Napa
Modern Psalms
Jovel looked over Seth’s shoulder at Rodger pulling into the parking lot. He turned and grabbed a glass for Rodger’s beer.
Bruce came around the corner with a schedule. “Jovel. Can you cover Tuesday and Thursday morning for Trent next week?”
Jovel started to pour a Racer. “No problem Bruce. Anyway Seth, I’m not saying it isn’t possible there are modern parables for our time. I just don’t think I’d call them biblical.”
“You can fill me up too.” Seth slid his glass across the bar. “I’m not saying they should be canonized, I’m just saying there’s more out there than meets the ear.”
Bruce laughed. “Seth, any Christian song could be a parable.”
Seth shook his head. “A parable has it’s façade meaning and a deeper meaning. Most ‘Christian’ music is somewhat blatant if you ask me. There’s no secret there. It’s just preaching to the choir. There’s no subliminal.”
Rodger quietly walked in and set his literature bag on the seat next to Seth, but the chair made a noise when he pulled it from the bar.
Seth turned and nodded to him as he continued. “I’m more interested in songs that are less obvious. In most cases the authors probably don’t even know the significance of what they’ve penned. I have some examples that would make you think twice. I mean, how could these songs map so accurately to the same storyline as covered in the Bible, and then be dismissed based on interpretation?”
Rodger interjected. “Cheers men! Seth, it sounds like you’ve been playing too much Rock Band.”
“Let’s just say that when I pick a song for us to start off, it’s not random or by chance. If you checked the lyrics, there is additional information pertinent to the situation. That’s how I roll.” Seth flipped through the papers he brought with him, each containing the lyrics to a different song. “Besides, these aren’t from Rock Band. These are just songs I like. Some are classic rock. Some are from the Chill channel.”
Jovel reached for the papers. “Let me see if I know any of those.”
“I’m just saying there is a very fine line between a parable, a poem, and a song. Actually there are five fine lines, called a staff, for notation. Otherwise they are pretty close.”
Jovel noted. “I can see that. You could put music to any poem and it could be a song.”
Rodger added. “Or you could take the music away from any song and have a poem.”
Seth toasted. “Or you could take any set of words, and through your voice alone turn it into a song. Our national anthem still gives me goose bumps with the right singer. No instruments needed.”
Rodger pointed to Seth’s papers. “So what are those songs you have?”
“A few examples of songs I think talk accurately about end times, but not directly.” He turned to one. “Check this out. I like this one. This is from Sondre Lerche. He has a song called ‘Dead Passengers’. The song is very mellow and soothing, but I believe he’s warning about the pending return of the Fallen Angels.”
“Seth, people write about these things all the time.”
Seth explained. “Check the lyrics. He says we are going to see these highly polished bronze vehicles. That’s the light up above. You know those vehicles that hover in our atmosphere. And this sacred dove line here is a religious figure who is coming to present himself as Christ. Those that know the truth will go underground, or lay low so to speak, just like he says here.” Seth pointed at the line in the song.
“I will say this Seth…” Rodger took a sip and said with a foamy mustache. “You have no shortage of imagination.”
Seth laughed. “Hey, I’ve always been a dreamer. I do try to keep it realistic though. To me these things are pretty clear if you have an understanding of what the Bible has written about our time.”
Rodger patted Seth on the back. “You can take any song you want and apply it to any context you like.”
Seth nodded his head in agreement. “Sure you can. But at what point does fiction become non-fiction, and who draws the line? You can take a lyric that maps to something concrete and it can become supporting evidence. You can then put the same lyric in the hands of a writer, and it becomes a tunnel down the hole in Alice in Wonderland.”
“So are you saying every song has a hidden message?”
“Heck no!” Seth leaned back from the bar. “That would be like catching a fish every time you threw your line in the water. It takes a lot of patience. You have to know what to look for, and you have to know what ‘not’ to look for. You can’t base it on the artist. I mean you can discern the direction they appear to be heading, but that’s not my focus.”
“You don’t think that’s important?”
“Truly, I don’t know anything about this Sondre character. I don’t know anything about a lot of the scribes that wrote their portions of the Bible either. We tend to focus on the personality behind a work, but that puts us in a judge’s role and I don’t like that. I prefer to look at the work and let it stand on its own. We all have to make a u-turn at some point, and that usually means we went far enough down a wrong direction. Don’t you think?”
There was a moment of silence. Seth picked up the pace. “Guess what? When Christ was on the cross, He quoted a song. Did you know that? Why would Christ quote a song?”
Bruce turned around. “What song?”
Seth leaned forward. “Bruce, of all the recorded words in history, I would put this up there among the most important. They were God’s final words to mankind while He was here in the flesh. And in His dying words, in public, He quoted a song.”
Jovel replaced Rodgers empty glass with a fresh one. “You mean when He was on the cross?”
“Yes. He was quoting Psalm 22. That’s a song written by King David.”
“No way.”
Seth teased. “It gets better.”
“How’s that?” Rodger asked.
“You have to go back a thousand years and ask yourself, did David just imagine and write about a random crucifixion a thousand years before it happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know the part about, My God My God, Why have you forsaken me?”
Bruce put his hands on his hips. “I thought He had a moment of weakness? Since He was man, of course.”
“Sorry Bruce, but that is a tradition of men. He was quoting a lyric, not accusing the Father. Besides, Jesus never called Him God. He always called Him Father. ‘My God My God’ is what David wrote.”
Bruce raised his eyebrows and took some dishes in the back. He returned and asked Seth. “Are you saying He was singing?”
“No. Teaching.” Seth replied. “The next time you open your King James take a look, it should have those words in bold. That’s telling you it’s a quote from other scripture.” He pushed a few times on his phone. “Don’t forget the reason they called Him Master, or Rabbi, is because He was a teacher.”
“So He was quoting a song to teach a final lesson while He was on the cross? Are you sure?”
Seth explained. “There are a lot of words after ‘forsaken me’, and they describe the crucifixion in great detail. In another gospel they quote Jesus as saying the same words that are at the end of the Psalm just before He died, therefore I personally feel He taught the whole chapter. Even if He didn’t, He delivered you to the first verse. You can take it from there. Those who don’t dig deeper will think He was speaking His mind. If you dig, and consider that the lyrics were written by a king almost a thousand years before this event happened, it takes on a whole new meaning. We’re not talking about just any event either. This is one that will reign as the highest Passover of eternity.”
Rodger looked over the rim of his glasses. “Go on…”
“Psalms 22 describes the events and even the actions of other non-Christians when He’s up on the cross. It includes the people mocking Him, how He still trusted and believed in what He knew in spite of His pending death. Jesus knew the Father was watching, and was asking Him to stay close.”
Bruce sat on a stool and leaned on his elbow. “Okay, but that’s pretty generic.”
“Okay, how about this? The normal practice to expedite death was to break the legs. They speared Him instead of breaking His legs because the sacrificial lamb could not have any broken bones. Or was that chance as well? When they pierced His side, it was water that came out, just as written. When He hung with His arms out for days it pulled His bones out of joint. With all of this combined He felt life slipping away. All that is written too.”
Rodger shook his head. “Yeah, but that could be circumstantial. Except for the bones, everyone crucified would experience that.”
Seth shrugged his shoulders. “Interesting how the gospels make it clear that the Roman soldiers gambled for His clothes. How would King David know that? The most important part to me has to do with what Jesus was teaching. That Psalm read in that scenario teaches that He was the Christ the scriptures told them would come. He was telling them what they were doing according to their own scriptures, and His evidence was hidden in a song.” Seth leaned back satisfied.
Bruce rubbed his chin. “I never knew that. That’s pretty cool.”
Rodger raised one of his eyebrows. “That’s an interesting take. I never really did buy the moment of weakness story. I mean, ‘if’ He were God then He wouldn’t be weak. That would make Him a quitter at the very end. But, ’if’, as you say, He was teaching, then that aligns a lot more with what I think God would do… ‘If’ there was a God?”
Seth added. “Better yet… He wasn’t reading. He knew the words by heart, so that means He knew His fate long before those soldiers ever took Him captive. He watched it unfold right before His eyes. Those people weren’t puppets, but they acted within their inner nature. A nature God knew. So He put them there in their circumstances, and let what had to happen, happen.”
“You’re getting too deep, Seth.” Jovel said looking confused.
Seth took a breath. “I’m just saying when someone tells you Christ paid an awesome price don’t forget that He always knew there was only one way out. At least when we go to war we do so with the hope of returning home safely. When we plan for our children, we think decades into the future. He knew His final days here would not be any different than what we just covered. If you knew what was in store for you, and it didn’t end all nice and comfy, would you still be able to push forward in the direction you’re heading?”
Jovel shrugged. “I think I would rather know what is in store and deal with it. If there is going to be something bad, I would rather know about it.”
“It’s not bad for everyone. The point is there’s a reason why things like parables are hidden in the fabric of our society. It is so the deeper truths can be revealed to those in tune and ready. Collectively the people that have a destiny can gather enough facts to recognize what is upon us.”
“A secret message woven throughout reality?” Rodger pondered aloud as he motioned for his bill.
Seth looked at Rodger. “Exactly. Not some stupid word search or hidden code. Aside from an acrostic, which is used on occasion to lock in a set of scriptures, I don’t think you’ll find any other tangible codes in the Bible. I know there are people that teach differently.”
“Yeah. Like that idiot who said the world was going to be raptured on May 21. How did that work out for him?”
“Yeah. And how about all the theories around 2012? There is a sucker born every minute.”
Jovel laughed. “I don’t get how people can go that far without knowing how they look?”
“Specially when it comes to a secret code or something. Everything in the Bible is told in the open like we saw in the Psalms. You have to know where to look, and you have to know how to discern, but once you get it, the scriptures pop into a reality that is very tangible. So do a lot of the things in our culture today, even songs.”
Bruce shrugged his shoulders. “Well then shouldn’t you be looking back to the other Psalms? I mean instead of looking at modern songs, shouldn’t we look where Jesus looked?”
Seth responded with confidence. “Sure. Bible students are doing that everyday. Those who are lucky enough to have a good teacher will be searching the old scriptures with regularity, but I put it to you that is a very small number of people. Jesus said He came for the sick. I contend many of them can be found in groups that don’t want anything to do with religion.”
“Why would God want anything to do with someone who doesn’t like religion?”
“Well there are a lot of ‘smart’ reasons to stay away from most religions, so I wouldn’t blame them for that. Besides, God loves all His children, and I’m confident He has an earnest hope for them to grow up and return to the family.”
“So He uses different ways to communicate to those who are not in a church to hear it?”
“More or less. It’s more indirect, and I would think of it more as a personal evidence than a religious experience. You can call these modern songs ‘seeds’ He can leverage in our current culture. Why wouldn’t the same spirit that worked through David to pen future truths in their day use the same technique with us through today’s artists? If used correctly, just like any book or commentary, they will point to the source and not intend to replace it. That’s doing the Father’s work, and it’s one way we can express our creativity and contribute to His story.”
“I don’t know?” Bruce and Jovel said in unison.
“Jinx!” Seth said as he slid his glass to Jovel. “I got to go too. Check me out, boss.”