Props: Visuals of Hubbel Space Photos and/or eclipse photos
[Begin running about 30 or more Hubbel photos as you begin your sermon. If you want to take an especially creative field trip, deliver your sermon inside of a conservatory or planetarium with stars above and the Creation story displayed.]
Part of the “human” in human being is to be fascinated with space. We lie back and imagine images in the sky we call constellations. We count stars. We contemplate life on other planets. We attach astrological significance to shooting stars and asteroids. Many this past week will have traveled with radiation-safe glasses to watch one of the rarest occurrences humans experience –a total solar eclipse. For the first time since 1918, a large part of the US experienced what it looked and felt like for the sun to disappear behind the dark of the moon, if only for a few minutes.
During a passing span of about 90 precious minutes, on a “path of totality” from Oregon to South Carolina through 14 states, the sun was entirely eclipsed by the moon. Darkness covered the earth. Cold blanketed the planet. Then as the sun emerged from its eclipse, the light, and the day, and warmth returned.
Perhaps this is what it felt like in the dawn of creation, as The Creator’s conducting arm swept across the pitch-black canvass of the universe and sprinkled stars within the heavens “like a tent.”
Night separated from day, and “time,” as we know it, began.
Take a few moments now to imagine that moment of Creation when The Divine Conductor lifted a mighty musical baton …..and with outstretched arm….swept across the Deep and composed creation into existence. Less a Big Bang or a Big Bloom than a Big Symphony of Song, a Majestic Hymn from the Dove of the Spirit.
Close your eyes. Pause for a moment. Imagine . . . .
[Have people watch the visual display while listening to the music of your choice below.]
[Play the youtube of the Virtual Choir directed by Eric Whitacre. You can also alternatively have your own choir sing “The Creation” by Willy Richter or have an orchestra play Joseph Haydn’s masterpiece, “The Creation.”]
Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir. This is “Lux Aurumque.”
Can you feel the immense and exquisite creative power of God? Around you? Within you? Among you? In the midst of you?
[Use arm motions to demonstrate the mighty hand of God (fist raised) and the outstretched arm of God (sweeping right arm reaching toward God’s people)].
This is the mighty hand of The Conductor, the outstretched arm of God that moved across the deep and from nothing created everything, including human beings from the dust of the earth and the underground springs that burst forth of God’s Spirit. Then the mighty God’s breath blew like a wind through our still bodies and lifted us into animation, voice, and life.
This is the mighty hand of The Conductor, the outstretched arm of God whose Voice and Act brought all things into relationship, one with another, and together One with God in one almighty sweep.
This is the mighty hand of The Conductor, the outstretched arm of God that “brought Israel out from Egypt. For His lovingkindness is everlasting.” (Psalm 136:12, Deuteronomy 26:8)
This is the mighty hand of The Conductor that swept high the waves of the Red Sea, and the people waded through it until on dry land.
This is the mighty hand of The Conductor that took us under God’s great wing of love and mercy, and saved us in the Passover.
This is the mighty hand of The Conductor….the outstretched arm of God….that caused mountains to form, and winds to blow, and Christ to come among us, and who reaches to us from above in the heavens to shelter us in the shadow of His holy wings.
The mighty hand of The Conductor.
The outstretched arm of God.
That mighty hand and outstretched arm that connect God and God’s awesome and all-encompassing and eternal presence with the likes of you and me in any given moment of time to save us, heal us, redeem us, renew us, deliver us, reveal us, lift us.
God revealed to us in the fullness of time.
The mighty hand of God. The outstretched arm of The Composer and The Conductor of the universe.
The Deuteronomist reminds us, “The Lord brought you out by almighty hand and the outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord Your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day” (Deuteronomy 5:15).
Let’s think about that for a moment.
Somehow that mighty hand of God, that outstretched arm of God, that incomprehensible Composer Conductor who scored the universe, the heavens, the earth, the stars, and the planets, and all that is within it, asks us to remember God’s creative power, God’s outstretched arm that connects us with our Composer and Creator, by keeping the Sabbath holy.
The Sabbath is a time to engage with the almighty God personally and relationally, to feel God’s blessings, to radiate God’s joy with our hearts, souls, and voices.
You mean, the Sabbath day isn’t just our day off from work to sleep in, get a little R&R, get me some “me time”?
Somehow our culture today has reduced the sabbath day of “remembrance” to a kind of “self-care” philosophy in which we take time for ourselves to do “our” thing. Notice the “our” in that. Somehow, in our conception of sabbath, the Lord of the Sabbath has gotten omitted from it.
But the scriptures tell us, the sabbath is a day of remembrance, a day of joy, a day of celebration, for at the tip of God’s mighty hand, and outstretched arm, at the close of the 6th day of Creation –God sees you!
And you! And you! And you! [Point to people in the room.] And me! All of us!
[Do the hand/arm motions once again.]
The mighty hand of God. The outstretched arm of God. God our Composer and Conductor. God of the heavens and Earth. God of the Sabbath.
For God created, and then God on the 7th day surveyed all God had created, and was pleased. And God created the 7th day for joy, exultation, praise, delight in all that created “goodness.” God made the 7th day to be set apart –to be made holy, so that for a time, God could breathe upon all God had created, bless it, and sanctify it to God.
The sabbath is a time of joy, a time to engage with God, and with each other in praise, to take time out from time, in which we are scheduled, and busy, and focused on doing, and to take time to enter into God-time, that fullness of time, in which we just can “be,” in which the Eternal presence of God interrupts time for a brief time, and we can leave all that interrupts us, bothers us, worries us, harms us behind us, and revel in the joy of God’s presence and power. We can take time out of time to recognize the hand and the outstretched arm of God in our lives, and to feel God’s smiling face upon us, blessing us and renewing us.
It’s a timelessness of time in which to mend broken relationships, to heal woundedness, to take off the clothes of mourning, and to put on bells for dancing. The sabbath is God’s “sanctuary” of the Spirit, a sanctuary we enter into and experience the “goodness” and creative energy of the One True God.
It is a day in which the work of our hands are laid down, and a day in which we put our souls into God’s hands, a day in which we remember who it is who gave us life, who it is who sustains us, who it is who brings us one day into that final time outside of time kingdom of His holy glory.
Remembering the sabbath is not just a recall; it’s a re-calling into life. It’s our refrain in which we join in God’s great creative Symphony of Voices in the World who receive Him as Lord! It is our response to God’s awesome glory and power. Our response that can only be a cantus firmus of praise, a fermata of holiness in God’s eternal Cantata.
Remember the Song you just listened to? All of those voices from around the world, all singing God’s same Eternal Song, the Song of the universe, the Song of Creation, in which God is the Conductor, and we are all His joyful voices?
This is the Song of Sabbath.
In the Exodus, we learn how to “remember” the Sabbath and keep it holy:
“And it shall serve as a sign to you on your hand, and as a reminder on your forehead, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth; for with a powerful hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt.”
When we celebrate the Sabbath, we use our hands to mend tattered relationships and to bless those around us, to lift in worship, to lay upon others in healing.
On the Sabbath, we turn our hearts and minds to Creator God. We leave behind all that would distract us, and we revel and play in the joy of our Creator’s Sandbox.
And on the Sabbath, our voices burst forth in praise, just as the waters from the depths of the earth. We praise, we sing, we exalt, we proclaim. For the sabbath is not a day for petition, nor confession, nor to remember our sins, nor judge our faults, but the Sabbath is a day of Celebration. For our joy is in the Lord!
We remember the Sabbath with our hands, our hearts, and our tongue.
A shorter way perhaps to remember it is this:
With produce love with our hands.
We ponder the Lord in head and heart.
We proclaim Him Lord of both Creation and our lives.
[Teach them motions for each of these:]
Remember the Lord with your hands. [Bring hands together in prayer.]
Remember the Lord with head and heart. [Touch head and put hand on heart.]
Remember the Lord with your tongue. [Bring hands to mouth and spread them wide in a gesture of proclamation and praise.]
Let’s do that again:
Remember the Lord with your hands.
Remember the Lord with head and heart.
Remember the Lord with your tongue.
For the Lord is God of the mighty hand [lift fist] and the outstretched arm [stretch and sweep arm].
And at the end of that arm, God sees you. And God loves you.
The Lord is God of the Sabbath.
And we are God’s Sabbath people.
May your hearts and minds be ever lifted to God on this Sabbath day. May you rejoice in the Lord Your God with your heart, and mind, and soul, and voice. Amen.
Based on the Story Lectionary
Major Text
God’s Creative Power and Pause (Selah) / All Things in Relationship (Genesis 1:1--2:3)
Jesus Breaks the Sabbath, Calls Himself God, and Answers Questions from the Pharisees (Luke 5:33--6:11 and 7:17-35)
Jesus Breaks the Sabbath, Calls Himself God, and Answers Questions from the Pharisees (Mark 2:18--3:12)
Minor Text
Keeping the Sabbath (Exodus 16:22-20; 20:8-11; 31:13-14)
Keeping the Sabbath Becomes an Observance (Deuteronomy 5:12-15)
Psalm 92: Song of the Sabbath
Psalm 23: God’s Rest/Selah
Psalm 104: God’s Creation
Blessings to Those Who Keep the Sabbath and Delight in it (Isaiah 56:1-8; 58:13-14)
Warning and Promise Concerning Keeping God’s Sabbath (Jeremiah 17:21-27)
Warning and Promise in Keeping God’s Sabbath (Ezekiel 20 and 36)
Job’s Confession of Faith in the Creative Power of God (38-41)
Jesus Breaks the Sabbath and Answers Questions from the Pharisees and John the Baptist’s Disciples (Matthew 9:14-17 and 11:2-12:21)
Jesus Breaks the Sabbath, Calls Himself God, and Answers to Accusations from the Pharisees (John 5)
Do You Live by Rules of Faith in Jesus [Who Gives You Rest]? (Paul’s Letter to the Galatians)
Image Exegesis: God’s Sabbath Selah
Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote one of the most important works of the 20th century in 1951: “The Sabbath,” a masterwork of Jewish spirituality, in which he reveals that the sabbath is not about a place but about meeting God in relationship in a “sanctuary of time.” Or better yet, a “sanctification of time.” This is in a sense Jesus’ exact reworking of the misunderstandings of the sabbath by the Pharisees of His day. The sabbath is the time when we recognize Jesus as the “spiritual Temple” of God –a Temple not of stone or marble, but made of relationality, of God’s creative and restorative power, of salvation and presence, of God’s self reaching out to us in revelation. “For what was hidden will soon be revealed,” said Jesus.
We often tend to worry much about our space, the spaces we worship in, the spaces we occupy. But God in the Genesis story, and in Jesus’ teaching, is more concerned with the “space” in time when God and humankind come together relationally and in holiness. This is Wesley’s idea of sanctification as well –and his means of grace that allow us the break from time to make sure we “know” God intimately and acutely.
Heschel said, “The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals.” Jesus is our holy Temple as well, and He is Lord of the Sabbath.
I like to think that the psalmist had the best take on this idea of sabbath with the musical notation “selah.” While some say a selah is a pause, I see it more as a great “refrain,” our response to God’s creative reaching out to us in love and mercy. Our response must always be “it is good.” “We are joyful.” “We praise you.” “We revel in the Light of your love.” This I believe, is the ultimate selah, that refrain after anything in our lives that bother us.
In the psalms, we see often a psalm of lament, or a line or two in which a problem is posed, but then resolved in mind and heart by the acknowledgement and remembrance of God’s great love and mercy, presence and power. Selah!
Selah in fact is used twice as often in scripture as amen, and 3 x more than hallelujah! It appears in 25% of psalms, and usually precedes a refrain or call to praise.*
Some say it’s like an “amen,” meaning “so is the truth, since its Arabic cognate slh means “preserving truth or righteousness. In other words, “May it be true! Or May God’s truth prevail!”
Some believe it means “loud” or fortissimo, and is an instrumental interlude in the midst of the sung psalm. In this case, it still is like a “hallelujah” in a sense –emphasizing the glory of God.
Aquila, Jerome, and the Targum all use the term as meaning “always and forever.” This can be a musical notation….as in a refrain that keeps on going endlessly. Or it can be metaphorical, as in may God’s grace be with us always and forever.
Some believe it means, pause and listen, or “pay attention,” as in a fermata.
The Greeks used it as a change in rhythm or melody.
The psalmist's Selah is one of the most disputed words in scripture. However, most believe, it is in some form, a musical notation. I like to imagine it this way:
Think of Creation as God's exquisite Symphony of Elohim. God's creative power moves across the deep. Then God looks over Creation.... and shines God's pleasure upon it, because it is very, very good. And all of Creation responds and reflects that goodness back to God in the ultimate timeless relationship. Selah.
"Good" is like a refrain for God's activity in the world. God acts, heals, moves within and without the world and the heavens, and then surveys all that is good, and reveals God's pleasure to us. Selah is in a sense then God's glorious refrain of "good," when the Eternal One enters into time to interact with us, and we in kind sense and respond to the nearness and presence of God.
Selah.
This is good. So very, very good.
We enter into God's sanctuary in our Sabbath time, allowing the presence of God to refresh us and renew us. And God's eyes shine with pleasure. We put aside our busyness of human time to enter into God-time. We put aside the work of our hands and feet, and the worries of our hearts and burdens of our souls to put ourselves into God's hands, to allow God's outreached arm to touch us, and bind us.
Selah.
So good this is.
The 7th Day is a day of joy, of exquisite and conscious joy in our Creator, in our relationship with the One True God to whom we are entirely revealed in our nakedness, to whom we offer up our souls for renewal. For God is good. Hallelujah.
Selah.
Sabbath is the "sanctification of time" said Abraham Heschel. The Sabbath is a "cathedral of holiness," in which God's people commune with God in the timelessness of time.
Selah.
Jesus understood this for sure, when He said, "I will tear down this Temple and in three days raise it up again."
Jesus is our holy Temple. In Him, we enter into God-time. In Him, we are sanctified. With him, we experience the ultimate of God's joy, peace, and love.
Selah.
Selah.
*See www.discipleshiptoday.org on Selah. See also Heschel, “The Sabbath.