Great Day
In “A Good Travel Agent”, Ben Sidran summarizes the three things you need to know about American jazz music “since the first note turned blue in 1902.” The three things are, as I present this less artfully, are a bad romance, a good travel agent, and sea food. The story of the American jazz percolates from its people, an oppressed people singing their songs of lament. Or, as Sarah Vaughn does here in “Great Day”, in hopes that the story of scripture is their story story too.
The bad romance is all trough scripture. God’s Beloved turns to another, on the very day of their covenant, their wedding. His Bride regularly looks elsewhere for delight and comfort. Yet YHWH’s faithfulness remained. Hosea’s life illustrates God’s bad romance with His Bride. Yet His love endures. There are also psalms of lament and books like Job that tell of the ache of the Beloved as well. As in Song of Songs, this relationship is one of seeking and finding and seeking again. Jazz swells from the heart’s longing.
A good travel agent is also part of the story of scripture. Abraham went to a land he did not know. Joseph was exiled from his family and sent to Egypt. The rest of his family soon joined. The Hebrew people were led out of Egypt by God Himself. He led them through the wilderness. He led them to a land of promise. He even led them out at his direction (Psalm 39, “You did this!”). YHWH also led them back as He gave them favor with Persia. Jesus led His disciples around for over three years then sent them throughout the world. Like jazz, a good travel agent is vital to the history of God’s people and activity in the world.
Sea food. What in the world? Well the story of God’s activity with His people in His world centers around the water. From creation in Genesis to the River of Life in Revelation, the movement of water is central. Jesus chose fishermen from a fishing village to surrender their skill and way of life to fish for men, to pull them up out of the depths. John 21 tells one of the most beautiful stories of sea food. Jesus is on the beach cooking fish for his disciples early in the morning. Their world and hopes were buried in the tomb with Jesus. What now? They went back to what they knew. And Jesus appears to them as He did the first time He called them, as they were fishing. He could have walked on the water to them. He could have left it at the miraculous catch. But Jesus revealed Himself as a servant, cooking their fish. Their reason for hope has returned.
The story of the “Great Day”, or “Day of Lord”, begins in Genesis with Adam and Eve listening to the lies of the Deceiver. They choose to define good and evil for themselves. Shame enters God’s perfect world, relationships are damaged, and evil (ra) emerges. The bad romance has begun. As a result, pain, violence, and oppression grows. Eventually they end up in Egypt, enslaved by Pharaoh. The travel agent is at work. God would deliver them and give them their own land. But the leaders of Israel begin to act like Pharaoh. Social injustice and violence cause the cry of the people to reach God once again. The prophet Amos speaks up and says, the “Day of Lord” is coming again, this time against Israel! All oppressive empires must face the “Great Day.”
Jesus was born into an oppressive empire as well- Rome. In the wilderness, He was tempted with the same promise of power that tempted Adam and Eve and all oppressive empires- exploit your privilege and power for self interest. Jesus conquered the power of oppressive empires through self-sacrificing love. He delivered the oppressed from the weapon of death and empowered us with His Spirit to be a new kind of human. In the final “Day of the Lord”, Jesus arrives to end the power of Babylon and all kingdoms like it. He shows up, already bloodied from sacrificing Himself and wielding authority to defined judge good and evil, holding us accountable when He brings final justice. This “Day of the Lord” is a challenge to resist the ways of Babylon and hold to the promise that He will make all things new. ( See “Day of the Lord” video by thebibleproject.)
Shusaku Endo’s “Silence’: “Sin, he reflected, is not what it is usually thought to be; it is not to steal and tell lies. Sin is is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious to the wounds he has left behind.” This is the sin of violence and exploitation of those in power over those without means. This is the stimulus of the cry for the “Great Day” throughout history, including the history of jazz in America.
“Not only was jazz music itself an analogy to the ideals of the civil rights movement, but jazz musicians took up the cause themselves. Using their celebrity and their music, musicians promoted racial equality and social justice (Michael Verity, https://www.liveabout.com/jazz-and-the-civil-rights-movement-2039542 ). “ This link provides more excellent examples of the work of other musicians like Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong. Jazz music addressed injustice and violence, just as the prophets did. Interestingly, Run with the Horses, is cited by Bono in an interview with its author, Eugene Peterson, as revealing how the prophet is a performance artist. The jazz artists sang against it, spoke against it, marched against it and prayed for that “Great Day”, a day the prophets foretold as God’s response to oppressors.
The Lord helps those who pray
And on judgement day
If you believe, he shall receive you
Amen.
When you're down and out
Lift up your head and shout
There's gonna be a great day
The pain of this world is a pain of exile and longing. The longing for justice, for things to be made right, for the Deliverer to come. It is a hope that God will respond to the cries of the oppressed once again. The cry is a cry of hope and a cry of pain and of doubt and lament. The hurt is real. Jazz transposes the pain and suffering of the marginalized people in America into a form of prayer. It is from this particular that its universal nature is seen. It is notable that when the people in Egypt first cried out from oppression, they did not use God’s name. They just cried out. Jazz is a musical cry for deliverance from the power system of Babylon that artists encountered in America. Sara Vaughn singing of that “Great Day” is a psalm, telling of the history of God answering prayers and asking Him to do it again.
