"That's What God Looks Like" (F. Sinatra): A Meditation

 Okay, today, for the 3rd installment of what I’m dubbing “finding the spirit in pop songs,” we turn to 1978 and the Frank Sinatra album, Trilogy: Past, Present, and Future. The big hit from this album was the “Theme from New York, New York.” You know the song… “start spreading the news. I’m leaving today…” The B-side of this iconic tune was our song for today, “That’s What God Looks Like to Me.” 

If you don’t know what a B-side is, ask me later…

The song was composed by Lan O’Kun, known mostly as a screenwriter. He wrote episodes for popular shows like The Love Boat, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Highway to Heaven, and The Twilight Zone. The lyrics were written by Stan Irwin, who was known mostly as a talent manager and TV producer. Irwin wrote the poem as a gift to Sinatra after Ol Blue Eye’s mother died. 

So, two people in the business, known for other things, got together and wrote this beautiful song, rich in its spirituality. 

What I’d like to do is go through the lyrics and the many metaphors therein and connect those metaphors to the biblical story. 

We see God in a rainbow

God’s first covenant found in the story of Noah is sealed with the rainbow. Remember the story? 

As the story goes, God after creation, comes to see the world’s wicked ways and seeks a do-over. God shares his plan with Noah who follows God’s guidance. Noah builds an ark to escape God’s do-over, his plan to rid the world of all beings but Noah, his family, and a reproductive sampling from every animal species. 

By the way, there are species that reproduce asexually, without the necessity of male and female. 

God enacted his do-over plan via the flood. But after seeing the destruction, God seems to regret his harsh choice. Like a father who realizes he was way, way too harsh with his child, God goes to Noah and promises never to be so harsh again. God trades the war-bow used to destroy life for a peace-bow to sustain life. That covenant promise to be less hard, less harsh, and less horrible, and with this, to be softer, kinder, more merciful, is sealed with what? A rainbow. 

The rainbow represents God’s choosing the way of merciful love instead of destructive judgment. The rainbow points to, in sum, compassion and love. Don’t we need more compassion and love in the world?   

When you see a rainbow, remember God's promise of more compassion, less judgment.

We see God in wheat dancing.

In the gospels, we read this story. While walking through a wheatfield on the Sabbath, Jesus' hungry disciples picked the heads of the grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate the kernels. Pharisees saw this and said it was unlawful to do work like harvesting on the Sabbath. Jesus defended his disciples. He pointed out that a famished David and his companions ate the temple’s sacred bread, which only priests were allowed to eat. Jesus concludes by saying, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," and that "the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.” 

A beautiful wheatfield is the context for Jesus pointing to the mercy of self-care over the rigidity of religious laws.

Then there’s Jesus’ parable of wheat and weeds from Matthew 13. Jesus tells a story about a farmer who planted wheat seed in his field, but someone, despising the farmer, secretly planted weeds among the wheat. Despite the weeds that grow, the wheat grows. The wheat represents those who follow Christ, loving God and loving neighbor, despite the weed-infested harshness of the world. 

Children of God choosing the path of love, they are akin to golden wheat dancing on the plain despite the world’s plodding weeds. We Christ-followers, we as wheat dancing on the plain, look like God! 

We see God in a star

This is an easy one, right? The star over Bethlehem leads the wise men to Jesus. That star was akin to God guiding them home to that of God found in the child. The night star guided them to the daystar of God, Christ himself. What was for the wise men is for us. Follow the star of God!

We see God in a baby near his mother.

Baby Jesus felt safe in the presence of his mother. He was calmed by her mere presence. God is seen in the mother, for sure. Mother Mary is revered across the world because she carried and bore God. But God is seen in the baby, too. And somehow seen more clearly. In the utter vulnerability of a newborn, we see God most perfectly! How remarkable is that!?   

We see God in the moonlight

A few weeks ago, I discussed how the moon is an ancient Christian symbol for the Holy Spirit. Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun to the world, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, reflects the light of the Son, Christ, to the world now. 

We see God in a garden

There are two renowned gardens in the Bible. These two gardens tell the gospel story. First, the Garden of Eden. Humanity begins in the Garden of Eden, completely at one in God and at peace in the light of God’s love. But man chooses the way of separateness from God and is dismissed from the Garden of Eden and its connection to God and to the love of God found there. 

But in the Garden of Gethsemane, the tide is turned. Jesus submits his will to God, and accepts the call to give it all away for our salvation. Because of what happens in this Garden, our bridge past sin back to the first Garden is secured and offered to us. 

The Garden of Gethsemane gives way to the Garden of Eden. God is seen in both. Thanks be to God! 

We see God in the heavens, sea & mountains.

In Ephesians 3:18, Paul writes, “I ask that you’ll have the power to grasp love’s width and length, height and depth, together with all believers.” 

God’s essential attributes are too vast for the human mind to fathom. God’s love is infinite. His faithfulness, righteousness, and justice, arising from his love, are boundless. We can’t get our head around things like infinity or boundlessness.

We must rely on metaphor to even get close to grasping God’s love. The metaphors that get us closest are found in creation and creation’s most awe-inspiring realities, the heavens, the oceans, the mountains. 

What is as vast and as deep as the heavens and the oceans? What is as wide and high as the mountains? 

Psalm 36: 5-7 makes this clear. 

Your loyal love, Lord, extends to the skies;
    your faithfulness reaches the heavens.
6 Your righteousness is like the strongest mountains;
    your justice is like the deepest sea.
        Lord, you save both humans and animals.
7 Your faithful love is priceless, God!
    Humanity finds refuge in the shadow of your wings.

All of creation points to God and to what is most essential about God. God is love. God’s faithfulness, righteousness, and justice flow from God’s love. Faithfulness, righteousness, justice, love, these four. But the greatest of these is love.

We see God in a child

The song turns again to the gift of a child. The singer sees God in the very son asking him the big question at the beginning of the song, what does God look like?

That children show us God should come as no surprise to us.  

After all, Jesus in Mark 10:15 equates children with being receptive to the movement of God. “Whoever doesn’t welcome God’s kingdom like a child will never enter it,” Jesus said 

The book of Isaiah, Jesus’ favorite book of the Bible, says this in chapter 11, verse 6 – in the kingdom, “a child shall lead us.” In other words, children are to be our guide in how we live and how we discern the best way to live. Those who lead us should have children ever at the forefront of their mind and heart. The well-being of children should guide all human discernment. What is best for our children should be the question our leaders ask first and foremost. This is what Isaiah 11:6 is telling us.

Lastly, we cannot forget Genesis 1:27. All of us are equally created in God’s image. This is true from the very beginning of our lives. Our children from their very first breaths carry God’s likeness in them. 

Here’s an important truth that Jesus recognized. Because children are less jaded by the world, their likeness to God is purer and truer than us jaded adults. Indeed, our children especially look like God.

We see a child’s likeness to God perfected in a baby in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. Baby Jesus, he not only looks like God. In Jesus, the Word that is God became flesh and dwelled among us. In Baby Jesus, we see God dwelling with us.