In the Key of Grace

Music, heaven, and the sacred silence before the first note

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

This essay is inspired by the thoughtful work of Rev. Taylor Mertins, who recently wrote about a moment in a Sunday School class: a question about names and the last band someone listened to. That icebreaker led to surprising connections. Proof that music has a way of doing what few other things can: bypassing our defenses and tuning our hearts to one another.

From Pink Floyd to Bach to Metallica, music revealed something holy in the gathering. And from there, Taylor launched into a theological reflection grounded in the zingers of Robert Jenson, particularly Jenson’s haunting and hopeful claim: “All I know is that the End is music.” It’s a line that, once heard, lingers like a final chord that refuses to resolve.

Taylor’s piece moves through Scripture, worship, and experience to show how music is not just something we use to express faith—it’s a foretaste of what’s promised at the end of all things. It helps us believe. It helps us remember. It gives shape to our praise and space for our sorrow. And it joins us, now, to the song God has already begun.

Reading Taylor’s words, I couldn’t help but wonder: If the End is music, then what is the Beginning? What follows is my attempt to explore that question. What does it mean to say we were created not only for music, but into it? What does it mean to believe in a God who begins with silence, and ends with song?

This is my answer, offered in the key of grace.

The End is Music

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A student once asked Robert Jenson what heaven is like. “Dr. Jenson,” the student said, “I’ve heard you talk about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I’ve read your books. But what I really want to know is this: What is heaven going to be like?”

And Jenson, without skipping a beat, said, “All I know is that the End is music.”

Now that’s not the kind of answer most students expect from a theologian. They want harps and halos, or a biblically footnoted answer with a five-point outline and an eschatological timeline to boot. But no. Jenson just says: Music.

You have to sit with that for a minute. The End is music.

Now if that’s true, if heaven, if the fulfillment of all things, if the telos of this strange and beautiful creation is music, then what does that say about the beginning?

Maybe the beginning is silence.