Psalm 148: 1-14

the conclusion of the final C.S. Lewis Narnia novel, The Last Battle, is a fun, imaginative way of thinking what the New Heavens and the New Earth will be. As the characters in this stories arrive at the New Narnia, Lewis writes this: “It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia, as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it, if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking glass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different—deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if you ever get there, you will know what I mean.”

The Bible is full of surprises though seldom more so than in how the Book of Job concludes. After around 37 whole chapters that are chock-full of deep theological and spiritual and philosophical wranglings and the pondering of perplexing questions of theodicy and why bad things happen to good people and the ways of God, the ways of the righteous, the fairness or unfairness of life . . . suddenly (and none too soon) God shows up to have the last word. But God’s last word turns out to be somewhere close to being the opposite of what most any rational person would have expected. Theology is not at the forefront...

The Bible is full of surprises though seldom more so than in how the Book of Job concludes. But God’s last word turns out to be somewhere close to being the opposite of what most any rational person would have expected. Theology is not at the forefront. The obvious questions that have preoccupied Job and his friends are not touched. Instead God takes Job and all of us on a tour of the cosmos. We go to the zoo, in essence. We discover that for all the other things God might have to do, he apparently spends a lot of time delighting in watching mountain goats frolic, wild donkeys cavort, eagles soar, and hippos just being hippos. Chapter after chapter God goes on and on about storehouses for snow, spectacles of the night sky, deer giving birth to fawns. What does all of that have to do with anything given the overarching (and wrenching) concerns of the rest of the Book of Job? Well, in part it has to do with the deep mysteries of creation by which God reframes the questions of Job and his friends. But let us not fail to notice something else: the splendors of his own creation and the wide panoply of creatures he fashioned is never far from God’s mind. God loves all that stuff. He delights in all those things and creatures. He receives a kick out of it all and feels praised by it all. All of which is pretty much the point of also Psalm 148.

Recently “60 Minutes” did an update on a previous show about the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble has given us hitherto unimaginable information about the far reaches of the universe. But now, it has peered even further into deep space to show us that what formerly seemed to be empty black spaces are, in fact, filled with billions of galaxies. Such scientific data can be a challenge to our faith, or it can move us to even more praise. Our God is “exalted above the heavens….” Can you imagine? Those distant galaxies and any planets in them that might be inhabited by sentient beings are commanded by Psalm 148 to join us humans in giving praise to Yahweh. That puts the miracle of Christmas in an even brighter light.

Near the middle of C.S. Lewis’s sixth book of “The Chronicles of Narnia,” The Magician’s Nephew, there is a marvelous scene in which the characters in the story get to look back to see how it was the great lion, Aslan, had created Narnia (and the whole universe really). It was through a song. Aslan sings the creation into being. And as he sings, the creatures that get created—starting with the stars and other heavenly things—join in the song to create still more and more things and creatures. There is something utterly lyric—literally and figuratively—for Lewis to picture creation just this way. It reminds one of God’s words to Job about how at the dawn of time all the morning starts sang together for joy. Indeed, there is musicality to God’s great work of creation. Small wonder that a poem like Psalm 148 reminds all those created realities to join the cosmic choir of praise once more. It also reminds me of the stunning creation sequences from Terrence Malick’s film The Tree of Life as they are accompanied by stunning music. Like Job, in that movie the story of creation comes in (quirky) answer to the deep questions we ask about life’s tragedies.

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Fifteen years ago I wrote an article in a magazine for preachers about the different voices of preaching. It had occurred to me that preachers can make use of a variety of voices in our preaching to bring the Word alive for those who are called to listen. Now, I don’t mean ventriloquist voices, but rather the voices of speech: declarative, interrogative, imperative, and so on...

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