In The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis tells the story of how two young children, Digory and Polly, were there on the day when Narnia, that land of talking beasts and trees, was made.

“In the darkness, something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away, and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.”

Narnia was created with a song – Aslan’s song. I hope you visit Narnia often because that world of talking beasts and fauns and the great lion, Aslan, is not a children’s story meant to help us escape our own world but better see the wonder of our own world.

I wonder, what might the song of creation have sounded like in our world? Use your imagination. What did it sound like as God spoke stars, birds, and Adam and Eve into existence? I’d like to imagine Psalm 8 is one of the songs sung because Psalm 8 is a song of creation. Psalm 8 is a symphony that fills the hall with sound. The same chorus bounces from hill to hill, throughout the trees, and up to the skies.

“LORD, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with your majesty…. When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place” (Psalm 8:1,3).

Look at the stars! Are stars the music notes of God’s symphony written upon the sky? Or are they the choir singing? Or are stars God’s audience in the heavens, made the fourth day, to watch in wonder the next morning as God filled his earth with beasts, birds, and fish, and then crowned his creation with a man and woman? Perhaps all three!

“What is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him? You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all the sheep and oxen, as well as the animals in the wild, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas” (Psalm 8:4-8).

Listen to all the beasts sing! They all know their part. Imagine the sopranos and tenors, the trombones, trumpets, and clarinets. The moose, the manatees, the foxes, the falcons – even little piglets – all know their part and sing it well. In the six days of creation, there is a crescendo to God’s greatest creation. God forms his earth and then fills it with trees, birds and fish, beasts, and finally, man and woman. So too, Psalm 8 leads us toward the crown of creation. Everything knows its part and follows their ruler. Psalm 8 is the song of creation as it was meant to be – when all was in harmony. All beasts and birds and fish know their part and sing it well. But, the world is not as it should be. This world is out of tune.

Have you heard a musician weave the melody of one song into the background of another? I love hearing songs within songs. In this song of creation, we hear at the beginning echoes of another song, another voice, another sound. What is it? A baby crying.

“From the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have established a stronghold on account of your adversaries in order to silence the enemy and the avenger” (Psalm 8:2).

God drowns out the cacophony in this world with the smallest voice you can imagine – a baby. God delights in using weak things to show how strong he is. Psalm 8 is an echo of the song from Bethlehem when the star leads the way and beasts give up their feeding trough. The angel choirs sing, and we look in wonder and ask, “Who is this baby?”

Psalm 8 is the song of creation that sings God’s majesty in all the earth. But, Psalm 8 is also the song of Bethlehem, the song of new creation coming through a baby in a manger. One day, the world – having been subjected to him again – will sing, “LORD, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth!”