11-10-14<\/p>\n
Families of certain traditional observances pray before every meal. This is probably less common than in the past; I do not know. I migrated from a faith tradition where rote prayers were recited, to an exercise of spontaneous thanks; from leading or corporate prayers, to an individual thanking God. Usually the latter prayer has a correlative effect of letting the meal cool, but God will see that many are cold but few are frozen.<\/p>\n
My sisters and I, in unison, recited the sing-song verse (that did not, actually, rhyme perfectly): \u201cGod is great, God is good; and we thank Him for this food. Amen.\u201d<\/p>\n
As I grew up I understood quite clearly that such thanks were due God even when we had boiled beef tongue, or liver and onions, waiting. It is the principle of the thing; another meaning of “good taste.” In that spirit I never failed to pray, sometimes to myself, when dining at my mother-in-law\u2019s table, years later. If you ever had one of her meals you would understand why most of my silent prayers were lifted AFTER I ate what I could.<\/p>\n
Back to topic, which is not so much an early Thanksgiving meditation as to offer some thoughts about \u201cGod is great,\u201d as per the childhood prayer.<\/p>\n
God, being God, and as much as He reveals of Himself, surely is great. Our understanding is imperfect, partly because He reveals Himself through scripture and in the Person of His Son\u2026 and yet we have but the smallest, most fleeting, impression of who He is. We see as through a glass darkly, as with many things. Yet, though we might someday understand Him more \u2013 let us say as the angels in Heaven see and understand \u2013 that will still fall short. If we were to know Him fully, we would be as God, and that will never be.<\/p>\n
His mysteries are to be wondered at, not jealously coveted. I like it that way (which is just as well, because that is cosmic reality). SEEKING to know Him better, wanting new ways to please Him, desiring His will so that I might obey more and more \u2013 these are the sweet assignments of the believer.<\/p>\n
Can we see these mysteries and sometimes-hidden attributes of God, the continuous revelation of His character, as a definition of Great in the context of that childhood prayer? \u2013 \u201cGod is great, God is good\u201d?<\/p>\n
Indeed we can. And that goes beyond the reminder of very different meanings of \u201cgreat\u201d and \u201cgood.\u201d<\/p>\n
That childhood prayer, despite its innocent simplicity, addresses the crux of the contemporary debate about the existence of God. That debate is, I believe, the defining proposition of Western Civilization\u2019s crisis. We are, without doubt, in a post-Christian society. Nietzsche first posited the question, \u201cIs God dead?\u201d not as theological argument, but to observe that when God is no longer the motive force behind a civilization\u2019s standards and judgments; when mankind ceases to acknowledge Him in the arts, in law, in morality, in education, in science\u2026 He is, very much in effect, dead to that culture. <\/p>\n
Christians must resuscitate God in our culture: not that He needs our assistance, being God; but so that we assert His rightful place in our affairs, so that we properly honor Him again, because it is, as the old liturgies used to say, \u201ctruly meet and right so to do.\u201d After all, when we let our foundation-stones crumble\u2026 well, you don\u2019t have to be an architect to know how houses can fall. <\/p>\n
So, believers, it is our duty to fight back against the creeping (galloping?) secularization of our society.<\/p>\n
I ask you notice something, however, that is inherent in that childhood prayer. Remember this as you assay the issues (and, believe me, this issue underlies EVERY worldview topic you can think of) or discuss matters with skeptics and agnostics and atheists and secularists and relativists. Many of those folks begin their arguments with \u201cHow can there be a God who\u2026\u201d or \u201cWhy would a loving God permit\u201d this or that. <\/p>\n
When people begin their arguments about God in those ways, notice that they are not denying the existence of God: they are complaining about His ways, or His attributes, or how He doesn\u2019t follow the scripts that skeptics would lay out. They are not demanding that you admit there is no God, even as they might think that such is their belief (or non-belief)\u2026 they are just annoyed that He is not fitting their own job descriptions.<\/p>\n
Truly, if people did not believe in God, or a god, at all, they would simply go home to their knitting. What difference would it make? So even if they do not realize it, they basically \u2013 deep down in their hearts \u2013 acknowledge a God. We should talk to them, and pray for them, with the attitude that these people are already on the road, and just need guiding hands.<\/p>\n
A case in point that we should think about is the late skeptic Christopher Hitchens, who made a career in his last years, before cancer claimed him, doing roadshows with Dinesh D\u2019Sousa debating the existence of God. Hitchens\u2019 best-seller at the time was a book titled \u201cGod Is Not Good.\u201d Blasphemous? Just short, maybe, but my point is that the title automatically supposes \u2013 rather than denies \u2013 the existence of God. Skeptics like Hitchens are only lingering at the Suggestion Box, perhaps, we pray, on their way to the sinner’s rail.<\/p>\n
A hymn that I think could be the theme-music of this message is reportedly America\u2019s second-favorite hymn after \u201cAmazing Grace.\u201d As such, \u201cHow Great Thou Art\u201d often is assumed to be an ancient hymn, but it is barely 125 years old. A poem written by the Swede Carl-Gustav Boberg was translated into English by Stuart K. Hine. Its origin is the account of Boberg walking home and beset by a sudden violent storm. When it cleared he was not only grateful for his safety but impressed by the suffused sunlight, birdsongs, and distant church bells. At home he wrote the familiar words so loved by many.<\/p>\n
Its tune was from a Swedish folk tune that is so elemental that it has similarities to later songs like the gospel \u201cUntil Then,\u201d and, ironically, the march \u201cHorst Wessel Lied.\u201d But \u201cHow Great Thou Art\u201d wended its way from Sweden to Germany to the Baltic states (Estonia, principally), to Russia, England, and America. It was still largely unknown to the church community in the US when it was sung by George Beverly Shea at a Billy Graham crusade in Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1957. Cliff Barrows has reported that it was sung more than a hundred times during that crusade, and possibly was the reason the crusade services were extended and held over.<\/p>\n
It has been a standard ever since, not only of the Billy Graham services, but of church meetings, funerals, camp meetings, and concerts.<\/p>\n
Attractive tune, certainly. The song\u2019s structure \u201cbuilds,\u201d and makes an emotional impression. But surely the impact derives from the message \u2013 the song says what we cannot otherwise easily put into words. When our hearts burst, when our minds are excited, when our lips fail us\u2026 then sing our souls, How Great Thou Art! <\/p>\n
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Here is one of the impactful renditions of \u201cHow Great Thou Art\u201d you will ever hear (and that would rival Bev Shea and Elvis and Carrie Underwood and hundreds of others). RoseAngela Merritt singing the hymn a cappella in St. Anne’s church that was built next to the Pools of Bethesda in Jerusalem, where Jesus healed the crippled man. The site, and acoustics, the emotional rendering, are outstanding.<\/p>\n