"Bible - The Musical: The Song of Moses"

Okay, I’d like to formally apologize to everyone for the snow.  I really like snow, and I’ve secretly been praying for more of it, so we keep having snow that comes in on a Sunday, stays for a day, and is gone by Monday evening.  That’s on me, and I’ll stop it now...

But I’ve been loving it nonetheless...

Amazingly, given the fact that it’s snowed three Sundays in a row, I’m sitting here in my shirtsleeves and letting you know that planning and preparations are already underway for our summertime Vacation Bible School (which just seems kind of surreal).  But we’re already collecting decorations and planning workdays on the first Saturday of every month for our 2018 theme -- “Shipwrecked: Rescued by Jesus!” (think “Castaway”... or, if you’re a little bit older, “Gilligan’s Island”... or, if you’re a little bit older, “Swiss Family Robinson”).  Please be thinking about if you have any materials around your home that might help us out with that (leftover bamboo, palm fronds, old volleyballs, etc.), and please be keeping and bringing in any 2-liter bottles or water bottles (and no, I don’t know why they need those).  But more to the point, please be praying even now for those who will be volunteering to work that week, as well as those children who will be coming and giving us the chance to minister to them -- please pray that we can all have the right heart, and that we might meaningfully share the love of God with those children, their families, and one another that week.

With our message this week, we kicked off a new sermon series, “The Bible--The Musical!”  Amazingly, a high percentage of the people whom I’d told that to before Sunday didn’t believe me that we really were going to have a sermon series called, “The Bible--The Musical!”

I dunno whether that means that it’s a really bizarre title, or that people are just expecting me to be pulling their legs.  I’m leaning toward the former.

The biggest book in the Bible is the Psalms (i.e.; a bunch of musical numbers), and there are at least 185 songs in it total (which means that the Bible has at least 35 songs that aren’t even in the Psalms).  And that’s not even counting all of those times when people just burst into metered verse that are probably also being sung, or all of those prayers that people give that are traditionally sung in Hebrew worship.  That’s a lot of music.  And “The Sound of Music” only had, like, 13 new songs in it.

The Bible is totally a musical...

So what does all of that music do for us?  Why do people even write musicals, or operas, or Easter cantatas?  What does telling a story through narrative and music do?

It creates a heightened, unusual reality that draws us up out of getting lost in the drab, mundane world.  It makes the story and its moments more memorable, since you’re singing them in the shower two days later.  It creates more of a personal, emotional, motivational connection with us than simply saying, “Hey, that was nice...”  What else can you think of that it accomplishes?

So which of those elements would be good for us as Christians to actively remember as we read the Bible for ourselves today?  Maybe you and I could do a little less nodding and saying a blithe, “Hey, that was nice...” in our Bible study, and sing out a few more heart-felt “Amen!” codas in our own lives...