The Music of God

Reflections on John 3:1-9 

If you want to see a miracle watch the video below.  I bumped into it on facebook and I was truly moved.  In the church we throw around words like transformation and rebirth and even phrases like born again, but what do they mean and what do they really look like?  This clip, from the Alive Inside Documentary Project sponsored by Music and Memory, details the awakening of Henry, an elderly nursing home resident.  Years of seizures have sucked the life out of Henry and left him curled up and wheelchair bound, depressed and at times incoherent and unresponsive.  But when headphones are placed over his ears and plugged into an iPod loaded with music from his younger years, Henry comes back to life.  The proof is in the video.  Transformation, rebirth, awakening, this is what it looks like.  

“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about a rebirth, an awakening of the human soul necessary for life in the kingdom of God.  Don’t mistake the kingdom of God for some eternal heaven in the clouds.  Jesus was far more earthly minded than that.  Jesus spoke often of a kingdom of God that was being ushered into a flesh and blood, here and now world that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye, but was real nonetheless.  He spoke of a kingdom with no borders or boundaries, limited only by our refusal to recognize it.  A kingdom ruled by love, divine love and characterized by peace and joy, generosity and grace.  A kingdom that is our divine right, our divine call, but which we can’t embrace without an awakening, for who can embrace what they cannot see? 

Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.”

Henry’s body kept him alive.  His heart beat and his lungs took in air, but seizures robbed him of the person he was created to be.  He was alive, but there was little to no life in him.  Perhaps that is what Jesus saw in us, in humanity.  We are alive, but there is little to no life in us, for we have made our home in a kingdom with borders, ruled by fear and characterized by greed and selfishness, prejudice and hatred.  A kingdom that is the very human consequence of a broken humanity seized by a one-dimensional blindness which confuses the tangible and the real.      

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

Who will wake us up?  Who will breath life back into us?  Who will open the eyes of our souls to a greater truth?  Jesus is clear.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit to transform, to awaken, to breath new life into us.  The Holy Spirit is the music of God.  It was the power of music that brought Henry back to himself, back the person he was, the person he was meant to be.  The songs of his youth animated him.  They engaged him physically and mentally.  They lit him up and connected him to others.  Dr. Oliver Sacks, world-renown neuroscientist and author, has been quoted as saying; “music brings back the feeling of life when nothing else can.”  The Holy Spirit does the very same thing for us spiritually.  The Holy Spirit breaths life into curled up, bound, depressed, incoherent and unresponsive human beings.  It restores us to the people we are created to be.  It connects us to one another and to God.  It helps us to see the bigger picture, the greater truths.  It animates us, calling us into action, inspiring generosity and grace. It transforms us in an instant and over a lifetime, in big ways and small as we give ourselves over to the power of the wind.  

Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’

I am with Nicodemus on this one.  I do not know how the Spirit does it, just as I do not understand how music does what it does.  Music moves me emotionally and often physically, even without my consent, I find my foot tapping or my head bobbing to the left and to the right.  Music winds me up.  Music calms me down.  Music inspires me, speaks for me, makes me laugh and makes me cry.  In short, it lights me up.  And just like music, the Holy Spirit, the wind of God, the power of God, lights me up too.  It is the agent of epiphanies, the source of inspiration, the impetus of good works.  I am the person I was created to be when the Holy Spirit has its way with me.  

That is what we mean when we throw around the words transformation, rebirth and born again. 

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Music and Memory is a non-profit organization that brings personalized music into the lives of the elderly or infirm through digital music technology vastly improving quality of life.  

To learn more visit ... http://www.musicandmemory.org/index.html