poetry

Using Poetry in Worship

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As a highly compact form of speech capable of stimulating the imagination, poetry can be effectively used in almost any of the various dimensions or acts of public worship. This article catalogs a variety of ways that poetry can be used in worship and gives guidelines to worship planners for selecting poems and readers.

When we come together to worship God, we are participating in an ancient ritual expressed through many traditions. The unifying factor is that we come as God’s children to enter into a dialogue with him.

Though our worship may be experienced and expressed in various ways, a major dimension of worship is verbal. We hear God speak through his Word and through the words of his people. We respond in words and songs of praise and thanksgiving as well as confession and supplication. While many of the words come directly from Scripture, we often use words from other sources, including the words that spring from our own hearts and minds. The songs we sing, the prayers we pray, a call to confession, a litany of praise, an introduction to an offering, or a parting blessing—all of these may be human compositions of language used for divine worship. At its best, the language for such various elements of the worship service is thoughtful, artful, and edifying. Though this language need not be poetry, carefully selected poems can at times significantly serve the verbal dimensions of worship.

Poetry, by nature, is writing that articulates a concentrated experience or emotion or thought through image, sound, and rhythm. Like all arts—music, visual arts, dramatic arts—poetry is a creative gift from God that can be used to edify God’s people and glorify the Creator. The Bible gives us many examples. The Book of the Psalms, the Bible’s richest source of poetry, gives expression to a wide range of emotions, experiences, and thoughts (a point Luci Shaw makes in her “Poetry’s Permanence: the Psalms”). Poetry is also found in Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Isaiah and Jeremiah, and other prophetic books, and occasionally in the New Testament, as in 2 Timothy and the glorious prose-poem of 1 Corinthians 13. These are God-inspired examples that give evidence of the wealth and uses of poetic language.

The hymns of the church offer another rich example of poetry used in worship. The case has been made in other places for the use of hymns (in addition to the singing of psalms) in the church. Many of our favorite hymns were originally written simply as poetry and set to music much later. We may think, therefore, of religious poetry as an unsung hymn, appropriate for adoration, celebration, thanksgiving, invitation, supplication, and confession.

But a good poem can also serve other purposes in worship. It can powerfully present the truth of human experience. It can make an old truth new again. It can so dramatically render an implication of God’s truth that none can fail to listen. In all these ways and others, poetry can fulfill a sermonic function in worship.

There are many ways, then, to use poetry in worship. Poetry can be incorporated occasionally within any general service, or it can occasionally serve as the primary verbal medium of the service.

The Occasional Uses of Poetry in Worship

It’s possible to find a poem whose rich imagery, poignant emotion, or profound thought expresses a particular idea so well that it could almost constitute the sermon. But it might be most appropriate to use such a poem as a complement to the sermon. The poem, such as the following, could serve as an introduction to the theme or as an opener for the sermon, or it could be used within the sermon as an illustration or clincher for a point made, or it could be used at the end to reinforce the main thrust of the sermon or to bring it into sharper focus.

I’m Tired

i’m tired, so tired
i can’t …
oh Lord, i can’t go on.
i’m going down
and i’ll never rise again.
what use am I
if i am lying in the dust?
if i am fallen in the pit?
are you tired indeed?
then come to me
for i am meek and lowly.
and if you would have rest,
then come to me
in lowliness of heart,
and i will give you
my precious burden
my easy yoke
for it is never you who till alone
nor carry by yourself.
so come to me
and i will give you a parched
and thirsty land to till
and i will give you rest. (Debbie Wallis)

There are many fine poems that were inspired by certain verses from Scripture or by certain biblical characters. If those verses or characters are key to the theme of the service, either the sermon or the reading of Scripture might be enhanced by an accompanying poem, such as “Prophecy” by Luci Shaw. Some poems also work very well paired with certain songs and hymns; for instance, George Herbert’s poem “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing” could be used to introduce the hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.”

Special events such as baptisms and professions of faith offer unique opportunities for the use of poetry. For example, when a child named Blake was baptized, his aunt read “The Lamb” by poet William Blake as part of the baptismal ceremony. An appropriate poem read by a special person (as is true of a special musical selection) can add both significance and emotional impact to the occasion.

There are a number of good poems about the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper service. Some might work well as an introduction to the service of communion; others might be appropriate as an offering of praise at the conclusion of the feast. Madeleine L’Engle’s “After the Saturday Liturgy at Montfort” might be a fitting poem to use in this context, or “Covenant Celebration” by Nancy Todd.

In addition to being used to accompany or complement various elements of the service, poetry can also be used in place of a particular element. A good example of this is the offering of prayer. Prayer can be taken directly from Scripture, the words of a song (even the singing of a song can be a prayer), the words of St. Augustine or other Christian writers, the original words of the person praying—and from poetry. Examples from literary history abound, from Donne’s “Batter My Heart” to e.e. cummings’ “i thank you God.” But poems can substitute for other elements of the service as well. A poem may serve as an invocation or call to confession or assurance of pardon, as Carlisle’s poem illustrates:

Next of Kin

God remembers our structure and our texture our congruity with the grass our continuity with the dust. More than a father feels for his children He senses our need. Even when we are too foolish to fear or heed Him He keeps His love invariably available. (Thomas John Carlisle)

Expressions of praise and thanksgiving can come from the wealth of poetry that celebrates God’s creation or His work in the human heart. Such poems might also be used as a response of gratitude or poetic offering (like a musical offering along with the offering of monetary gifts). “Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins is one that might work well; another possibility is “Individuation” by Nancy Thomas. There are even good benedictory poems that could be fitting at the conclusion of the service. Clearly, possibilities for the occasional use of poetry in worship are numerous.

Primary Uses of Poetry in Worship

Services can also be designed with poetry as a primary verbal expression. This can be done especially effectively within a particular liturgical season. Some of the most profound poetry deals with the suffering and sacrifice of Christ; carefully selected pieces can be combined with Scripture readings and music for a moving and meaningful service during Lent. Other poems are very appropriate for use in special services around Easter and Christmas.

There may be other occasions in which poetry can be a key ingredient of the service: the celebration of a church anniversary; a prayer day; a service with a biblical theme such as God’s creation, sins of the flesh, the parable of the sower, or a Bible character. For example, the poems of Thomas John Carlisle in You! Jonah! could shape the design of a service about Jonah.

For any of these services, the planners must consider the congregation’s interest and aptitude for poetry and allow that to guide both the number and type of poems used in a particular service. A worship service that consisted entirely of poetry would perhaps be neither judicious nor theologically sound. But if the poems are carefully selected and paired with readings from Scripture and appropriate songs (whether for choral or congregational singing) into a seamless worship experience, members of the congregation may discover in new ways the power of God’s word and his gift of language.

Considerations for Selection of Poetry and Readers

Careful selection is critical to the successful use of poetry in worship. The primary consideration should be the thematic appropriateness of the poem. A pastor’s favorite poem may not fit well into a particular service even though he or she may be tempted to make it fit. But a poem that does not enhance or enrich the thematic center of the service forfeits its function.

Many fine poems do not lend themselves to oral presentation. They are difficult to read aloud, difficult to listen to, and difficult to understand. Therefore, poetry for use in worship must be chosen for its readability, listenability, and comprehensibility.

This means that the language of worship poetry should be fairly contemporary and concrete. Imagery should have the power to engage the listeners’ imagination readily. The rhythm should be close to that of natural speech. End rhyme, if it’s there at all, should not be forced or artificial. Poems should not be so long as to become taxing to listen to. In sum, the best poems for oral interpretation in worship are those which evoke and enrich genuine experience within a spiritual context.

There may be only a few gifted poetry readers in any congregation. The people who actually read the poems aloud in a worship service should be carefully chosen and given ample opportunity for oral rehearsal, ideally with the help of a qualified coach. A reader should prepare thoroughly for the presentation of the poems and consider such aspects of delivery as these: poetry should be read at a pace that gives time for the images to take shape in the listener’s imagination; the lines should be read according to the phrasing of ideas, not according to the length of the lines; the appropriate use of pauses and stresses for emphasis is crucial to conveying the ideas or emotions of the poem.

It is usually preferable not to print the text of the poems in the liturgy or bulletin because the poems will be better understood by hearing them read well than by reading them for oneself. When a service is planned which incorporates several poems, it might be helpful to provide copies of the poems after the service (making sure to follow any copyright rules) for those people who will appreciate being able to read the poems for further reflection.

Hymns as Poetry in Worship

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The most common use of poetry in worship is the singing of poems as hymns. Despite their common use, however, hymn texts are rarely thought of in terms of their poetic qualities. Yet hymn writers are among the finest wordsmiths the church has known. Appreciating their art enriches the experience of all who sing.

Hymns are usually seen as low art and sub-zero theology. Theologians file them under “music.” Literature departments file them nowhere. C. S. Lewis detested them. John Ruskin described hymns of his own day as “half-paralytic, half profane,” consisting partly of the expression of what the singers never in their lives felt, or attempted to feel, and partly in the address of prayers to God, which nothing could more disagreeably astonish them than His attending to.

I want to suggest that at its best, the hymn is a complex minor art form, combining theology, poetry, and music. As such it merits attention from theologians and artists alike. But first I must admit the truth in the criticisms. Hymn-texts range from doggerel to poetry, just as hymn tunes range from cliché to classic. Yet we have moved on from the hymnody that repelled Ruskin and Lewis. Since 1960 there has been an explosion of new hymn writing in the English-speaking world, beginning in Britain and spreading to Canada and the United States. Its styles range from praise music through folk song to the classic stanza form, reborn in contemporary English. I work at the latter end of the spectrum and do theology through the hymn-poems I write.

At their best, hymns are a complex art form. When read aloud, as a poem, a hymn text is time art. Each reading is similar, yet unrepeatable. When the poem is sung as a solo or choral item, it moves the listener as songs do. When sung by a congregation, it invites commitment. Though some congregations behave as if they didn’t have bodies, singing together is an intensely corporeal, as well as corporate, activity. Diaphragm, lungs, larynx, tongue, lips, jawbone, nasal cavities, ribcage, shoulders, eyes, and ears come into play. When body attitude combines with deepest beliefs, singers are taken out of themselves into a heightened awareness of God, beauty, faith, and each other. Finally, hymns deserve to be seen as visual art: like other poems, their appearance on the page enhances their attractiveness or detracts from it.

As a writer of hymn texts, I am a theological poet serving church congregations. The title “poet” once seemed pretentious. I claim it now because I’ve repeatedly seen the power of hymn-poetry to move people at a deep level. I have also gathered evidence showing how strongly our language habits shape thinking and behavior so that the way we sing about God and each other is cardinally important. The hymn is an art form through which a congregation expresses and commits itself to a theology. Sunday by Sunday, most Christian traditions sing their faith and are shaped by what they sing. It is therefore a great mistake to classify hymns as “church music,” as if they only mattered to singers, choir directors, and organists. They matter to preachers, theologians, and anyone concerned with the interplay between theology and the arts.

Good hymns are theological poetry, not theology in bad verse. The classic hymn poem is formally strict, with exact meter, stress-rhythms, and usually rhyme in each succeeding stanza. It needs imagery and phrasing clear enough to grasp at first sight (singers can’t stop to look in the dictionary), yet memorable enough to give pleasure and meaning through repeated singing. It cannot give free rein to the poet’s imagination because it is poetry in the service of its singers. The singers of hymns need poetry that will express their faith and enable them to be truthfully themselves as twentieth-century worshipers in the presence of God. The greatest compliment a hymn poet earns is an unspoken YES from singers who grasp, delight, and identify with the hymn-poem in the immediacy of singing it, yet rarely know or care who wrote the words or composed the tune.

As with any art form, these restrictions both cramp creativity and enable it. The possibilities of the form are exemplified by Thomas Troeger’s hymn, “These Things Did Thomas Count as Real.” The briefest analysis of this poem would note its strong visual and tactile imagery (stanza 1); its economic use of paradox and antithesis (stanzas 2 and 3); its full, apt rhymes (including the brilliant “Braille/nail”); its careful attention to stress and sound sequence; and the achievement of all this in sixteen eight-syllable lines which evoke the story yet break it open afresh. Read aloud, it compels attention. Sung, we find ourselves critiquing Thomas while stepping into his psyche so that Christ’s “raw imprinted palms” reach out to us and question our post-Enlightenment assumptions about reality.

An example of my own work is a wedding hymn (No. 643 in the new United Methodist Church hymnal), written for a well-known folk tune for ease of immediate singing. Its four-syllable lines compel simplicity since it is hard to be polysyllabic in such a short line. I wanted to sing truthfully about some of the experiences of partners in a long-term relationship. The first stanza came quickly, appearing almost fully formed in consciousness;

When love is found / and hope comes home,
sing and be glad / that two are one.
when love explodes / and fills the sky,
praise God and share / our Maker’s joy.

“When love explodes and fills the sky” is a simple but strong metaphor. It may derive from firework displays, but the allusion is indirect, enabling me to crystallize varied experiences in one phrase. People know what it means for them when they look in the crystal.

I then had to decide where the hymn was going. What I had already suggested was that the first line of each stanza could set out the theme developed within it, which led to the following outline:

—When love is found …
—When love has flowered …
—When love is tried …
—When love is torn …
—Final wrap-up stanza of praise.

In the second stanza, I wanted to avoid a cozy image of the home as a private castle, so I tried alternatives till I got the lines “that love may dare/to reach beyond home’s warmth and light/to serve and strive for truth and right.” The third stanza recognizes that personalities change over time so that relationships have to be restructured or broken. The fourth stanza deals with betrayal. I can’t remember how long I waited for “when love is torn” to appear as its first line, but there was some waiting time between deciding on the theme and getting that first line. Finding the rhyme fade/betrayed also took time, and involved listing some of the possible rhyme words and trying out phrases. I was aware of quoting from 1 Corinthians 13 in the New English Bible in lines 3 and 4. At some point, I opted for the relaxed rhyme scheme ABCB that came with the first stanza.

Love Song

When love is found and hope comes home,
sing and be glad that two are one.
When love explodes and fills the sky,
praise God and share our Maker’s joy.

When love has flowered in trust and care,
build both each day that love may dare
to reach beyond home’s warmth and light,
to serve and strive for truth and right.

When love is tried as loved-ones change,
hold still to hope though all seems strange,
till ease returns and love grows wise
through listening ears and opened eyes.

When love is torn and trust betrayed,
pray strength to love till torments fade,
till lovers keep no score of wrong
but hear through pain love’s Easter song.

Praise God for love, praise God for life,
in age or youth, in husband, wife.
Lift up your hearts. Let love be fed
through death and life in broken bread.
(Copyright 1983 by Hope Publishing
Company, Carol Stream, Ill. 60188. All
rights reserved. Used by permission.)

The writing process always has this partnership between rational and intuitive. Metaphors and phrases have to be set in order, rhymes collected and selected. Ideas must be clarified, then wait for the appearance of suitable phrases and metaphors. “Appearance” is itself a metaphor, suggesting the way in which phrases come to consciousness from the part of the mind which constructs them, and which is outside conscious control. Though much theology is still done as if we were talking heads inhabited by controlling rationality, the creative process shows otherwise. I am emboldened to question the patriarchal dualisms of our culture (mind over body, reason/logic over imagination/feeling, man over nature, the masculine over the feminine, and the root dominance of men over women) because they are not only dangerous and unjust but untrue to the creative experience.

I said earlier that like other forms of poetry, hymns are visual art. Most Americans never see the poetry of hymns, because the only way they encounter them is with their poetic structure dismantled, the words cut into syllables and interlined (arranged between musical staves for ease of singing). Thankfully, the needs of an aging population are obliging hymnal producers to provide large-print editions, in which the poetry of hymns is once again seen on the page. Christian educators will find this makes poems easier to teach. Pastors and congregations will find hymns more readily available as poetry, fit for public reading (by solo voice or the congregation) and devotional use, and beautiful to look at: an art form in their own right, and a useful part of seminary courses labeled “Introduction to Theology.”

A Biblical Philosophy of the Literary Arts

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By far the most important of the fine arts in Israel and the early church was the field of literature. The Bible itself is the result of the sensitivity of literary artists to the Spirit of God. Each of the many forms of biblical literature contributes to our understanding of the philosophy of the worship arts.

Literature: Israel’s Enduring Monument

Archaeological excavations reveal that the material culture of ancient Israel was less advanced than that of the Canaanite city-states it displaced. Coming from a seminomadic state as a nation of tent dwellers, the Israelite tribes had no significant tradition of architectural, artistic, or technological innovation, although the nation had artisans such as Bezalel and Oholiab. Even the great temple of Solomon was actually designed and erected by a foreign contractor and reflects Phoenician models; it stood for less than four centuries. Israel left no monumental works of sculpture, art, or architecture to be placed alongside the cultural remains of other ancient civilizations that have survived to our day. The monument of Israel is a literary one: the Bible. It was in the various forms of the literary arts that Israel, including the Israel of the new covenant, excelled.

The literature of the Scriptures is the testimony to a community’s faith. The names of individual authors may be attached to it, and it may bear the distinctive imprint of a personality such as David, Jeremiah, or the apostle Paul. Nevertheless, as literature, it is never the artistic creation of an individual for the purpose of self-expression or recognition. In ancient cultures, the ability to write was a specialized skill, whereas the art of recitation from memory was widely practiced. Most of the Bible existed first in oral form and depended for its survival on a circle of people who memorized it, recited it, and handed it down to successive generations. Isaiah gives us a glimpse of this practice in his remark, “Bind up the testimony, seal the teaching among my disciples” (Isa. 8:16 NASB). Eventually, some major crises in the circle of tradition, such as the insecurities of the period of the fall and exile of Judah, would provide the impetus for writing the material down.

Even in New Testament times the teachings of Jesus and the stories of his acts seem to have circulated orally until the passing of the apostles and the linguistic transition from Aramaic to Greek made it desirable to produce written Gospels for the instruction of the church. In the Gospels we read of “the scribes and Pharisees” (Matt. 5:20 RSV); the scribes were men who had memorized the Mosaic law and the traditions associated with it and who served as a kind of walking concordance or reference Bible for the Pharisaic teachers. The practice of memorizing large portions of the Scripture and the rabbinic traditions continue in Judaism to this day. These procedures of oral transmission in a circle of dedicated people highlight the point that, from the biblical perspective, literature as a form of art belongs to the covenant community as a whole and not to the individual authors who serve as its spokespersons.

Forms of Biblical Literature

The important forms of literature preserved in Scripture can be listed briefly, in order to convey something of the fullness of this form of artistic activity as practiced in the life of the people of the covenant.

History. Historical literature, including chronicle and genealogy, grows out of covenant worship, in which the worshiper confesses his faith by telling the story of God’s dealings with his people. But the narrative and saga of the Hebrew Bible are remarkable in that, while written from a pronounced theological perspective, it often presents a realistic, nonidealized portrait of human leaders such as Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, and those who followed. The Gospels and the Acts continue the same tradition, portraying Jesus in an authoritative yet convincing manner and his apostles as down-to-earth and familiarly human types. Biblical history shows that God deals with people as he finds them, in whatever circumstance or state of personal growth. God’s openness to people as they are allows the worshiper to come before him honestly, not boasting in his or her own worth but confident of the grace of God as manifested in his great redeeming acts.

Law. Covenant structure also yields the laws or instructions governing the community’s relation to the Great King. The Mosaic Torah contains laws in both the absolute form (“Thou shalt, thou shalt not … ”) and the conditional form (“If this happens, then …, but if this happens, then … ”); the absolute form especially is well adapted to recitation in worship acts of covenant renewal. Jesus’ principles of the kingdom of God are sometimes similarly cast in metrical form, as in the Beatitudes and other parts of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7). The nature of Israelite “law” is often misunderstood; as Torah, it is really “instruction” rather than law in the modern sense of legally binding statutes and belongs in the context of worship rather than that of jurisprudence.

Prophetic Indictment. Equally dependent on the covenant foundation is the basic form of prophetic utterance, the judgment speech (or covenant lawsuit), in which the spokespersons of the Lord utter the consequences of the people’s unfaithfulness to their agreement with him. These indictments, as well as other kinds of prophetic address, are almost always given in poetic and musical form, evidencing considerable artistic reflection on the part of the prophets as they opened themselves to the word of the Lord. The same artistic skill is evident in the Revelation, where John uses a dramatic idiom to amplify the effects of the ruptured covenant.

Poetry. Since a great part of the Bible is poetry, the principles of poetic composition apply to many of the biblical literary forms. As to metrical structure, biblical poetry does not scan in some recurring pattern of metric “feet,” nor does it use rhyme. Instead, it generally employs a rhythm of stressed syllables, with a variable number of intervening unstressed syllables. Such a structure is well adapted to chanting or singing, in a style similar to what we know as the “recitative” in seventeenth-century oratorios such as Handel’s Messiah; most of the poetic material in Scripture was probably originally sung.

The most distinctive feature of biblical poetry, however, is the principle of parallelism of ideas. That is, the second line in a couplet repeats the same idea, using different words (synonymous parallelism); or it may present the contrasting or opposite idea (antithetic parallelism); or it may take the idea of the first line and develop some aspect of its thought (synthetic parallelism). Parallelism in one form or another appears throughout the Bible in poetic or semi-poetic sections such as the Genesis account of Creation, the oracles of the prophets, the Psalms, the Proverbs, and the Sermon on the Mount.

Both the stressed metrical structure and the parallelism of ideas of biblical poetry can be translated into other languages without destroying their character; they are what makes the Bible sound like the Bible in any language. Philosophically speaking, the proper use and appreciation of literature constructed in this way require close attention to the words being used and the images and associations they bear, not only from an intellectual standpoint but also from that of a word artist. The cadence of biblical poetry and hymnody, or even of metrically grouped teachings and commandments, adds to worship a sense of awe and solemnity, lifting it above the plane of the merely prosaic.

Proverb and Wisdom. The biblical proverb, or wise saying, is part of an international tradition of wisdom Israel shared with other cultures of the ancient Near East. Biblical wisdom, however, takes on a distinctive coloration because of the character and sovereignty of Yahweh. The temptation to exalt human wisdom is always tempered by the realization that “there is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord” (Prov. 21:30). Biblical wisdom is therefore practical; it is not the exploration of the esoteric but the consideration of how to live in “the fear of the Lord” (Prov. 9:10). Even the books of Ecclesiastes and Job, which probe the deeper issues of human suffering, eventually come up against the sovereignty of God as the only “answer” to life’s ultimate quest. This literature, too, is thus brought within the orbit of worship, which celebrates the sovereignty of the God of the covenant.

Dialogue. The biblical concept of “truth” is not the modern idea of absolute, scientifically verifiable fact; in Hebraic culture “truth” is created by speaking it, and the most powerful speaker creates the prevailing truth, hence the importance of dialogue as a way of approaching the truth. The best example of this principle is the dialogue of Job, in which Job, his three friends, and Elihu approach the problem of justifying God’s seemingly unjust ways from a variety of angles; if they cannot solve the problem, they can at least talk it to death. However, as the book brings out at the end, the supreme biblical dialogue is always with God, who listens but whose word establishes the final truth. Men and women of the Bible are not afraid to argue with God, to plead with him to change his mind, especially about the execution of his judgments, as we note from the examples of Abraham (Gen. 18:22–33), Moses (Exod. 32:7–14), Amos (Amos 7:1–6), and even Jesus in the garden (Matt. 26:36–44). God expects such a dialogue from his partners in the covenant, and this principle undergirds the teaching of Jesus and the apostles about the importance of prayer.

Parable. Although the parable was an ancient literary form, Jesus brought it to its highest level of artistic development in his parables of the kingdom of God. In these stories, Christ used familiar characters and situations from common life—a farmer sowing seed, a rebellious son, a corrupt judge, a woman who loses a coin, a servant forgiven a great debt, a merchant who discovers a priceless pearl—to illustrate the value of God’s kingdom and the consequences for those who refuse it. A parable is not an allegory, in which every detail stands for some hidden truth; the meaning of Jesus’ parables was quite clear and was offensive to the religious establishment of the time (Luke 20:19). To make its point, the parable depends on the human capacity to imagine and to make a transference of imagery from an ordinary sphere of activity to another, more significant sphere of concern. This must take place in the words and motions of worship, which is therefore highly parabolic.

Drama. In drama, there is a movement from problem to resolution presented in dialogue and action involving complementary and contrasting characters. Biblical history as a whole is a great drama; the problem is the rebellion of humankind, and the resolution is the appearance of the New Jerusalem in which the Lord dwells in the midst of his faithful people. The drama has its ebb and flow, with a hint of the ultimate resolution appearing already in the Lord’s covenant with Abraham. Scripture embraces a more specifically dramatic idiom in several places, particularly at the very culmination in the Revelation to John.

A feature of biblical drama wherever it appears is dynamic imagery in the form of word pictures that convey the sense of movement and energy in the situation. The description of Solomon’s bride (Song of Sol. 4), the four living creatures supporting God’s throne, the sun darkened and the moon turned blood red, fire or stars falling from heaven, the rending of the temple veil, the beasts from the sea and the land, the Word of God with the sword, a city coming down from heaven—these are images intended to propel and intensify the drama. As literary symbols, they are powerful and gripping. Reduced to visual form, as though literal, they lose their compelling power and become merely grotesque or even trite. Biblical drama builds with word pictures; the cross of Christ itself is such a word picture, an instrument of execution transferred through preaching (not visual representation) into a symbol of victory and the renewal of the covenant. Biblical worship is the enactment of the imaged resolution to the great drama of Scripture. The loaf and the cup of the Eucharist are powerful not as visual symbols, but as dramatic symbols, an acted-out word picture of the presence of the living Christ with his people. Perhaps more than any other literary form, drama brings the worshiper into the realm of the numinous and that communion with the holy that fulfills the chief end and aim of humankind: to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

A Biblical Philosophy of the Numinous Aspect of the Arts

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The biblical conception of God as holy has profound significance for the philosophy of the worship arts. The biblical worshiper encounters the Lord as the Holy One. The basic connotation of holiness (Hebrew qodesh) is not the goodness or righteousness of Yahweh but the fact that he is encountered as one “set apart,” sacred or sacrosanct, unlike that which is experienced in the ordinary events of life. There is, in other words, a numinous aspect to the encounter with the Lord, a quality of mystery, dread, and fascination in his presence, which calls forth a spontaneous and intuitive response of worship. The rational mind cannot encompass his being, nor can human language adequately bear the majesty of his presence. Worship, like theology, must express itself through transforms of the experience of the holy, symbols that point beyond themselves to the real reason alone cannot grasp.

It is here that the fine arts make their essential and distinctive contribution to the worship of Almighty God. Whether visual, auditory, literary, choreographic, or liturgical, art forms can augment the worshiper’s sensitivity to the sacred in a way that common verbal communication cannot. Language, as a means of communication, depends on the premise that a symbol used by one speaker will be intelligible to another and therefore involves a rational process that issues in some kind of linear, conventional ordering of phonemes and thought units. Art forms, as well, require the application of rational processes in their creation and appreciation, but as a means of communication, they operate at another level, touching the intuitive faculties of the human psyche. Art may be a window into unseen realities. The Last Supper fresco of Leonardo da Vinci is more of a humanistic tour de force of Renaissance technique than a vehicle for grasping the passion of Christ. By contrast, the roughly contemporaneous Last Supper of Tintoretto, its scene shading from the table of Christ and the disciples into the heavenly host, is a numinous window into the eternal truth “This is my body”; and the Isenheim Altarpiece of Grünewald, with its massive, distorted depiction of the crucified Christ, conveys with compelling force the weight of sin and suffering borne by the Savior.

The Bible is full of artistic creations, symbols fashioned or enacted by worshipers as expressions of that which cannot be encompassed by ordinary speech: the tabernacle and the temple, with their furnishings; the vesture of the priests; the ark of the covenant and its cherubim; the symbolic acts of liturgy and sacrifice; sacred gesture such as bowing down and lifting hands and festival processions; the many word symbols of covenant liturgy, hymn, and psalm, prophetic song and vision, parable and preaching. The colors used in the Mosaic tabernacle and its priestly vesture are sometimes interpreted as prophetic, standing for some theological truth or concept; in fact, their “meaning” is to serve as artistic expressions of the numinous quality of the house of God.

As an art form, even unintelligible speech, or speaking in tongues, conveys such a meaning in relationship to the presence of the holy and is not an ecstatic or emotional activity as some nonpractitioners suppose. The most numinous of the arts is music, which speaks most directly to the intuitive capacities of the worshiper, bearing a sense of majesty, wonder, mystery, and delight, and bringing a release of the soul even without recourse to words. It is well to recall, in this connection, how much of the Bible is poetry and song. God is not an idea but a reality encountered at the deepest level of being; from this perspective, art is not only permitted in biblical worship, but it is also mandatory.