6-6-11<\/p>\n
In the time we have been doing these weekly messages, I occasionally have referred to the fact that I was in the process of writing a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach \u2013 the \u201cChristian Encounters\u201d of history\u2019s greatest music-maker.<\/p>\n
Several people have written, asking What ever happened to that book I was working on? Actually, it was published last month by Thomas Nelson Publishers.<\/p>\n
This week I will pass along a couple excerpts from the new book, Johann Sebastian Bach<\/em>. I pray they have relevance to you in the week ahead. We can take away profound lessons from this man, who was an example of someone graced with talent, yet totally humble in desiring to turn those gifts back to God. Artists should \u201cexpress themselves\u201d and \u201cbe transparent\u201d so their audiences can know \u201cwhere they are coming from\u201d? Such motivations were unknown, or repugnant, to men and women of Bach\u2019s time. Their efforts \u2013 indeed their privilege \u2013 was to serve the Savior. That was fulfillment.<\/p>\n Bach began virtually every composition, even his secular music, with a blank paper on which he wrote, Jesu, juva (\u201cJesus, help me\u201d) on the upper left corner of the first page, and Soli Deo Gloria (\u201cTo God alone the glory\u201d) on the bottom right corner of the finished ending. His was a personal relationship, not a professional duty, with the Savior. <\/em><\/p>\n Such \u201cbookends\u201d were as anointing oil over all of Bach\u2019s creative work. So did he begin and end his days \u2013 and his life \u2013 with such petition and praise: \u201cJesus, help me\u201d and \u201cTo God alone be all the glory.\u201d With or without the mode of music, such dedication speaks to us through the years of Bach\u2019s relevance today. <\/em><\/p>\n + + + <\/strong><\/p>\n Not every believer has had a Road-To-Damascus moment like St Paul\u2019s, nor a terror-filled lightning storm in the Thuringian forest (where Luther vowed to study for the priesthood), nor directly contended with Satan (as Luther, in the famous legend, threw an inkwell while translating the Bible in the Wartburg Castle, Eisenach). <\/em><\/p>\n Sebastian Bach modestly was born into the Lutheran faith, died a committed Lutheran communicant, and, by all evidence, never experienced any spiritual doubts or crises of faith. His employers were largely ecclesiastical, and his few \u201csecular\u201d (court music) postings always included Christian music in their assignments. Fully half of the music he wrote was Christian. He managed musical staffs at his churches, and he taught Christian education. He was not an ordained pastor, yet the degree of his daily study, and the examinations he was obliged to pass, proved him the peer of clergy. He was indeed one of the most equipped and effective \u201cpreachers\u201d of his age. He has been called \u201cThe Fifth Evangelist.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Humble about his gifts, and determined that all his music was unto the Lord, we can see, as he surely did, that the “secular” Orchestral Suites and the Brandenburg Concertos and the Musical Offering and the Goldberg Variations and the suites for harpsichord and \u2018cello and violin and flute \u2013 and the toccatas and trios and passacaglias and fantasias and fugues \u2013 were all spiritual compositions. Just without words. <\/em><\/p>\n Is this not the perfect blueprint for any Christian? Willing to forsake worldly acclaim, this modest servant of his Savior thanked God for the talents with which he was mightily blessed… and used them for the propagation of the Gospel, the souls of his fellow man, and the glory of God. <\/em><\/p>\n The glory of God alone.<\/em><\/p>\n +<\/strong><\/p>\n Any piece of Bach\u2019s music, Christian or \u201csecular,\u201d could give us a spiritual boost to start the week. I have chosen for you a beautiful transcription of his famous \u201cAir on the G string\u201d from his third Orchestral Suite. Brief, supernal, played touchingly by the electric violinist Vanessa-Mae. The videos are pictures, somehow appropriate, of God\u2019s other corners of Creation (for Bach was a force of nature, one of the crowns of God’s creation, surely), taken from the Hubbell Space Telescope.<\/p>\n