Music to melt the stars

“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”

– Gustave Flaubert

In the week prior to my writing of this column, this happened:

• Two policemen were shot dead by a 16-year-old boy in my hometown of Edmonton.

• A policewoman was stabbed to death in Quebec.

• A Vancouver man was stabbed to death for asking another man to stop vaping near his three-year-old daughter.

• Six people (three of whom were children) were shot to death in a Presbyterian Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee by a woman who had a past grievance with the school.

• At least six people (two of whom were infants) drowned in the St Lawrence River trying to reach the USA from Canada.

• The wars in Ukraine, Ethiopia, Yemen, etc., etc., killed hundreds of people.

Because I have a word limit for this column, I will stop there, though it would be quite easy to fill this whole page with additional mentions of indescribable death and destruction perpetrated by people upon other people, as well as countless deaths due to so-called “natural” disasters of floods, hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes. We could add to that diseases such as cancer, malaria, dementia and countless others that ravage the human condition and bring on sadness and death; not to mention environmental destruction that wreaks havoc on all life and seeks to unbalance the very fabric of planetary existence.

Longing for words

And what do we say in the face of all the foregoing mayhem and madness? What words can we utter to assuage sadness and bring comfort to the afflicted? Are not all of the pious, trite, or even well-meaning speeches, always ending with “our thoughts and prayers are with you today,” little more than the cacophonous beating on cracked kettle drums? Instead, do we, too, not long for words that will “make music that will melt the stars”?

Listen to the Easter music of these words.

The morning stars sang together and all the sons (and daughters) of God shouted for joy (Job 38:7). In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people (Jn. 1:1-4). And the Word was made flesh, and lived among us, and we saw his glory, full of grace and truth (Jn. 1:14). The angel said, “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised” (Matt. 28:5-6). God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more. See, I am making all things new (Rev. 21:4, 5). I (Jesus) am the bright morning star (Rev. 22:16b).

Maranatha. Come Lord Jesus.