A Song of Grace and Peace

Did you catch the Rolling Stone Magazine story that described a mystical experience New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen had? The experience was buried in promotion for his album, Letter to You. Turns out, The Boss’s entire album can be credited to the gift of an Italian fan who stood outside his one-man Broadway show to say hi and gave him a guitar.

“Thanks man.”

Bruce put the guitar in his car, then his kitchen. One day, months later, he picked it up and songs seemed to tumble out of it...an entire album of songs. There’s a kind of mysticism in this idea that the guitar held music before it was played. It became Springsteen’s talisman.

I think Jesus has a consistent talisman as well. The conduit for God’s work is you and me.

Let’s be clear it is not external stuff: confession; or robes or prayers that reveal God; it’s what God does to people who on our own can’t seem to do anything good. That’s what Biblical Scholars like Canon Stephanie Spellers call the Kenotic hymn, the emptying hymn, one of the oldest pieces of Christian teaching that Saint Paul cites. The song has nothing to do with indentured economic servitude or the human cruelty of subjugation. The hymn says, let God work in you.

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself…”

When we let go, amazing songs will be made. This is the encouragement that is found in Paul’s letter to you, Philippians.