The Miracle of Music
From the Series—The Heart of Worship
March 19, 2002Worship is a lot more than music. I Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all the glory of God.” In the broadest sense, worship is anything that glorifies God. I think of Eric Liddell, the Olympic sprinter in Chariots of Fire who says, “God made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure.” Running was a form of worship. I recently heard about a church in Houston that has an “art pit.” While the congregation sings, artists paint their praise to God. Worship is a lot more than music, but music is miraculous.
At a monastery in Brittany, monks who play music to their animals have found that cows serenaded by Mozart produce more milk. Downtown businesses in Edmonton pipe Bach and Mozart in a city park to drive away drug dealers. The Police say that drug activity had dramatically dropped since Johann and Wolfgang arrived. At Tallahassee Regional Memorial Hospital, a study of premature babies found that sixty minutes of lullabies reduced a baby’s hospital stay by five days. A bakery in Nagoya that is famous for its “Beethoven Bread.” They claim that Symphony No. 6 helps the bread rise. And horticulturists in Denver play different musical selections in different greenhouses. They’ve found that Bach causes what they call a “sonic bloom.”
Music is an amazing thing. In the words of Don Campbell, author of The Mozart Effect, “Music lulls children to sleep and marches men to war.” He says, “Music lets the child in us play, the monk in us pray, the cowgirl in us line dance, and the hero in us surmount all obstacles.”
Bioacoustics
According to composer Leonard Bernstein, the best translation of Genesis 1:3 is not, “And God said.” The best translation from Hebrew is, “And God sang.” God sang the universe into existence! Ken Carey says, “In the beginning was the creative sound that contained within it every symphony, harmony, and melody.”
God sang the universe into existence and the universe hasn’t stopped singing. According to physicists, every atom in the universe sings. Arnold Summerfield, the German Physicist and pianist, said that hydrogen atoms, which emit 100 frequencies, are more musical than grand pianos, which emit 88 frequencies. The electron shell of the carbon atom produces the same harmonic scale as the Gregorian chant. Leonard Sweet asks the question, “Could it be that all carbon-based life is actually built on the Gregorian chant?”
According to the science of bioacoustics, millions of songs are being sung all the time. Whale songs travel 4,000 miles underwater. Meadow larks have a range of 300 notes. Super-sensitive sound instruments have discovered that even earthworms make faint staccato sounds. Lewis Thomas says, “If we had better hearing, and could discern the descants [singing] of sea birds, the rhythmic tympani [drumming] of schools of mollusks, or even the distant harmonics of midges [flies] hanging over meadows in the sun, the combined sound might lift us off our feet.”
Someday the sound will lift us off our feet. Millions of inaudible songs will be sung in praise to the Creator. Revelation 5:13 says, “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and all that is in them, singing.”
God is musical. He created everything with the capacity to make music. He surrounds himself with non-stop singing (Revelation 4:8). So let me go out on a limb. Maybe singing is spiritual. Maybe there is something miraculous about music. And maybe we ought to take Ephesians 5:19 more seriously.
“Speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.”
I remember an incident a few years ago when our family was in a funk. The kids were fighting, and on a whim I said, “No more talking. If you have anything to say, you have to sing it.” It was a Batterson family opera. And for a few minutes, it transformed our family. Try it sometime and you’ll find that it’s almost impossible to get angry or upset. I’m not sure the “Batterson family opera” is what Paul had in mind when he wrote these words, but in a quirky kind of way I discovered the principle of this passage. It is “serenading” in a spiritual sense. Nothing can touch our spirits like a song. Singing is a spiritual exchange--it’s spirit touching spirit.
Music Therapy
In recent years, music therapy has come into vogue. Studies have shown that music can boost immunity by increasing the level of Interleukins and decreasing the level of cortisol. Music can release endorphins--the body’s natural painkillers. At Saint Agnes hospital in Baltimore, patients in the critical care unit listen to classical music. Dr. Raymond Bahr says, “Half an hour of music produces the same effect as ten milligrams of Valium.”
The English word “to sing” comes from the Latin cantare which means “to heal.” A cantor was someone who healed with music. A “cantata” was a healing piece of music.
On July 23, 2000, I had a rendevous with death. My intestines ruptured and doctors had to perform emergency surgery. I was on a respirator for two days and in intensive care for nearly a week. I lost thirty pounds and all my muscles atrophied. When I left the hospital, I was at the weakest point in my life. But Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” I remember listening to Daryl Evan’s song, Trading my Sorrows, over and over again. One verse says, “I’m trading my sickness. I’m trading my pain. I’m laying them down for the joy of the Lord.” Worship was my rehabilitation. C.S. Lewis said singing is “inner health made audible.” According to Don Campbell, “There is a musical solution for every illness.”
Music therapy can be traced all the way back to I Samuel 16. Saul was tormented by an evil spirit. Verse 23 says, “David would take his harp and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.” In this instance, worship was a spiritual weapon. The last place an evil spirit wants to be is somplace where there is worship. Worship creates what Tommy Tenney calls “a divine radiation zone.” We need to fill our homes and cars and workplaces with worship.
The Elisha Effect
Music heightens mental acuity. Ordinary consciousness consists of beta waves which range from 14-20 hertz. Heightened awareness consists of alpha waves which range from 8 to 13 hertz. Brain scans have found that music can take us from the beta level to the alpha level. Music heightens creativity and concentration. Countless studies have documented the positive effects of music on memory. The collective neurological benefits of music have been dubbed The Mozart Effect.
Music also heightens spiritual sensitvity. There is a fascinating example in II Kings 3:15-18. King Jehoshaphat is making battle plans and he asks if there is a prophet who can inquire of the Lord. The king finds Elisha and asks him to ask God how they should attack. The first thing Elisha does is say, “Bring me a harpist.” And “while the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha.”
The harpist starts playing and Elisha starts prophesying. Maybe there’s a connection between worship and spiritual gifts? In my experience, 90% of the expression of the gifts of the Spirit have happened in the context of worship. If you come from a Charasmatic or Pentecostal background, you’ve probably had the same experience. Why is that? It’s because worship opens our spirits. It’s The Elisha Effect.
In her book, Unwinding the Clock, Bodil Jonsson says, “Dynamic properties are not revealed in the static state.” Someone has observed that a multi-billion dollar guidance system is worthless until a rocket is launched. There is part of God that can only be understood in worship. God is not a proposition. He is not “static.” It’s in worship that God reveals His dynamic properties.
Worship is where spiritual breakthroughs happen! It was midnight in a middle-eastern prison cell when Paul and Silas started praising God. Their bodies were chained, but their spirits soared. As they sang, there was a violent earthquake. Acts 16:26 says, “Prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose.” That’s what happens when we worship. Worship sets the stage for the miraculous.
In Acts 13:2, the first missionary journey was birthed. How did it happen? They didn’t have a convention or conference. They weren’t “planning” a missionary trip. It simply says, “while they were worshiping,” the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Spiritual breakthroughs happen in worship. When we worship, anything can happen!
Make Music
One final story.
In the 1960s, Dr. Alfred Tomatis was invited to a Benedictine Monastery in southern France. There was a general malaise--a despondency and depression--that had settled upon the monks. Dr. Tomatis found seventy out of ninety monks “slumped in their cells like wet dishrags.” Dr. Tomatis’ diagnosis and prescription for the problem was rather unique. He said the problem was audiological. After some research he had discovered that the monastery had cut down the amount of time devoted to Gregorian chants a few months before. His prescription was to increase their diet of Gregorian chants. Within six months, the joy had returned. The monks needed less sleep. They were more energetic. They were “healed.”
Gregorian chant may not be your thing, but one way or the other, we need to get worship back into our daily spiritual diet. Go ahead and sing in the shower. Listen to worship music in rush hour traffic. Let songs of praise serenade you as you go to sleep. Even if you happen to be someplace where you can’t vocalize your worship, put Ephesians 5:19 into practice. “Make music in your heart to the Lord.”