The Human Heart, Heaven’s Harp

When I was a little girl growing up in Kansas, my grandparents had the inner workings of an old piano leaning against the inside of their garage. It no longer had any earthly value, of course, but at the time of its incarceration in the garage, I suppose someone had hopes of it being revived to playable condition. At least they had been loathe to dispense with something that could potentially have value if it were in the right hands.

Naturally we grandchildren, in the course of our play, would occasionally stand in the garage and pluck the strings of the old piano, usually all at the same time. You can imagine the squabbles that arose over who first needed to stop playing their “music,” and I use that term loosely, so that the child who had taken command could play his or her melody without interruption. At that time in our lives, it took a great deal of effort to wait our turns so that we could introduce our grand original compositions.

But in Kansas, if you ever went to the garage by yourself, when the winds blew, as they most frequently chose to do, you often heard the old piano “playing” without human effort. As the gusts of wind billowed in from certain directions, the air of its own volition would vibrate the strings of the piano, and the strings would “hum” of their own accord. At times it was almost as if various scales could be heard playing on the piano leaning against the wall. The strings would sort of “fill up” with the wind, and in their longing to join the wind in its joyous whipping over the plains, wishing themselves free from the pegs that tenaciously held them restrained by their carefully wound ends, they shivered in sympathetic delight, and an eerie, invisible musician filled the silent emptiness of the old garage.

That is the image that came to me recently as I studied the Greek word “praising” in Ephesians 5:19. It is in a passage that gives a list of behaviors that result from being filled with the Spirit, including “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (ESV). That list would make an excellent lesson in itself, but the point of relevance to this study is that the word for “making melody,” which is psallo, comes from the root word psao, meaning to rub or touch the surface. Therefore, the definition Strong’s Concordance gives for psallo is to play on a stringed instrument. Vine’s Expository Dictionary defines psallo as primarily to twitch, twang, then to play a stringed instrument with the fingers, and hence, in the Septuagint, to sing with a harp, sing psalms, denotes, in the New Testament, to sing a hymn, sing praise.” What is that stringed instrument? It is given in the passage if we complete the reading of the phrase, “making melody with your heart to the Lord.” This picture of praise to God is of a heart whose surface is touched or plucked like a stringed instrument. Our voices raised to the Lord are, to Him, like the strings of a harp being set in motion. (Have you ever noticed that in the Old Testament scriptures, the instruments most often used in temple worship were plucked instruments such as lyres and harps? There seems to be a pattern and a message there.) The question that immediately arises is, “Who does the plucking of these human harps?”

With images of a long-ago Kansas garage in my mind, immediately scriptures referring to the Holy Spirit as wind came to me: the day of Pentecost when the Spirit’s presence was announced by a mighty rushing wind (Acts 2:2-4) and Jesus’ reference to the wind blowing where it wishes when one is born of the Spirit. Indeed, the very word which we translate Spirit literally means breath or breeze.

So, going back to the image of our worshiper’s heart lying open as a stringed instrument, ready to be plucked into praise for God, we can see how it is brought to life by the breath of the Holy Spirit. Yes, the worshiper is to touch the surface of their heart and bring out of it praise to God, but Who touches the worshiper, opening their eyes to see and their ears to hear the Lord? Is it not the Holy Spirit? (I Corinthians 2:9-14). Thus, ultimately, it is the Holy Spirit Who is the breeze that vibrates our hearts in praise to God.

Those in scripture who were filled with the Holy Spirit were given the boldest and loudest praise of God, such as Elisabeth exclaiming to Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sounds of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:42-45). Zechariah, who had not been able to speak at all for months, had his tongue freed in order to bless God when he was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:64-79). The apostles, when filled with the Holy Spirit, uttered “the mighty works of God” to numerous nations in as many languages (Acts 2: 1-11). Peter, when filled with the Holy Spirit, boldly declared Christ’s divinity before His enemies (Acts 4:8-12). Accounts of bold praise being offered as stimulated by the filling of the Holy Spirit continue in Acts 4:31; 9:17; 13;9-12.

It seems a very clear picture, almost digitally produced. We believers have hearts with open strings, and as we lie in stillness before God (Psalm 46:10), the wind of the Holy Spirit will exhale His breath over us, giving us words of exaltation for our God. We need only vibrate in sympathy with His stirring, letting our melodies of praise arise and be carried by Him into the waiting world.

Can you imagine the beauty of music such as that? Music that has originated in heaven and echoes throughout this physical world? Music that speaks the truth of God and His Christ, His longings and purposes and ways?

How much music would there be in our churches if only melodies that originated from the Holy Spirit were the music heard today? How many churches would be full of hearts resounding in harmonious song? Would most churches have at least a discernable song being sung? Would the preacher be singing? Would any of our churches be silent? If music that originated only from the Spirit was “played” in our services, would just the preacher be heard on Sunday morning? Perhaps the whole congregation would be producing a song in unity, or perhaps various harmonies would be echoing and playing around the same theme!

I don’t know the answers to those questions, and I won’t judge. But I do know the image of weathered piano strings propped up against a battered Kansas garage speaks to me. I know that if I lay my heart open to His vibrations, His Holy Wind will blow and my heart will sing–subtly, with a melody that did not originate in man, but that skillfully runs up and down the keyboard in a mysterious fashion, played by unseen yet expert hands.

The chords will not be beaten out, pressed in response to the ticking of a clock specifying the hour to begin and end, forcibly hammered to upbeat rhythms as preselected pages are mechanically produced. The melody emanating from my strings won’t need rhythms counted out by an orchestra leader, marked by sharps and flats on a written page and rehearsed so that no discordant notes are hit. The “service” of the church would not progress like children in a garage, a series of performers demanding their share of the audience, trying to outdo each other with their performance. No, none of that. The hearts of believers, though battered by life and propped up by a declining garage wall, would be given unto the expertise of a Maestro who could see their potential. Those delivered hearts would wait quietly, in silent anticipation, until the Wind began to blow. And then the melodies released would freely soar up and down, responding in glad shivers to the Holy Breath. It would be unearthly beautiful. And the world would quiet itself in order to hear.