-02:51 There's an impulse towards the future in just being human. 02:51-02:56 We wouldn't get out of the bed in the morning unless we were directed towards some kind of future. 02:56-03:03 Hope is also of course absolutely embedded in Christian faith, but in a much more intense way, 03:03-03:10 because a particular hope has been injected right into history. 03:10-03:19 Something's happened in our midst that intensifies our desire for a better future and gives it a focus. 03:19-03:25 1 Peter 1.3, "Praise be to God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His great mercy 03:25-03:31 He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 03:31-03:38 So with that in mind, let's delve into the world of music for a bit to explore the hopefulness of the Gospel. 03:38-03:43 In particular, I'm concerned with how music can help us reimagine the shape of hope, 03:43-03:47 and that's why I put it, called it here. 03:47-03:54 Some headings on. First of all, thinking backwards. A reversed imagination. 03:54-04:00 What do I mean by this? John Donne, 16th/17th century Anglican poet, 04:00-04:04 "From him to God, my God, in my sickness." This is after a grave illness. 04:04-04:11 He pitches himself just outside Heaven's door, tuning up to the sounds of the throng on the other side, 04:11-04:16 in a way that a child might sneak into the Bachmann orchestral rehearsal 04:16-04:22 and try tuning her instruments to the sounds of the great ensemble she hopes one day to join. 04:22-04:27 "Since I'm coming to that holy room, wherewith thy choir of saints forevermore, 04:27-04:35 I shall be made thy music. As I come, I tune the instrument here at the door." 04:35-04:42 And what I must do then, think here before. 04:42-04:47 To live in hope means operating with a kind of reverse imagination. 04:47-04:52 We want to imagine the future. Typically, the way the secular world will do it 04:52-04:55 is to look at the present or particular present situation and say, 04:55-04:59 "Well, given these trends, what's going to happen in the future?" 04:59-05:03 The New Testament writers work in the opposite direction. 05:03-05:08 They believe a future has been anticipated, previewed, in Jesus Christ. 05:08-05:12 So they're working backwards with a reverse imagination. 05:12-05:16 Indeed, the imagination goes all the way back to what has happened in Christ. 05:16-05:21 And then, we reimagine the future in that light. 05:21-05:25 Or reimagine the present, rather, in that light. 05:25-05:30 God's new world, a panorama unveiled climatically in Revelation 21, 05:30-05:34 the creation glitteringly renewed, humans being re-crafted, 05:34-05:38 God dwelling with his people, the bereaved without tears, 05:38-05:44 the thirsty drinking, the wounded praising, the voiceless singing. 05:44-05:47 And if that's true, how can we imagine our future now? 05:47-05:52 Reverse imagination. Another illustration, the same thing, a musical one. 05:52-05:57 I was preaching in South Africa about ten years ago now. 05:57-06:01 I went to a township called Guga Leto, which is just outside Cape Town. 06:01-06:03 Some of you may have been there. 06:03-06:08 That week, a house around the corner from the church had just been burnt to the ground 06:08-06:11 because the man who lived there was a suspect thief. 06:11-06:17 A tornado had just cut across the township that week, ripping 50 homes apart. 06:17-06:21 Ten minutes before the service, I was told that the night before, 06:21-06:26 a gang hounded down a 14-year-old in the Sunday school and stabbed him to death. 06:26-06:33 He was in the marimba band, and there was the marimba band there with this empty place for him. 06:33-06:36 The pastor began his opening prayer. 06:36-06:39 I can remember many of these phrases even now. 06:39-06:45 "Lord, you are the creator and sovereign, but why did the wind come like a snake and tear our roofs off? 06:45-06:50 Why did a mob cut short the life of one of our own when he had everything to live for? 06:50-06:54 Over and over again, Lord, in the midst of life, we are in death." 06:54-07:01 And then this extraordinary groaning sound as he was praying and then continuing afterwards. 07:01-07:03 Romans 8, the groaning of all creation. 07:03-07:11 I can't read that passage now without thinking of that groaning of this congregation rising ever louder. 07:11-07:20 Then out of that, seamlessly comes a song of praise to the God who raised Jesus from the dead. 07:20-07:23 And they sang, and they sang, and they sang. 07:23-07:28 Was that singing mere escapism? 07:28-07:31 In other words, that's one way a cynic would read it. 07:31-07:41 They live in such a dreadful situation, it's been such a dreadful week, this will help us escape it all, remove ourselves from it. 07:41-07:49 Or, which I think is much more true of the situation, was this a foretaste of the end? 07:49-08:00 The God they praised was the God who had come into even this to promise that out of even this, something would come eventually one day. 08:00-08:04 And that's the God that they were praising. 08:04-08:12 Christian hope is not about trying to calculate the future from the present, but about breathing now the fresh air of the future. 08:12-08:24 Slovenian missiologist Peter Kuzmic, only just got to know this, he wrote an extremely interesting book about, it's actually a book about grief. 08:24-08:30 Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future, and faith is the courage to dance to it now. 08:30-08:32 That's pretty good. 08:32-08:38 Hope is the ability to hear the music of the future, you won't hear that without hearing the gospel of course. 08:38-08:44 You hear the music of the future, and faith is the courage to dance to it now. 08:44-08:47 Playing on a number of metaphors there. 08:47-09:00 To that I'll add another interesting witness from a friend of mine in Cambridge called Christopher Page, who was recently, until recently Vice President, Vice Master of Sydney Sussex College. 09:00-09:03 He's actually in the English department, he's also a historian. 09:03-09:09 He wrote a 1500 page book on the history of singing in the West in the first 1000 years. 09:09-09:14 And that's pretty brave because nothing was written down in the first 1000 years remember, no music was written down. 09:14-09:17 Notation is quite, it's much more recent. 09:17-09:21 So we only have accounts of what singing meant to the people who sang. 09:21-09:24 That's all we have, that's all we know about singing. 09:24-09:27 We haven't got the recordings, we don't know exactly what it sounded like. 09:27-09:40 But he has found interesting sources round about, if I remember, second, third century, of Christians writing about singing as a very bodily experience. 09:40-09:47 And as an anticipation of the life of the spiritual body of the future. 09:47-09:49 The redeemed body of the future. 09:49-09:55 That in this act our bodies are being, he's provisionally, freed to be what they were meant to be. 09:55-09:57 And will one day be. 09:57-10:08 So that singing, as he puts it, the use of a voice, is one of the principle continuities between the states of bodily life on either side of the grave. 10:08-10:11 Now I've not looked up those sources yet in detail. 10:11-10:14 It's the most fascinating part of the book I think. 10:14-10:22 And what's going on when they sang, they had an intense sense this was a foretaste of what is to come. 10:22-10:25 Some music giving them a kind of reversed imagination. 10:25-10:27 I think it's particularly interesting. 10:27-10:30 Christopher Page is really one of these very depressing characters who writes about all sorts. 10:30-10:35 He's just written a multi-volume history of the guitar for Cambridge University Press. 10:35-10:46 He's also, his actual specialism is Middle English, which is a form of medieval English, which he speaks fluently and writes poetry in that as well. 10:46-10:48 I don't know how many languages he speaks. 10:48-10:50 He's also a delightful person. 10:50-10:58 He founded a group called Gothic Voices, one of the first groups to bring to sound the music of Hildegard von Bingen. 10:58-11:00 You might have heard of as well. 11:00-11:05 So he's one of these kind of depressing people who's very, very good at most things. 11:05-11:07 But here we are. 11:07-11:09 Those of us who are average. 11:09-11:13 You know that violin making workshop that I was speaking about earlier. 11:13-11:20 Typically me, after about seven sessions, I'd only been there because it's very short term, seven sessions. 11:20-11:23 I'd been scraping away and making whatever and everyone's at a different stage in the workshop. 11:23-11:26 So you don't know how you're doing. 11:26-11:30 So me, I wanted to know, how am I doing? I mean, am I good at this? 11:30-11:33 You know, I want to be successful after all. 11:33-11:37 So I said to the instructor, I said, yeah, quite interesting. 11:37-11:41 You know, how am I doing? Is this any good or is this very simple? 11:41-11:45 Well, put it this way, you're certainly not bad. 11:45-11:48 You're not exceptional. 11:48-11:51 In fact, you're pretty average. 11:51-11:54 Average? 11:54-11:57 What's on the nerve? 11:57-12:00 Dare to be average. 12:00-12:02 It's a lovely life. 12:02-12:06 And that workshop teaches me it's okay to be average. 12:06-12:08 It's actually all right. 12:08-12:10 And they taught me grace actually. 12:10-12:12 No Christians there as far as I know. 12:12-12:14 They think I'm very strange. 12:14-12:16 Oh, there's another story. The very same instructor. 12:16-12:20 Once I gave him something I'd just done that I thought was pretty good. 12:20-12:22 Typical thing. And they never crush you with bad comments. 12:22-12:24 At least most of them don't. One of them does. 12:24-12:25 But most of them have bad comments. 12:25-12:26 He just picked it up and he felt it. 12:26-12:33 He said, when you go upstairs, do you go up one at a time or two at a time? 12:33-12:36 So I said, what's this got to do with it? 12:36-12:41 He said, when you go up a staircase, do you tend to go up in twos or do you go step by step? 12:41-12:44 And I said, well, actually, yeah, I usually go in twos. 12:44-12:47 And he said, yeah, I thought so. 12:47-12:51 [Laughter] 12:51-12:52 That's all he said. 12:52-12:54 It was wonderful. 12:54-12:59 All right. Then, second heading over the page, page two. 12:59-13:01 Is that the reverse of imagination? 13:01-13:04 Thinking with tensions and resolutions. 13:04-13:07 It's seven. Well, I don't know what time we woke up this morning. 13:07-13:10 How many people woke up this morning with an alarm clock? 13:10-13:13 Did you need that alarm clock to wake up? 13:13-13:14 Yeah, okay, you did. Okay. 13:14-13:16 A lot of people do need the alarm clock to wake up. 13:16-13:20 Here things were really quite noisy outside, so perhaps we had this sort of built-in weather alarm clock. 13:20-13:23 But just imagine, you're deep in a dream, the alarm goes off and your head explodes 13:23-13:27 and you run your hand down all over the bedside table or whatever 13:27-13:32 and you shove off whatever you're reading, the collected works of Donald Trump or whatever on the side 13:32-13:34 and eventually you get your hand on the button, right? 13:34-13:36 Yeah. 13:36-13:39 So that's tension and resolution. 13:39-13:43 And this is one of the most basic psychological patterns governing our lives. 13:43-13:46 From traffic lights on the red to lights on green. 13:46-13:52 From nerves before the sermon to the adulation which greets you at the church door. 13:52-13:59 I use the word tension here to describe the character of any music or any event 13:59-14:05 which arouses in us a sense of expectation that things can't be left there. 14:05-14:07 They have to go on to something else. 14:07-14:10 In music there's a very basic form of this. 14:10-14:13 It's called harmonic tension and resolution. 14:13-14:19 You have sounds like that which are sounds we expect to resolve. 14:19-14:25 We hear that and we want, desire, expect that. 14:25-14:31 We sang this morning. 14:31-14:33 We ended... 14:33-14:40 And if I'd stopped there or jot some better up or whatever you would have felt cheated. 14:40-14:45 Because you're hearing that and you expect, desire, want, that. 14:45-14:47 But you wouldn't end a piece like that. 14:47-14:49 And see, if you... 14:49-14:51 I'd play that. 14:51-14:54 You then expect something like that. 14:54-14:56 Music wants you to desire that. 14:56-14:59 Let's call a dominant seventh that chord. 14:59-15:04 And the trick in large part of writing music in the Western tradition 15:04-15:06 which is what we're talking about here 15:06-15:14 is handling the dynamic space between that or sounds like it and that. 15:14-15:16 It's a bit like running a church. 15:16-15:22 Everything depends on how and when you resolve your tensions. 15:22-15:24 And there you have it. 15:24-15:25 Now you know how to be a great composer. 15:25-15:26 Not quite. 15:26-15:28 There are lots of other forms of tension resolution. 15:28-15:33 In rhythm, in meter, in timbre, in attack, volume, all sorts. 15:33-15:36 And they're all intertwining with each other. 15:36-15:40 Let's just stick with harmonic tension and resolution at the moment. 15:40-15:44 Attention of course assumes something before it 15:44-15:47 in relation to which it's a tension. 15:47-15:50 You were asleep before the alarm went off. 15:50-15:55 So actually the fuller pattern is something we can call ETR. 15:55-15:58 Equilibrium Tension and Resolution. 15:58-16:01 A state of rest, state of tension, which then has to be resolved 16:01-16:04 and then a resolution of that tension. 16:04-16:08 Or a little less pretentiously, home away and home again. 16:08-16:17 That's home. 16:17-16:19 That's what Gershwin is telling you. 16:19-16:22 And then he has it again just in case you were wondering. 16:22-16:25 Exactly the repetition, right? 16:25-16:28 But then you're going to go away from home. 16:29-16:31 And you're still away. 16:31-16:34 But you're going to come back home. 16:34-16:42 It's just a quick look out of the door, make sure everything's alright. 16:42-16:45 And then you're back home again. 16:45-16:50 Now that pattern of home away and home is very, very basic 16:50-16:55 to most western music from about 1600 onwards. 16:55-16:58 And not just so-called classical music, the whole pop music tradition, 16:58-17:02 most jazz, virtually all the music you will have in your playlist, 17:02-17:05 I would guess every piece actually, will be built 17:05-17:10 according to that pattern in some way, at some level, at some stage. 17:10-17:15 The process of resolution will be extraordinarily complex 17:15-17:18 and very subtle and very extended. 17:18-17:20 If you go to one of the great operas of Richard Wagner, 17:20-17:23 you'll be away from home for about four and a half years. 17:23-17:25 In every sense. 17:25-17:29 This E.T.R. pattern then works its way out in many forms, 17:29-17:33 but there is a directional thrust to it, as you can see. 17:33-17:37 Music takes you into a dynamic of desire. 17:37-17:40 You want the next sound. 17:40-17:43 It is future directed. 17:43-17:47 And notice also the capital H. 17:47-17:51 When we return to a theme, as in this Gershwin, 17:51-17:55 it is varied very subtly sometimes, or transformed in some way. 17:55-17:58 You very rarely get an exact repetition. 17:58-18:00 That's why you get this little extension. 18:00-18:02 (Plays E.T.R. pattern) 18:02-18:04 Which you didn't have first time round. 18:04-18:08 That little extension. Hence home with a capital H. 18:08-18:11 So it's not just like going around the block and coming into the house again. 18:11-18:14 It's like going around the block and finding that the home's had a kind of makeover 18:14-18:17 while you've been away. 18:18-18:21 Now then. 18:21-18:24 Other art forms. Yeah, lots of other art forms like this. 18:24-18:26 Literature. This is a very basic pattern in literature. 18:26-18:30 Of course, many nursery rhymes, children's stories as well. 18:30-18:33 The theological bells, of course, I hope will be ringing. 18:33-18:36 Creation for redemption. 18:36-18:39 The equilibrium of paradise through the tension of the fall. 18:39-18:44 To a, well, the start of a return in Christ. Yes. 18:44-18:49 But then a final return, the final bringing together of the world and God. 18:49-18:51 The consummation of creation. 18:51-18:55 And this final home, please note, is a capital H, right? The new creation. 18:55-18:57 It is not a back to the beginning. 18:57-19:00 It is not a repetition of what was. 19:00-19:03 The gospel message of the New Testament. 19:03-19:05 The good news of the New Testament. 19:05-19:08 That the equilibrium lost in this world will eventually be restored to Christ. 19:08-19:11 And in Christ, the new creation. 19:11-19:18 The lost in this world will eventually be restored to Christ and in Christ has already been restored in Him. 19:18-19:22 And then many scriptures, inner stories in this form. 19:22-19:26 For example, Jesus' parable. 19:26-19:29 What comes to mind? 19:29-19:32 The parable of the son is the classic example. 19:32-19:35 There are many others as well, but that will be the classic. 19:35-19:38 The story being a tome tells the father to drop dead. 19:38-19:42 What's going on there into the far country and a return. 19:42-19:47 Karl Barth speaks of resurrectionary members of the homecoming of the Son of Man. 19:47-19:52 There's a quote from Rowan Williams, a very, very interesting theologian. 19:52-19:57 He's actually high respect for T.F. Torrance, I know, but it doesn't really come from that tradition. 19:57-20:01 It comes not so much from the Reformed tradition, more Anglican and Russian Orthodox. 20:01-20:08 Church is where the son's journey from the father's heart into death and hell and back again is lived out. 20:08-20:10 It's not bad. 20:10-20:14 That's the source of our hope. 20:14-20:17 That's the story we're telling the world. 20:17-20:20 That's the story we're to live out in our own lives. Sorry. 20:20-20:22 You get that? 20:24-20:31 Now, music relies intensely on patterns of tension and resolution to generate meaning. 20:31-20:40 And because it does, it's very powerful in helping us sense the character of historical tensions and resolutions of the gospel. 20:40-20:49 It is a thought, is it not, that in worship, virtually every song you have ever sung, every hymn, 20:49-20:54 has this pattern built into it in some way at some level. 20:54-21:02 Music is embodying in sound something of the basic profile of the Christian story and many of its sub-stories. 21:02-21:10 Perhaps, perhaps potentially forming us, reforming us in its own kind of way. 21:10-21:15 Because many of us, if it's accidental, this kind of music, what we call Western tonal music, 21:15-21:22 which now dominates most European North American culture and many other places as well, 21:22-21:27 is it accidental that this has found such a ready place in Christian worship, 21:27-21:33 indeed that it had arisen largely in a Judeo-Christian setting? 21:33-21:41 I think we have to be careful of that argument because this kind of music really only arose in the 1600s 21:41-21:46 and it has come to be astonishingly successful. 21:46-21:51 You go to, I mean, Gregorian chant before then does not work according to tensions and resolutions in the same way. 21:51-21:57 Many other so-called world music or non-Western music will not operate according to this pattern. 21:57-22:00 So we have to be slightly careful not giving it too much kudos. 22:00-22:07 But I find it an enormously illuminating form of music when I'm thinking of theology and theology of a hope in particular. 22:07-22:11 Let's just highlight two features of this music. 22:11-22:19 It can't be rushed, nevertheless it pulls you forward and pulls you in. 22:19-22:21 Let's just look at each of those. 22:21-22:23 It can't be rushed. 22:23-22:26 You can't rush through it. 22:26-22:27 Look at this Gershwin song. 22:27-22:34 Yeah, I suppose you can sing it a bit faster, but it won't be long before it sounds pretty ridiculous. 22:34-22:41 Can you imagine advertisement for I Got Rhythm which said, think of all the times you had listening to that song at the ordinary speed. 22:41-22:45 Think of all the time you've wasted listening to it and it takes three and a half minutes. 22:45-22:48 Here's a recording that takes only a minute. 22:48-22:52 Ten percent less time perhaps than on the market. 22:52-22:53 I don't know. 22:53-22:55 Would you buy it? 22:55-22:57 It's a bedrock fact about music. 22:57-23:03 It takes time to be what it is. 23:03-23:09 It takes time to be what it literally takes your time. 23:09-23:11 Now you could say, isn't it the same with literature? 23:11-23:15 Yes, but you can speed through a lot of literature. 23:15-23:18 Yeah, it is time dependent. 23:18-23:24 Music is intensely dependent on temporal patterns, exquisitely and carefully timed. 23:24-23:27 Certainly more than literature or the reading of literature. 23:27-23:31 Important as time is in both poetry and literature. 23:31-23:41 It engages with time in a kind of a very, very intense way and reminds us in a tense way that its meaning only comes in and with time. 23:41-23:42 A second sense of rush. 23:42-23:45 You can't rush over the tensions to the resolutions. 23:45-23:54 Suppose I say, well, here's the recording of the Gershwin, but all the slightly difficult chords taken out of it like that with no pauses, no delays, no slowing down. 23:54-23:57 In fact, let's not go away in the middle. 23:57-23:59 Let's just stay home the whole time. 23:59-24:01 Let's never go out of the house. 24:01-24:03 It'll be a much shorter song. 24:03-24:05 Would you abide? 24:05-24:08 No, of course not. 24:08-24:13 To hear or listen to music is taken to a specific pattern of tensions and resolutions. 24:13-24:17 The meaning is discovered in the movement. 24:17-24:25 Resolutions have no power other than the power of being the resolutions' tensions. 24:25-24:30 So you can't rush it, you can't rush through it, you can't rush over it. 24:30-24:35 Seems to me this is very, very basic to scripture, indeed to scripture as a whole. 24:35-24:41 But to draw out the resonance, let's just home in, which I find especially useful on just one week in the Christian year. 24:41-24:45 Holy week, Palm Sunday to Easter day. 24:45-24:52 Now, my own tradition, the Anglican tradition and some others, it's insisted, and here I think rightly, 24:52-25:00 that the only way this extraordinary narrative, well not the only way, perhaps the best way, it's not the only way, 25:00-25:07 the best way this extraordinary narrative will yield its meaning is quite simply if we let it. 25:07-25:12 And that means playing the events, so to speak, at their original speed. 25:12-25:16 God's speed, not ours. 25:16-25:23 Living in and through the events day by day, the grieving farewells, the shameful betrayal, 25:23-25:31 the shuddering fear in the garden, the stretched out day of torture, and the ecstatic daybreak on Sunday. 25:31-25:36 By refusing to rush through it, we learn God's speed. 25:36-25:43 We learn, you could say, not to control time, but to live in it, God's time. 25:43-25:49 By refusing to skip over these dark days, of course, we learn not to rush our time, 25:49-25:53 but to be led into the story's sense and power. 25:53-25:58 I'm not saying that's the only way to live through a holy week, 25:58-26:04 and of course I am not saying that we need to repeat the crucifixion, I'm not saying that. 26:04-26:11 I'm saying it isn't as interesting that in the Gospel things radically slow down when it comes to Passion Week, 26:11-26:16 and it won't rush through this. You are taken through this story as a participant. 26:16-26:21 Like, yes, with commentaries from the outside, but you're taken right inside it. 26:21-26:26 I'll come back to that point, because it's a particularly interesting one later on, I think. 26:26-26:32 The second part of this was, nevertheless, music pulls you forward and pulls you in. 26:32-26:39 Sure, it can't be rushed, but that doesn't mean it's like watching paint dry. 26:39-26:41 No, it keeps your interest. 26:41-26:48 So that when you hear this, you notice I'm leaning forward, I'm made to want the next sound. 26:48-26:51 There is, so to speak, a tug from the future. 26:51-26:55 We talk about people being on the edge of their seat. 26:55-27:02 Music pulls you in, as I said before, to a dynamic of desire, a dynamic of hopefulness. 27:02-27:07 And that's one of the reasons I think music has become so central in Christian worship. 27:07-27:10 There is a striving for completeness, for closure. 27:10-27:19 You actually, some of you heard the name of Jurgen Moltmann, whose best book, I think, was Theology of Hope, probably. 27:19-27:24 He gained a lot of inspiration from a neo-Marxist writer called Ernst Bloch, 27:24-27:31 who himself got a lot of inspiration from music, so there's actually this musical thread working in Timortman. 27:31-27:33 I think we need to be careful. 27:33-27:39 I'm not saying that because of this, music necessarily makes you hopeful. 27:39-27:45 No, if you're going to be hopeful in the Christian sense, you have to have something to be hopeful in, 27:45-27:47 because of what's happened in Christ. 27:47-27:54 But it's introducing you into a pattern of hopefulness, a dynamic of hopefulness, 27:54-28:08 that when, so to speak, injected into a Christian setting, can be extraordinarily powerful in, what, reinforcing, intensifying the hope of the Gospel. 28:08-28:11 So there's something to think about. 28:11-28:19 Let's just explore the shape of this hope a little further by going surfing, thinking in waves. 28:19-28:26 We're looking at just one piece here, which, this is a very good keyboard, by the way, as a keyboard. 28:26-28:28 It's not quite as good as a piano. 28:28-28:35 So I'll do my best with this piece, which is written by Schopper, and keyboards weren't invented in this time. 28:58-29:04 Now that piece is made up of many, many different layers. 29:04-29:08 Not just layers of notes, but layers of meter. 29:08-29:13 Meter is the name for the pattern of beats that underline music. 29:13-29:20 When you tap your feet to music, you're tapping to meter. 29:20-29:24 When you dance a waltz, it's in threes, right? You know that? 29:24-29:27 And your movements are in threes. That's to meter. 29:27-29:32 When a conductor conducts an orchestra, they conduct the meter. 29:32-29:36 They don't conduct the rhythm, because the rhythm's on top and can be very complex. 29:36-29:40 The meter is the basic beat underneath. At least that's the idea with conductors. 29:40-29:46 It seems the more they get paid these days, the less they actually conduct what they're meant to conduct and what the players want. 29:46-29:51 But what the players want is a clear beat, by which they mean a clear meter. 29:51-29:54 The pattern of beats underline music. 29:54-29:56 Let's look at meter a little bit more. 29:56-30:00 In this piece, the main beats of meter are beautifully laid out with a melody. 30:05-30:08 That's the meter. 30:08-30:10 Between each of those little beats, you've got lots of little notes. 30:13-30:16 And those notes are not actually of the same strength. 30:16-30:21 They form a kind of wave, and they repeat themselves over and over again. 30:21-30:23 Those are the beats. 30:23-30:25 Here's the interesting point. 30:25-30:29 Those beats are arranged, are not all the same strength. 30:29-30:31 They're arranged in fours. 30:31-30:40 So we have one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. 30:40-30:42 A wave of tension and resolution. 30:42-30:49 First beat's strong, second moves away, third and fourth lean towards the next one, and so on. 30:49-30:53 Not a straight line, it's a wave of tension and resolution. 30:53-30:59 And by time I can show you that the beats of that wave are not of the same strength, 30:59-31:03 but themselves create another wave of tension and resolution, 31:03-31:12 until eventually the whole piece has one enormous arc of tension and resolution over the top of it. 31:12-31:17 Because you say, "I'm not musical, I can't hear that sort of thing, it's far too subtle." 31:17-31:19 Oh yes you can. 31:31-31:34 It wouldn't just be a short piece if I stopped there. 31:34-31:38 You'd think, "Hey, hey, right? And why is that?" 31:38-31:39 Exactly. 31:39-31:41 But why? Don't stop. 31:41-31:48 Because I finished, well let's say, I finished there, that wave had been completed, 31:48-31:51 but you sensed that hadn't, and that hadn't, and that hadn't, and so on. 31:51-31:54 Don't let anyone ever tell you, you're not musical. 31:54-31:59 If that piece made any sense to you, you are hearing that. 31:59-32:01 You are hearing that arrangement. 32:01-32:03 That's what you're hearing. 32:03-32:05 So, you're musical. 32:05-32:07 Don't absent yourself at this stage. 32:07-32:11 I'm simply making explicit what you already know. 32:11-32:15 Indeed, you expect me to go on, and very significantly you say, 32:15-32:18 "You wanted me to go on, you desired more." 32:18-32:20 I'll come back to that. 32:20-32:25 Anyhow, this basic pattern applies to 99% of Western music, 32:25-32:28 from Bach to Brahms, Wagner to Westlife, R.E.M. to M&M. 32:28-32:32 Without this matrix of waves, music would make no sense. 32:32-32:34 Now the key point is this. 32:34-32:39 Every downbeat kicks forward an upbeat on another level. 32:39-32:48 Those two downbeats at this level propel the upper waves forward. 32:48-32:59 Every return closes and opens, completes and extends, 32:59-33:05 resolves and intensifies at the same time. 33:05-33:09 And that's how you're pulled forward and pulled in. 33:09-33:13 Or to put it another way, as long as you think on many levels, 33:13-33:15 there's always hope. 33:15-33:17 You with me? 33:17-33:21 Think on one level and hope dies. 33:21-33:24 You'll see straight away that music builds these patterns, 33:24-33:30 that music's temporality, its time-ladenness is not linear, 33:30-33:32 but nor is it circular. 33:32-33:36 Music helps us out of that false polarity we often think, 33:36-33:39 of linear time versus circular time. 33:39-33:42 Music shows us multilevel time. 33:42-33:47 It explodes the common assumption that there are only two types of time. 33:47-33:52 It's directional, yes, but it's multistoreyed. 33:52-33:54 Now, to explain that a little bit further, 33:54-33:57 what happens if we read scripture through this dynamic? 33:57-33:59 We find, I think, that the God of the scriptures, 33:59-34:02 the Bible moves not just in mysterious ways, 34:02-34:05 but in mysterious waves. 34:05-34:07 Thank you, it took a long time to think of that. 34:07-34:08 Yeah, okay. 34:08-34:13 God pulls people forward and pulls them in 34:13-34:17 by inviting them to live on more than one level. 34:17-34:18 Let's look at that a little bit more closely, 34:18-34:21 with the headings I put at the bottom there. 34:21-34:27 The fulfilments of promises or prophecies intensify hope. 34:27-34:28 Why? 34:28-34:31 Because the fulfilments are felt to be incomplete. 34:31-34:34 Just think of all those promises, indeed prophecies as well, 34:34-34:37 but promises in the Old Testament. 34:37-34:39 The promise of Genesis 12, for instance, 34:39-34:41 the promise to Abraham that he's going to be shown a land, 34:41-34:44 he'll be blessed and the first of a great nation, 34:44-34:48 and in time, the one through whom all the families of the earth will be blessed. 34:48-34:54 Within Genesis, of course, that only partly becomes true. 34:54-34:56 The blessing of the nations begins, 34:56-34:59 yes, when Jacob brings blessing to Laban, 34:59-35:02 rather, Joseph to Potiphar and indeed Jacob to Pharaoh, 35:02-35:05 but it's all very partial and provisional. 35:05-35:07 Does that kill the hope? 35:07-35:09 By no means. 35:09-35:17 The fulfilments that do come spur them on to hope all the more and for more. 35:17-35:20 So we find the Abraham promise of the blessing of the nations 35:20-35:25 repeated four more times in Genesis. 35:25-35:27 Because the fulfilments then are felt to be incomplete. 35:27-35:35 Next, because the fulfilments are believed to anticipate a final fulfilment. 35:35-35:40 Take Amos and the day of the Lord, the day of judgment, 35:40-35:41 not just Amos but almost any of the prophets, 35:41-35:45 they speak of a cataclysmic judgment. 35:45-35:46 What happens? 35:46-35:48 There is a cataclysmic judgment, 35:48-35:51 it comes with the invasion of the nation, whatever, 35:51-35:53 but we find what happens afterwards, 35:53-35:56 they then start talking about another cataclysmic judgment 35:56-35:58 that will be even greater eventually. 35:58-36:01 The fulfilments, so to speak, that do come, 36:01-36:05 anticipate the final fulfilment. 36:05-36:08 Now let's go into the Apostle Paul in Romans, 36:08-36:12 where we find Christ is the central resolution, 36:12-36:17 gathering up the multiple hopes and implications of the story of Israel, 36:17-36:22 arching back to Abraham, to the promise given to Abraham. 36:22-36:25 The death and resurrection of Jesus, 36:25-36:30 in those events God has done what he always said he would do. 36:30-36:33 He's going to give Abraham a worldwide family 36:33-36:37 and dealing with a curse that hinders the purpose of the blessing of the nations. 36:37-36:41 But does this deflate hope? 36:41-36:45 Paul make an ointment by no means, right? 36:45-36:49 No, this very fulfilment in Christ 36:49-36:54 intensifies and enriches the promise originally made to Abraham. 36:54-36:59 So now, Paul says, you can look forward to an even greater, 36:59-37:02 final fulfilment of the promise to Abraham. 37:02-37:06 In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, 37:06-37:08 the ultimate blessing of the nations. 37:08-37:14 So Paul urges his hearers to hope all the more, for more. 37:14-37:18 Romans 9, 10 and 11, three of the most difficult chapters 37:18-37:21 in the New Testament, people think. 37:21-37:24 And of course there are some intractable issues there. 37:24-37:27 But you'll find it's massively clarified 37:27-37:32 and you can begin to see it in the context of the rest of the chapters 37:32-37:36 so much more clearly when you think about this kind of pattern. 37:36-37:41 What I think Paul is saying to a mixed congregation of Jew and Gentile is, 37:41-37:45 if you stay on the one level, hope dies. 37:45-37:49 Because you think every promise has to have just the one fulfilment. 37:49-37:54 If you're always thinking of the upper level, hope will not die. 37:54-37:59 And there's still hope for the Jews, still hope for Israel. 37:59-38:05 The fulfilments of the prophecies intensify hope. 38:05-38:08 I think that's what Paul is doing over and over again. 38:08-38:11 I think he's in all sorts of other ways as well, but anyhow. 38:11-38:16 Now the problem is, many people want to live on the flat. 38:16-38:19 You can go to piano competitions, as I hinted earlier, 38:19-38:23 and you hear this piece played by 14 year olds like this. 38:23-38:39 The only thing you're hoping for is that it's going to finish quite quickly. 38:39-38:41 From mummy and daddy, you think, "Oh, it's absolutely wonderful," 38:41-38:43 and the rest think, "Oh, sort of, yeah. 38:43-38:46 Okay, have I got to listen to this 30 times over?" 38:46-38:48 Until someone comes along. 38:48-39:04 Do you want me to go on? 39:04-39:07 You see? You want more. 39:07-39:12 Now, I've opened up the piece in all its multi-storied wonder, 39:12-39:15 because I'm highlighting these wave resolutions. 39:15-39:20 I'm drawing out a melody that has its own tension and resolution shape. 39:20-39:22 So if you're not musical, you think you're not musical, 39:22-39:25 you heard the difference between those two, you're musical, 39:25-39:28 and you can hear those waves. 39:28-39:33 And indeed, you want more. You want more. 39:33-39:37 Think of the kind of worship that's like that, 39:37-39:39 you see, just the kind of routine performance 39:39-39:43 that's never set in any kind of larger context of hope, 39:43-39:47 or indeed, dare I say, in services where you're certainly not hoping for more, 39:47-39:53 you're hoping that, "Well, when will he ever stop?" 39:53-39:57 So the secret, so to speak, or the goisiers' worship that you don't want to stop. 39:57-40:00 I mean, what's the basic cry of the people of God? 40:00-40:04 "No, don't stop there. Don't stop there." 40:04-40:08 When you're caught up in "there," there's nothing to, you know, 40:08-40:11 you have to stop there, you're caught up in waves that are not yet complete. 40:11-40:15 See, don't stop there, Lord, and I want to be part of that. 40:15-40:19 That's the longing of the people of God, when things don't go stale. 40:19-40:24 Dare I say it, the waves of reading the Bible, like that as well, 40:24-40:27 certain, I say it with all due, certain kinds of fundamentalism, 40:27-40:30 the presence of which, see, promise is only having the one fulfillment. 40:30-40:33 Please, please, when's the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham? 40:33-40:36 There, there, or there, or there? The answer, yes. 40:36-40:40 All of them together, and the final one. 40:40-40:43 Do you see? You can only think of that in multi-levels. 40:43-40:46 You can't think about it in a straight line. How can you use a straight line to describe that? 40:46-40:53 But music, the pulsing of music gives you that in the oral experience. 40:53-40:57 And actually, just to be able to, just, and this is the end, when I think about Apostle Paul, 40:57-41:01 to the Ephesians, you are so tiny, 41:01-41:03 there's valuable groups of Christians, 41:03-41:08 are part of God's astounding plan to bring unity, all things, in heaven and earth unto Christ. 41:08-41:11 What's he doing? Think of the many levels. 41:11-41:15 To the Colossians, you are the body of Christ, the Christ in whom, through, and whom, 41:15-41:17 and for whom all things have been created and reconciled. 41:17-41:21 And that's the core of what he calls the hope promised by the Gospel. 41:21-41:26 You tiny little people, don't think of yourself, 41:26-41:28 you are part of something absolutely enormous. 41:28-41:33 You tiny eccentric Scottish and American people, 41:33-41:37 in furbush, in the windy day. 41:37-41:41 How ridiculous, how eccentrically stupid. 41:41-41:46 You are part of the great ways of God's purposes. 41:46-41:52 His mammoth book, Charles Taylor, secular age, far too big a book, frankly. 41:52-41:57 There's a very good digested economy version, written by Jamie Smith, 41:57-42:01 which is a fantastic commentary on this, which is a very important book, 42:01-42:04 but he never edited it, I think he just, out it came. 42:04-42:08 But he argues that in pre-modern Christianity, 42:08-42:11 he's thinking medieval Christianity and before, ancient Christmastime, 42:11-42:13 what he calls ordinary times, 42:13-42:17 our work, rest and play, will organize according to the story of the world 42:17-42:19 from creation to re-creation. 42:19-42:25 Our lives only made sense in the light of these higher times. 42:25-42:27 Interesting phrase, isn't it? 42:27-42:33 These higher times gathered and make sense of our ordinary times. 42:33-42:36 In modernity, he says, in the modern age, 42:36-42:39 time becomes the empty container, the inert receptacle. 42:39-42:41 Tom Torrance. 42:41-42:44 What we do is irrelevant to when we do it. 42:44-42:47 Time is just ours to shape, ours to measure and control. 42:47-42:49 It is answerable only to our bidding. 42:49-42:53 There is no other time than the time we construct. 42:53-42:57 The result, he says, has been the creation of a tight ordered time environment. 42:57-43:01 We have constructed an environment in which we live in a uniform, 43:01-43:05 secular time, which we try to measure and control in order to get things done. 43:05-43:14 It occludes all higher times, makes them even hard to conceive. 43:14-43:18 Not if you've read scripture through music. 43:18-43:21 Music does not make them hard to conceive. 43:21-43:29 The dynamic of music is the dynamic of being invited into, baptized into higher times. 43:29-43:31 So what kind of time do we inhabit? 43:31-43:35 Are we living on this lower level, driven by the calendar alone, 43:35-43:41 by the sheer pounding demands of our job, string of deadlines, whatever it is? 43:41-43:49 The kind of time devoid of hope that hasn't yet been gathered into this great eschatological hope. 43:49-43:54 The Gospel is in the judgment that there is always a higher rhythm, a higher level. 43:54-43:58 Eugene Peterson, a colloquial translation of Matthew 11. 43:58-44:01 Are you tired, worn out, burn out on religion? 44:01-44:04 Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life. 44:04-44:06 I'll show you how to take a real rest. 44:06-44:08 Walk with me and work with me. 44:08-44:14 Watch I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. 44:14-44:19 Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. 44:23-44:28 Okay, last section. I'm not going to over-keep you, but you can see this. 44:28-44:31 So we went on to page 3 there, but you got there, didn't you? Yeah. 44:31-44:34 Okay, the depth of hope. 44:34-44:43 I said that music can't be rushed, yet it pulls you in and pulls us forward. 44:43-44:49 That will never be clear, that when our sense that it can't be rushed is strongest, 44:49-44:53 namely in the presence of delay. 44:53-44:58 Delay that we have not chosen, delay that's been imposed on us. 44:58-45:03 Delay that seems to stifle hope, rob it of its charge. 45:03-45:09 A delay is very common in music when an expectation is aroused, 45:09-45:14 but the fulfillment is deferred, held back in some way. 45:14-45:18 This is actually one of the main ways in which emotion is generated through music. 45:18-45:23 It produces expectations that delay, temporally arrested, 45:23-45:26 which sets off a kind of emotional charge in us. 45:26-45:31 Anyhow, back to our very simple two-note chord. 45:31-45:36 That's an immediate resolution, right? 45:36-45:40 That's the tension and our roll-saw, but I can do... 45:45-45:48 Shall we resolve? No. 45:48-45:55 Shall we resolve? Or not? 45:55-46:01 You get this with church organists when the minister doesn't turn up in time. 46:01-46:05 Or in England when he's running around hundreds of parishes, 46:05-46:08 "Oh, help!" and he doesn't come and you have to do all this kind of waffle, 46:08-46:13 but never resolving, and eventually he gets there and he puts on his cazzies, 46:13-46:17 and he's really ready to go, and at last we can do that. 46:17-46:19 That's deferred gratification. 46:19-46:24 Just think about your poor organist or choir master who has to do all this deferred gratification, 46:24-46:27 just to put up with your lateness. 46:27-46:30 Deferred gratification. Here's another interesting example. 46:30-46:33 This is, in other words, the stretching of that resolution. 46:33-46:36 Another fascinating example from Beethoven. 46:40-46:43 Do you know this piece? What's it called? 46:43-46:47 It's a piece you play just before giving up the piano, right? 46:47-46:52 It's a very clever piece. 46:52-46:59 Because at this point he could just do that. 46:59-47:03 And then everything would be symmetrical. 47:03-47:06 2s, 4s, 8s, 16s, 32s, everything would just line up. 47:06-47:09 But he's Beethoven and he's a great composer. 47:18-47:21 He adds a bar in there deferred gratification. 47:21-47:23 That's why you gave up the piano. 47:23-47:25 It's a hard piece. 47:25-47:29 It's not technically hard, but it's metrically irregular and hard, 47:29-47:31 and that's what makes you wait. 47:31-47:33 Another example a little later. 47:33-47:35 Brahms is a fascinating example. 47:35-47:40 Second Symphony, second movement, starts like this. 47:49-47:52 That's the key chord, but he's only passing through. 47:52-47:54 That's home. 47:54-47:57 There's home, but it's on a weak beat, so it's not really. 47:57-48:03 So we want to resolve home here. 48:05-48:06 Now. 48:06-48:08 Here. 48:08-48:10 Now. 48:10-48:14 Where are we? 48:14-48:18 He's not letting you go home. 48:18-48:20 We haven't even had home yet. 48:24-48:25 Surely here. 48:25-48:28 Now. 48:28-48:29 Right? 48:29-48:34 He never has the home key chord until the very end. 48:34-48:37 So the whole of that movement, which is about 11 minutes, 48:37-48:40 is an exercise in delayed gratification. 48:40-48:42 The whole thing. 48:42-48:44 I mentioned Wagner earlier. 48:44-48:48 His great opera, Tristan and his "Solde", plays the same game on you. 48:48-48:52 It never resolves until the last chord, it's about four hours. 48:52-48:56 And the whole point of the piece is unfulfilled yearning. 48:56-48:59 The whole thing. Yearning that never finds closure. 48:59-49:03 Another example, something about jazz earlier, 49:03-49:05 John Coltrane, "Love Supreme", 49:05-49:08 is a very famous passage with, I think it's about 10 minutes. 49:08-49:12 He builds up this huge expectation of closure, which doesn't come. 49:12-49:14 So it eventually comes to the next movement, 49:14-49:17 and it's called, interestingly, the next movement, "Resolution". 49:17-49:23 The delay, delay of course is a very common theme in scripture. 49:23-49:28 A sense among the writers that things are being held back in some manner. 49:28-49:31 The final fulfilment of God's purposes. 49:31-49:33 How long, oh Lord? 49:33-49:35 Not just the wail of the Psalmist, 49:35-49:38 but the howl of God's people over and over again, 49:38-49:42 down the disillusioned years of Israel's history. 49:42-49:45 When will Yahweh put the world to right? 49:45-49:52 How can we go on hoping in that midst of unresolved dissonance? 49:52-49:57 John Bell sets Psalm 88, do you know that setting? 49:57-49:59 John Bell of course, you know him too, the IONA community. 49:59-50:04 He sets Psalm 88, which is the psalm that does not end on an upbeat, anything but. 50:04-50:08 A huge howl against injustice, and it just stops. 50:08-50:13 So he sets it, and it finishes with a chord something like that, 50:13-50:16 and there's little asterisks beside that chord going down to the bottom that says, 50:16-50:18 "This is not a misprint." 50:18-50:21 That's how he ends the setting of Psalm 88. 50:21-50:26 So he doesn't do, "Ah, glory be to God, this is crazy." 50:26-50:29 Not at that point, not at that point. 50:29-50:33 Many of our congregations are precisely at that point. 50:33-50:37 Now that needs to be set, I know, in a larger hope. 50:37-50:41 But there needs to be a delay, so to speak, or a recognition of delay. 50:41-50:43 You can see what I'm getting at here. 50:43-50:48 The question of delay reaches an agonising climax at the cross, 50:48-50:52 and the most interesting person, one of the most interesting people, 50:52-50:55 to think about here is Mary Magdalene. 50:55-51:00 She waits. 51:00-51:04 Why does she wait? 51:04-51:10 Because she knows whatever is going on here, it can't be rushed through or rushed over. 51:10-51:15 She lives in and with delay. 51:15-51:19 I think we're touching on something very important here. 51:19-51:24 We will only hear the story of Good Friday to Easter, Friday to Sunday, 51:24-51:29 if we hear it from the inside, from the Mary Magdalene perspective, 51:29-51:32 as well as the outside. Let me explain that. 51:32-51:38 From the outside, hearing the story of the cross, Holy Saturday, Easter, 51:38-51:44 of course, we stand outside, we know how it's going to end. 51:44-51:49 So we will tend to look back on those events with hindsight. 51:49-51:53 That is certainly a perspective the New Testament gives us. 51:53-51:56 Paul, for instance, is always doing that. 51:56-52:00 Right, he's giving you the complete picture. 52:00-52:04 But isn't it interesting that the New Testament, especially in the Gospels, 52:04-52:11 also gives you the inside story, from the perspective of those who live through it, 52:11-52:16 without knowing the ending, without knowing the ending. 52:16-52:22 So Friday becomes a catastrophic day, this self-proclaimed Messiah, 52:22-52:27 a day devoid of victory, a day of shredded hopes, drained of goodness. 52:27-52:33 Why are we given the inside story as well as the outside story? 52:33-52:37 I think to impress upon us that the healing of the world is achieved 52:37-52:42 in this unexpected, puzzling and horrific way. 52:42-52:49 This is Rembrandt from the three crosses, 1653. 52:49-52:56 You notice the divine light beam falling from above does nothing to alleviate the horror, 52:56-52:59 but renders it all the harsher. 52:59-53:03 You see that? It's not the soothing glow that says it's really alright. 53:03-53:07 Uh-uh, not at this point. 53:07-53:12 Now, Easter, of course, throws its light on Friday. 53:12-53:16 But it's not the soothing glow so much as a white lie that exposes the rupture, 53:16-53:22 or disrupture, between Creator and creature, 53:22-53:25 the depths to which the human creature has sunk. 53:25-53:29 This, remember, is how God disarms the principalities and powers, 53:29-53:33 Colossians 2. This is how God outstrips human wisdom. 53:33-53:39 This is how it is finished, John 19. 53:39-53:44 W.B. Yeats, lines like this, can't help thinking about the disconnection. 53:44-53:48 "Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement, 53:48-53:55 for nothing can be so or whole that has had integrity that has not been rent." 53:55-54:01 This is the, you were talking, the undoing and the redoing. 54:01-54:05 The undoing. We are undone in every sense at the cross. 54:05-54:07 Isn't that extraordinary language? 54:07-54:14 Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement. 54:14-54:17 And it was a place of excrement. 54:17-54:20 If we leap over this place to Sunday too quickly, 54:20-54:24 in attempt to seize resolution without tension, 54:24-54:26 ah, we know how it's all going to end. 54:26-54:31 We risk losing the very core of what we are going to call good news. 54:31-54:34 A phrase also I've used, if it's anybody who helps you, 54:34-54:39 "Hope digs deep to the very depths." 54:39-54:41 Otherwise it's just sentimentality. 54:41-54:43 It's just sentimentality. 54:43-54:47 Otherwise that congregation who was singing in the South African church, 54:47-54:50 they're just escapists. This is sentimental. 54:50-54:56 They don't believe God really came into this situation. And worse. And worse. 54:56-55:00 And that's the stunning, the burden of this, I think, stunning book still, 55:00-55:03 by Alan Lewis, who I mentioned earlier on. 55:03-55:05 Irish theologian taught in the States, 55:05-55:12 battled for many years with this sudden and vicious cancer. 55:12-55:18 "We must give Good Friday the space to be itself in all its horror, 55:18-55:24 and give Easter space to be the overwhelming, irreversible event it was." 55:24-55:29 I'm quoting him there. Something to explore. 55:29-55:33 But for another reason we need to stay with Mary Magdalene, 55:33-55:35 links up with the second point I made. 55:35-55:38 She is pulled forward and pulled in. 55:38-55:41 She gazes at this dying and this death. 55:41-55:44 She makes her way to the tomb and there she stays, 55:44-55:48 looking from afar off, I think is the phrase of Mark, isn't it, Matthew? 55:48-55:51 Aching with disillusionment, perhaps? 55:51-55:54 Hope thread bare, but he's still there. 55:54-55:56 What keeps her there? 55:56-56:03 We're not told, but surely at the Frades, it's the memory of what Jesus did for her. 56:03-56:06 Liberating from horrific disease. 56:06-56:11 Freeing her from those dark years of insanity. 56:11-56:13 Let me put that musically. 56:13-56:17 Even though many waves had come crashing down, 56:17-56:22 she sensed a bigger, higher wave of which her healing was a part. 56:22-56:29 A huge liberating wave that hadn't yet reached its fulfillment. 56:29-56:35 So the silence of Holy Saturday for her is not an empty silence. 56:35-56:38 It's still full of promise. 56:38-56:41 It's still full of promise. She dares to believe. 56:41-56:44 Alanis Morozet, a rather strange Canadian singer, 56:44-56:47 one of her songs, the conflicts, the craziness and the sound of pretenses, 56:47-56:50 falling all around, all around. 56:50-56:54 And then the music suddenly stops. 56:54-56:59 "Why are you so petrified of silence?" She goes on to sing. 56:59-57:04 Why are we so petrified of silence? Because we think nothing happens in silence. 57:04-57:09 But music's waves continue in silence. 57:17-57:21 Those are not empty. So I've set up a hope. 57:26-57:31 You've jumped the resolution. You've jumped the right resolution. 57:31-57:38 Music reminds us that delay, even silent delay, need to be empty. 57:38-57:42 Of course I'm not, for a minute, trying to say delay's always good for you or wonderful. 57:42-57:44 I'm not saying that. Of course not. 57:44-57:51 But I'm saying the challenge is, is it not? The challenge is to believe that 57:51-57:58 when nothing seems to be happening, the promise still stands and God is still active. 57:58-58:02 Have you done hospital chaplaincy work here? I'm sure. 58:02-58:05 Isn't it interesting? It's just kind of obvious to me. 58:05-58:11 After many, many years, what are chaplain doing in hospital most of the time? 58:11-58:13 Helping people wait. 58:13-58:21 When I was in Seattle once, I worked with some pastors and musicians on music and worship. 58:21-58:26 I think I music in the context of worship that they'd be planning. 58:26-58:30 And we sent them out in this class. We sent them out in groups, different parts of Seattle. 58:30-58:35 And so we want you to go to such and such a place, just observe, just listen, just be attentive. 58:35-58:40 And then come back and then design a worship service that takes account of that in some way. 58:40-58:43 And one group went to the hospital, the local big general hospital. 58:43-58:45 And said, "So what did you see?" 58:45-58:47 "Well, we went to the main garden concourse." 58:47-58:48 I said, "What did you see?" 58:48-58:51 "We saw a lot of people waiting." 58:51-58:52 "Right." 58:52-58:53 "Then what did you do?" 58:53-58:58 "Well, we passed a ward and saw a lot of relatives." 58:58-59:00 "And they were waiting to get in." 59:00-59:02 "Oh, right." 59:02-59:05 "And we looked into the wards. What were the patients doing?" 59:05-59:08 "They were being patient." 59:08-59:11 Of course there's lots of activity in hospitals. 59:11-59:14 It's the medical profession, the care, I'm not suggesting they all just hang around. 59:14-59:19 In terms of those who receive it, it's really about waiting. 59:19-59:22 You wait for results. You wait for the operation. You wait for this. 59:22-59:27 Hospital chaplain said, "Whatever else it's about, is it not helping people somehow to believe?" 59:27-59:34 That when nothing seems to be happening, the ways of the promise are still there. 59:34-59:37 My brother is a chronic schizophrenic. 59:37-59:42 Still severely ill and was in Carstairs for 17 years. 59:42-59:49 When I used to visit him in Carstairs, the kind of worst days of foggy, damp blankness, 59:49-59:53 that's the only way I can describe it, and faces of blankness. 59:53-59:56 I remember once being kind of overwhelmed by this. 59:56-01:00:04 Indeed I said to one of the nurses there, "How do you maintain any kind of hope in this environment?" 01:00:04-01:00:08 He scolded me, said, "There's always hope." 01:00:08-01:00:13 I went once in one of the vans that takes you around to different wards. 01:00:13-01:00:16 There was a man next to me we got chatting the way you do. 01:00:16-01:00:22 He heard his son was a chronic schizophrenic in one of the wards. 01:00:22-01:00:26 I said, "You're on your..." because he talked about his wife. 01:00:26-01:00:32 "No, she can't come in. She's so ashamed. She's not going to come anywhere near here." 01:00:32-01:00:35 So what keeps you coming here? I don't know. 01:00:35-01:00:38 Just this blankness. 01:00:38-01:00:47 But then, I'm glad to say, very often, as I looked at all that, into that such a... 01:00:47-01:00:54 that the God of Jesus Christ raised Jesus from even this, 01:00:54-01:00:59 and will one day make something, don't ask me how, out of even this. 01:00:59-01:01:02 If you ask me to make sense of that, now I can't make sense of that. 01:01:02-01:01:04 You all know this and much worse, this sort of thing. 01:01:04-01:01:06 I can't make sense of that. 01:01:06-01:01:10 No, but I can set it in the context of the waves. 01:01:10-01:01:13 And music actually often reminds me of just that. 01:01:13-01:01:15 Of just that. 01:01:15-01:01:18 That's what I think about. 01:01:18-01:01:24 I remember another horrific experience I had taking the funeral of a suicide. 01:01:24-01:01:30 She was 17, 18, hung herself outside her own bedroom. 01:01:30-01:01:35 I got to know the parents very well. I knew them anyhow very well. 01:01:35-01:01:38 And I remember visiting about two or three weeks after, 01:01:38-01:01:44 and the mother is saying to me, "Jeremy, the only thing that actually makes any sense to me now 01:01:44-01:01:48 is music." 01:01:48-01:01:52 And I didn't quiz her on that. I thought, "What does that really mean?" 01:01:52-01:01:57 It means here, where her past made no sense, her future made no sense, 01:01:57-01:02:02 here was something in time that made some kind of sense, 01:02:02-01:02:06 and that had some kind of tension leading to some kind of resolution, 01:02:06-01:02:08 right in the midst of her life. 01:02:08-01:02:11 She couldn't go to church at that time either, she just couldn't do that. 01:02:11-01:02:15 So in the midst of this blank, blank, blank world. 01:02:15-01:02:17 You know what I mean by blank, don't you? 01:02:17-01:02:20 Blank, hopeless world. 01:02:20-01:02:23 That was the thing that held her, actually. 01:02:23-01:02:29 I know this can be an idolatry of music, you know what I'm saying, of course. 01:02:29-01:02:34 It's got to go further than that, but it was that at that point that held her. 01:02:34-01:02:39 So I think I'd just like to end actually a little bit quietly, if I may, 01:02:39-01:02:44 by playing a piece by a former student of mine who is currently 01:02:44-01:02:47 chaplain at Yale Divinity School called Maggie Dawn, 01:02:47-01:02:50 very good singer. 01:02:50-01:02:54 A number of years ago she wrote an arrangement of Psalm 40, 01:02:54-01:02:58 or at least this is based on Psalm 40, about waiting. 01:02:58-01:03:01 And it's a particularly interesting, I think quite clever piece, 01:03:01-01:03:06 because it begins just with those two notes, an open fifth, 01:03:06-01:03:11 absolutely no rhythm or meter at all, just those two notes. 01:03:11-01:03:17 Then she sings, I wait, and then gradually you hear a rhythm and a meter beginning. 01:03:17-01:03:23 So to speak, it's almost like those ways are gradually being discovered. 01:03:23-01:03:29 In the midst of what to begin with sounds just like blank, blank hopelessness. 01:03:29-01:03:34 It's an interesting painting of Mary. 01:03:50-01:04:02 I will wait for your peace to come to me. 01:04:02-01:04:13 I will wait for your peace to come to me. 01:04:13-01:04:19 And I'll see in the darkness. 01:04:19-01:04:25 And I'll wait without fear. 01:04:25-01:04:31 And I'll see in the darkness. 01:04:31-01:04:38 And I'll wait without fear. 01:04:51-01:05:02 I will wait for your peace to come to me. 01:05:02-01:05:11 I will wait for your peace to come to me. 01:05:11-01:05:17 And I'll see in the darkness. 01:05:17-01:05:22 And I'll wait without fear. 01:05:22-01:05:28 And I'll see in the darkness. 01:05:28-01:05:33 And I'll wait without fear. 01:06:02-01:06:15 I will wait for your peace to come to me. 01:06:15-01:06:25 I will wait for your peace to come to me. 01:06:25-01:06:32 And I'll see in the darkness. 01:06:32-01:06:36 And I'll wait without fear. 01:06:36-01:06:42 And I'll see in the darkness. 01:06:42-01:06:48 And I'll wait without fear. 01:06:48-01:06:58 I will wait for your peace to come to me. 01:06:58-01:07:02 I will wait. 01:07:02-01:07:10 Of course, with Mary, the wave hit the ground on that morning 01:07:10-01:07:12 when she hears this voice. 01:07:12-01:07:19 And that is, it's not just a general voice, it's her name. 01:07:19-01:07:25 So all that waiting, the big wave, or at least one of the very big waves 01:07:25-01:07:29 hits the ground on the third day. 01:07:29-01:07:34 Let's just have some quiet, I think, if we may. 01:08:01-01:08:12 Dear Father, we ask that especially if we're in some place of blankness 01:08:12-01:08:18 where nothing seems to be happening, 01:08:18-01:08:27 we ask that at this retreat you would charge the air again with hope, 01:08:27-01:08:31 that you would play again to us the music of the future 01:08:31-01:08:37 that has been begun in your Son, 01:08:37-01:08:43 and that by your Spirit you would improvise something wonderful in our lives 01:08:43-01:08:48 from this day forward. 01:08:48-01:08:57 We hold before you those who are waiting in fear, in pain, 01:08:57-01:09:04 with bewilderment, alone. 01:09:04-01:09:24 As you named Mary specifically, we name them in our hearts before you. 01:09:24-01:09:32 Work again in them and in us, the miracle of Easter Day and Pentecost. 01:09:32-01:09:35 In Christ's name, Amen.