Monday Morning Music Ministry

Merry Monday to all.

I am in the process — yes, it is a process — of writing a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach. Specifically about the role of faith in his life and work. It is a humbling privilege to deal with, and introduce a new generation of readers to, the greatest musical genius the human race has produced. I will say, somewhere in the book, that the music of Bach is hard to explain but easy to understand.

In a similar way Bach, being as intensely devoted to his faith in God and love of Jesus as to his music, used his talent to make the complicated theology of 18th-century Germany nevertheless understandable to the masses. I was struck in my studies, listening to his astonishing “Magnificat” — the prayer of Mary (Luke I) when she learns she has been visited by the Holy Ghost and is with child — how brilliantly he used his talent to explain Gospel truths. In her prayer, Mary says, “henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” Bach used that verse for the fourth movement of “The Magnificat”… and he might have dwelt on the words, the concepts, of “henceforth” or “me” (as veneration of Mary was a theological issue), or “blessed.”
But he chose to focus on the word “generations,” the phrase “all generations,” and drive home several biblical points. The birth of Jesus became the focal point of creation’s unfolding work: the fulcrum of history. More, all generations to come would look back on Mary and call her blessed. Further, all previous generations looked forward to the birth of the Messiah. And, having isolated that phrase to imbue the Virgin Birth with its spiritual profundity, Bach capped it all by using musical composition to do more than merely quote the Bible verse.

The Latin words for “all generations” is “Omnes Generationes.” In his “Magnificat” Johann Sebastian Bach endows his five-part choir with a cascading multiplicity of that phrase — up the scale and down; women’s statements and men’s responses; from the left (as it were, in the choir loft) and from the right; in repetition and staccato fashion — “all generations,” “all generations,” “all generations,” “all generations.”
Truly, before the short but awesome chorus is finished, listeners have a mental image of the numberless hosts of heaven rejoicing: a mighty cloud of witnesses, to be sure, of the past and of the future.
The brief clip this week has two halves: one, the score of the movement, leading your eye through the multi-part composition — how Bach worked out the concept of future generations blessing Mary. But the second half is a unique piece of speculation by an internet musical-theologian. Along the lines of typology, numerical symbolism, and “Bible codes,” here is speculation that Bach composed this movement to precisely enumerate the generations of Jesus’ ancestry.

Speculation only, but as Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we know that saints of previous days indeed looked forward to the Incarnation (“It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order…” Luke I:3).
Here is Mary’s prayer (“The Magnificat”) as recorded in Luke I: 46-55:
“And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His name. And his mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation. He hath showed strength with his arm; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away. He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to His seed for ever.”

Join the heavenly chorus! Picture countless angels and saints praising the Incarnation:
click All Generations!

Have a great week. Come on Bach now, y’hear?
Rick Marschall