the harpist

If I'm going to preach I have to prepare.

That's not ignoring or down-playing the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is not some magical 'genie' who conjures up wonderful tricks.

The Spirit of God is a person. And we work as a team. I'm not exactly his 'researcher' (he knows it all himself!): but there's a part that I play in my digging around in the Bible with him to come up with the goods that he'll use.

A bit like my working with him day by day to be putting in place the strings on the harp that he'll play.

It's the Spirit of God who makes and plays the music. But we work together to see that the strings are all there in their place and all precisely tuned.

More like a harp than a violin. That's only got the four strings. A harp - well, a harp has an awful lot more.

I looked it up to see. That well-known fount of all knowledge (not!), Wikipedia, informs me that a typical concert harp has some 46 or 47 strings: I checked it out some other places too, to see if that was right.

46 or 47 strings. Quite a lot to get your head around - not to mention your fingers.

And it doesn't do if some of them aren't quite properly tuned (the strings, I mean, not your fingers). It rather spoils the whole thing.

The instrument has to be well 'prepared' in advance for the harpist to do his thing, for the music to flow.

(Or for the harpist to do 'her' thing, since most of the pictures you see of a harpist are pictures of a lady playing the harp. Are there no male harpists? Or is it just that the women are more photogenic?)

The Spirit of God is the harpist when preaching is what it's meant to be. The music of heaven which melts the heart and moves the soul and somehow makes sense of all of life - that music of heaven is heard when the Spirit of God is playing.

And that's what I'm keen should always be the case.

So I have to make sure that the strings are all tuned and the instrument's ready for action. Ready for God by his Spirit to play his heavenly music.

That's what I mean by saying there's always preparation to be done. I'm getting the harp all ready.

And over these next coming days there's a lot of music being played!

There are three different services of worship this coming Sunday, for a start - morning, afternoon, and evening.

There's barely time for a good night's sleep in between before there are two more funerals on Monday. And if I've picked up the gist of a message there was on the answer machine, then there'll be another funeral too, probably the very next day.

Music. All of them times when the Spirit of God is scheduled to play.

His harp's going to take a hammering! Except, of course, he doesn't really play it like that!

Preparation, they say, is everything. Well, prayerful preparation. Working with him to get his harp in order.

There was the service at lunch-time today as well, of course. The music of heaven for all sorts of folk who are needing to hear those dulcet tones the Spirit alone can produce.

Psalm 124 today. A song about those who are coping with something like 'free-fall' in their lives. Who feel like they're soon to go under.

I don't mean six feet under in a coffin, I should add. Though for some, indeed, for us all, who knows?

A word in season for some who were there, of that I have no doubt. ' Music' again to their ears, as the Spirit of God played his harp.

But, like I said at the start, it doesn't happen magically.

Miracle, more like. But not any 'abracadabra' magic.