God, Who Stretched the Spangled (Heavens) -- Catherine Cameron

 

This one gestated inside her for months, and that might have been necessary for Catherine Cameron to really capture something essential about creativity. When she looked up (see the image of the heavens here, as it was seen by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, released for us to see on 11 July 2022) and thought about “God Who Stretched the Spangled (Heavens)”, and evaluated herself and the others around her, Catherine marveled and bid God to instruct us mortals even more about what it means to mimic Him in creativity. Do we appreciate that finding Him in the world of science can be both a terrifying and a thrilling exercise in discovery? ‘Be real, real, careful out there!’, as someone has said. Approaching and actually contacting Him is an awesome thing, and to see and comprehend what He’s made – including each of us – should make you and me behave with great care, for we are in His image (Genesis 1:26-27; Exodus 9:6). Catherine Cameron makes us think about that.

 

Catherine shared that she was experiencing a creative renaissance in the mid-1960s – in a way she was growing in her likeness with God – when she wrote about Him who created, and found an urge to stretch human ingenuity ever closer toward Him. That’s a laudable goal. It was the space-race years, as one group of humans tried to reach the Moon before another group of humans might try to do the same. Catherine was nearing or right at 40 years of age (depending on which year she actually wrote ‘God, Who Stretched…’), and she responded, when asked about her creation, that she was hearkening back to her teenage years and the poetry she found herself contemplating then. The incongruity sometimes between the words and the music that believers were prompted to offer to Him just bothered Catherine. Should not both the lyrics and the melodious sounds flow in the same direction? She determined that that was her objective as a creative being. But her response would not be like an eruption, an explosion of innovation. Instead, it was more like a small flame that was kept alive for several months that caused her poetry to emerge in four verses, matching a tune that was ready and waiting for her words. (The tune she chose initially was the 1797 Austrian Hymn by Joseph Haydn; Holy Manna was another tune, written in 1825 by the Columbian Harmony, that is often paired today with Catherine’s words.) Catherine’s poetry in two of her verses (one and three) exalt God for the universe and the basic building block of life – the atom – and proclaim our aspirations to be like Him, even as we risk ‘life’s destruction’ (v.3) spurred by our own curiosity. Catherine seemed to accept that risk, while deploring some of our inventions, our ‘modern cities’ (v.2) that leave us empty as a people ‘lost to purpose and to meaning’. Self-indulgence is a trap, and perhaps that is what Catherine saw in so much of the everyday hubbub of modernity, a blur of people wrapped up in themselves and what they do to approach self-actualization. What about God-actualization? That seemed to be Catherine’s aim for our race in verse four – ‘honoring You’, so that ‘our goals and Yours are one’. If we see a ‘horizon beckon’, we should acknowledge that we’re seeing Him in the majesty of His handiwork. His symphony is abiding every day for us to see and hear.             

 

There are some 85 verses in the bible that speak about image, so consider them when you think about His creativity. Read them closely, and you can see without much effort that He’s the only one we should acknowledge with respect; no other images are acceptable (Exodus 20:4; Leviticus 26:1; Deuteronomy 5:8), and note how many times God says, as if through clenched teeth, ‘vile images’ (especially in Ezekiel). That is such a crucial part in knowing and relating to Him -- that each of us is His image-bearer (Romans 8:29), a responsibility with lots of gravity. It can also mean celebration, as Paul reminds us in that letter to the Romans. He’s the only one, and each of us is like Him in that image-ness, made to follow Him in renewal (see also 1 Corinthians 15:49, 2 Corinthians 3:8, and Colossians 1:15; 3:10). It’s admittedly hard to fathom, isn’t it? What a gift! Though I cannot completely grasp His creativity, it is like encountering a new discovery in science, something wondrous but also potentially pretty dangerous. Catherine included the ‘secrets of the atom…unimagined power’ in her 3^rd verse, hitting upon something very true. How dangerous is the atom today, or for those who probed it a century ago before they really understood radioactivity? Humans can get twisted sideways into various contortions, even without the radioactivity of an atom. Today is 9/11, the anniversary of a day 25 years ago when humans destroyed rather than created. It’s been something like 60 years since Catherine created her ode to God about us creating and trying to be more like Him who put this gene inside us. How do you think we’re doing? Go create. Watch out for the Destroyer, but know the Creator is greater.      

 

Read the story of the hymn here: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/history-of-hymns-god-who-stretched-the-spangled-heavens and here: https://hymninfo.com/songs/god-who-stretched-the-spangled-heavens

 

See information on the image here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Webb%27s_First_Deep_Field.jpg …This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA, ESA and CSA. Material from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA/CSA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if source material from other organizations is in use. …found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space

Only a Holy God -- Michael Farren, Jonny Robinson, Dustin Smith, Rich Thompson

They took their cues from what the seraphim had to say (see the image of two of them around the divine throne in this 14^th Century artwork, God Surrounded by Seraphim). The seraphim sang about a holy God (Isaiah 6), and Michael Farren, Jonny Robinson, Dustin Smith, and Rich Thompson thought about scoping that out some more. ‘In what ways is He holy?’, is the question they really wanted to answer. And so, they pursued their response with a set of still more questions, and the result of their interrogation was the title words of this song – “Only a Holy God”. What other beings do what He’s done, appear as He has, exert themselves the way He’s shown, or choose willingly to sacrifice the way He did? Why would such a unique being relate to us in all of these ways? He could be confounding to you if you really gotta have tangible, earthbound answers. This God doesn’t answer all my whys?, as Job discovered (Job 38-41). His only answer really is Himself, something that Jesus tried to tell a group of followers once (John 14:9).

 

These four musicians – Michael, Jonny, Dustin, and Rich (hereafter referred to as MJDR) – come from the City Alight music ministry in an Anglican church in Sydney, Australia, where they were engaged in 2016 in an ongoing project to develop songs that communicate bible truths via simple and yet meaningful lyrics and music. Each of the four verses of ‘Only a Holy God’ focuses on a different aspect of God’s character through three penetrating questions in each verse, answering each time with the song’s title words. True to their mission-vision, MJDR went straight to the bible as they began their quest; Isaiah’s vision gave them the spark they needed to launch their own exploration and portrayal of Him. They first centered on His authority over all creation, those in heaven and the earthbound ones, too – ‘hosts of heaven’, ‘king(s)’, and even the ‘darkness’. In verse two, they marveled at His ‘glory’, ‘beauty’, and ‘majesty’, and how he nevertheless rules with divine ‘justice’. His omnipotence, in verse three, might be terrifying to some because He can ‘consume like fire’, and yet He ‘can raise the dead’, underscoring that His omnipotence is infused not with a thirst for punishment, but rather invigoration of His image-bearers. Finally, His personal action to ‘rescue’ me (verse four) and draw me to Himself through ‘His only Son’ is so magnetic – who wouldn’t want to call such a One ‘Father’? Only a Holy God answers all 12 of MJDR’s questions. Are there others that could be asked? Certainly. And, we could then try looking at all the various rhetoric that God throws at Job’s feet, and answer Him with the same degree of humility. He’s already answered in the way that is most meaningful to me personally. He is the answer.

 

Does knowing He’s the answer make things simpler for me? Or, does it make my journey less rough? Honestly, Job still had to navigate through all the potholes and questions, and was still afflicted without really finding much solace. He just had to endure. Maybe that’s the point, in God’s plan. I don’t really discover Him without some pain; otherwise, He’s just a vending machine for my pleasure, which can be fickle. And, He’s not just sitting on a throne watching and waiting for my devotion. MJDR includes the most important part of knowing who He is. And that’s realizing that He decided to become like me, a human. And yet, He, though God, astounded His companions and enemies to become so very much more human and remain Divine simultaneously, in order to accomplish His purpose. He chose human pain and disappointment, invited rejection and suffering, and died in a way that was considered the worst a human could endure in the 1^st Century. Was he merely curious and passionate about going to the nth degree of human-ness? Why’d you do this, God? It’s a question that takes a lifetime – His and mine, joined together – to pursue. Musing about Him and myself is the point of life. That seems like what MJDR was doing for all of us.  

 

Read the story behind/comments about the song here: https://cornerstonerbc.com/worship/only-a-holy-god

 

Read about the CityAlight ministry in Australia here: About | CityAlight

 

See information on the image here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seraphim_-_Petites_Heures_de_Jean_de_Berry.jpg... This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. .. {{PD-1996}} – public domain in its source country on January 1, 1996 and in the United States… found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seraph

 

Praise to the Lord the Almighty -- Joachim Neander

 

Joachim Neander wrote this hymn that was published when he was 30 years old while he was in Bremen (see its flag here), and could it be that he knew he was dying of tuberculosis? Perhaps. It also would not have been unusual for Joachim to think of his destiny, and with whom he would be sharing eternity someday. Thoughts of one’s mortality might call forth the melancholy for some people, but evidently not in Joachim’s case. In one sense, he had already been wallowing in the depths earlier in his life, but then he stepped onto a higher plane. Could we say that no one was better prepared for what happened to Joachim in 1680, when he went home forever? With what he wrote over his short three decades of life, one might conclude that he was preparing during the last several years of life for what eventually happened; and, he recorded his thoughts for us to examine and prosper from centuries later. What would you want others to hear from you, years from now? 

 

It’s said that most of Joachim’s hymns were high praise works, including this one – Praise to the Lord, the Almighty – that resembles Psalm 103 in one important respect. Joachim must have felt as David did, that God whom he served deserved many more than one ‘praise the Lord’ phrase in his musical poem. Dozens of psalms contain praises to Him, but Psalm 103 has no less than seven throughout its 22 verses that are like bookends for what David had to share (three in vv. 1-2, and four in his concluding thoughts, vv. 20-22). (Only Psalm 135, with no less than 11 praises for the Lord in it, has more.) Could that be why Joachim’s hymn contains seven verses in its original form (though today’s hymnals may have just four of these verses), each beginning with a Praise to the Lord! ? Joachim’s bloodlines probably also helped him stay in touch with whom he should be extolling, for it’s said in several sources that Joachim came from multiple generations who wore the same name and were preachers, perhaps as many as four previous generations – his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great grandfather. So, when the youngest of these Joachims was coughing and suffering from tuberculosis (TB) at such a young age in the 1670s, perhaps he knew deep inside that his mortality was not some far-off prospect. It was, in fact, nearby. It’s not known what lead to Joachim’s illness, but his habit as a young man was to wander through the wilderness of the Dussel River valley, composing his music as he went exploring oftentimes through caves in the area; might this custom have been one way for him to isolate himself from others, avoid enclosed areas and the increased vulnerability to this infectious malady? He reportedly held services in the open spaces of this valley as a pastor, a scene that also reminded him of God’s creative nature, giving him very obvious stimuli to praise Him. The valley where he walked was actually later named for him, in German called Neanderthal (Neander valley). Bones later found there in the 19^th Century were believed initially to be of an early hominid – aka proto-human. That’s another story…Thank God that the Neander we can appreciate from the 17^th Century left something more significant than bones for us to consider!

 

Joachim was also a fellow that had a wake-up call as a young man. He reportedly ridiculed preachers and worshipping people as a teenager, but heard one preacher (Theodore Under-Eyck [alternately -Eyke]) who affected him deeply as a 20-year-old, spurring him to turn his life toward God. And so, Joachim would spend the next decade – tragically short, by human standards – praising the one he’d scorned previously. Perhaps Joachim felt like another who had a great awakening as a young man, a guy who went on to travel so widely and write so much of the New Testament for us to consume 20 centuries later. Paul had been Saul, and still thought of himself as the ‘worst sinner’ (1 Timothy 1:15-16), the same Saul who had berated, chased, and watched Christians being executed. But a person can turn his life around, if prompted to do so. Joachim Neander was one who followed Saul/Paul’s model, 16 centuries later. It’s still a good, effective model, and Paul and Joachim still have words to share.            

 

Information on the song story was obtained in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; 101 Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.

 

See the author’s brief biography here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/n/e/a/n/neander_j.htm and a longer one here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Neander

 

See all seven of the original verse lyrics here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/p/t/t/l/pttlta.htm

 

See information on the flag of Bremen here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Bremen.svg …This image is in the public domain according to German copyright law because it is part of a statute, ordinance, official decree or judgment (official work) issued by a German authority or court (§ 5 Abs.1 UrhG)….found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremen