'Rejoice in God, O ye Tongues; give the glory to the Lord, and the
Lamb. Nations, and languages, and
every creature in which is
the breath of Life. Let man and
beast appear before him, and
magnify his name together'.
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There are two Hebrew words that
come to mind when I hear
Britten's 'Rejoice in the Lamb'
and that remarkable text of
Christopher Smart
I'll be honest that there aren't
many more Hebrew words I know!
The words are 'hallel' meaning
'praise', from where we get the
word 'Hallel-ujah': praise
(hallel) God (Jah).
'Rejoice in the Lamb' captures a
sense of exuberant praise and
glorification of God by all
creatures: it's an alleluia!
And that leads to my second
Hebrew word which is 'nephesh'.
This word literally means
'breath' or even better 'life force', or, as
Smart refers to it, 'the breath
of Life'.
This life force is the breath of
life that suffuses all creatures,
animals as much as humans.
'Rejoice in the Lamb' is an
assertion of the life force in all
creatures and so reminds we human
beings that we share
creatureliness with all
creatures.
Smart takes this as far, but no
further, than the Creation
accounts of Genesis, in which of
course God declares that 'it is
good'.
Again, Smart goes as far as, but
no further, than the great matins
canticle the Benedicite, Omnia
Opera, 'O all ye works of the
Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise
him and magnify him for ever'.
The Benedicite suggests that
'angels', 'waters', 'sun and moon',
'stars of heaven', 'showers and
dew', 'fire and heat', 'whales and
all that moves in the waters',
'fowls of the air', 'beasts and cattle'
in other words, all created
things - animate and inanimate - are
created to bless, praise and
magnify the Lord, their Creator.
Admittedly cats aren't named in
the Benedicite, but there is no
reason why they shouldn't be!
The point is that all things in
the cosmos are created things, as
am I, as are you, as was Jeoffry,
Christopher Smart's cat.
Created things ultimately are
created to worship and honour the
Creator.
This is where theology begins,
and ends: God is not a thing, not
an element of creation, but the
Creator, the originator, the
generator.
That is what Genesis 1 so
carefully sets out: the sun and the
moon are creatures, not deities;
the earth and trees and animals
of all descriptions are creatures
not deities; last of all we
humans, we are creatures, not
deities.
Even whilst sharing the image and
likeness of the Creator, we
are creatures too who reflect the
Creator's glory: in that way we
are like the moon which has no
light of its own, but reflects the
light of the sun.
So, for Smart, for all his
alleged madness, is touching deep and
important things.
In 'Rejoice int he Lamb' Smart
names many weird and wonderful
creatures that praise their
Creator, and is most evident in
Jeoffry, his cat. What Smart sees
in Jeoffry is wonderful and to be celebrated: a
cat who 'at first glance of the
glory of God in the East he
worships in his way'.
'Worships in his way' is not a
statement of personal taste - in the
sort of way that people shop
around for styles of worship, in a
consumerist, preference-based way
- this is deeper: 'worships in
his way' means that Jeoffry is a
cat who glorifies God in all that
it is to be a cat; to be feline.
It's what the second century
African theologian Tertullian
recognised when he wrote that,
'birds, when they awake, rise
toward heaven and in place of
hands lift their wings which they
open in the shape of the cross,
chirping something that might
seem to be a prayer'.
In Smart's assertion of the
feline nature of the cat and
Tertullian's of the avian nature
of the birds is the question the
Scriptures insistently ask us:
what is the worship and honour
due to God in the human nature of
men and women?
In his 'elegant quickness'
Jeoffry is inhabiting his creatureliness
in all its feline elegance. What
Smart observes is a cat being
truly a cat.
Tertullian, even with his
somewhat florid interpretation is
observing birds being birds,
flying and chirping.
Our fellow creatures in God's
creation inhabit their
creatureliness and who they are
all made and called by God to
be.
Their 'nephesh' issues in
'hallel'; their 'breath of life' issues in
praise.
The one creature that can't
achieve - this is the one that sits in
an exalted place in the creation,
declared to be made in the
image and likeness of God - and
that's us.
So Smart sees in Jeffrey a cat
that is truly a cat, just as a tree is
truly a tree, and is moved to
contemplate his own nature.
Psalm 8 asks the question: 'What
is man that thou art mindful of
him? And the son of man, that
thou visitest him? (Psalm 8.4)
This is where we can state that
Jesus Christ is the true human,
hence why St Paul calls him the
New Adam, the new humanity.
Christ Incarnate, shows how the
human person should live to
glorify God and reflect his image
and likeness. Christ
demonstrates humanity in all its
human-ness as sons and
daughters of the Most High,
rather than the distorted, violent,
envious, competitive, brittle way
we live our lives: we spend too
much of our lives living lives
that are not fully human, we are
diminished.
The fullness of humanity is when
we bless, worship and magnify
our Creator in worship that sets
our sights on the true 'hallel',
the praise that channels our
nephesh, our 'breath of Life' to God.
Smart's cat, Jeoffry, points us
to authentic praise, as do those
gathered in Bethlehem at the
birth of Christ. Christ is
surrounded by representatives of
the Creation: a star - creature
not deity; ox and ass - creatures
not deities; and then the
devotion of people who become
more themselves in worship
and adoration of Christ, and are
in no way diminished.
'Rejoice in God, O ye Tongues;
give the glory to the Lord, and the
Lamb. Nations, and languages, and
every creature in which is
the breath of Life. Let man and
beast appear before him, and
magnify his name together'.
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