Monday Morning Music Ministry

4-2-18

The arcane vagaries of the church calendar are not necessarily negative. Jesus was not born in December; and the observance of Easter is on different dates each year, and across various Christian sects. If the changeable dates oblige us to focus more on the events and their significance, and less on the secular-tending aspects – Holy days, not holidays – that can be a good thing.

Occasionally Easter coincides with April Fool’s Day, a secular day if there ever was one; a tradition devoted to pranks, whose origins are appropriately shrouded in obscurity.

There is another association between Easter and a silly practice that is more profound than would first seem.

The late Anthony Burger, remarkable Christian pianist, told the story of his young son in an Easter pageant in Sunday School. The boy had the unlikely role of Jesus – unlikely because he was probably the youngest of the children in the play; but his only acting assignment was to emerge from the tomb.

On the evening of the performance, the nervous parents and the curious audience waited – and waited – for “Jesus” after the Resurrection moment to walk out of the tomb. And nervously waited long moments more. Then, finally, in the portrayal of God’s miracle-working power, but also a testament of the beautiful innocence of childhood, the boy leaped from the cardboard tomb and yelled…

“Ready or not, here I come!!!”

Laughs, relief, sympathy. And – “out of the mouths of babes.”

In a real sense, Sunday-School pageants aside, that virtually IS what Jesus said when He conquered death and emerged from the tomb. Uncountable prophecies were fulfilled; He confirmed His role as Messiah; Satan was defeated; hope was extended to a humankind that had chosen sin and death; new life was proclaimed; eternal paradise in the presence of this resurrected Jesus was available to all.

Salvation is free, but a price must be paid. That holy anomaly is explained not only in the terrible sacrifice of the Incarnate Savior. There is a price still to be paid by you and me, beyond what Jesus “paid.” It is inherent in the ironic truth in the symbolic shout –

“Ready or not, here I come!” That actually is what Jesus meant; what He virtually said.

As the Bible teaches, we must believe in our hearts that Jesus is the Son of God; and confess with our lips that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10: 9,10). Not as easy as it sounds, but… Ready or not, we must make those decisions.

To be a New Creature in Christ, we must be, well, new creatures. Changed attitudes, new priorities, a rebirth. Ready or not, we must make those decisions.

Believing, confessing, and forgiving – oh! Forgiving, as we need forgiveness ourselves! – and yielding to the tugs of our new best friend, the Holy Spirit who will guide us and inspire us and empower us. Ready or not, we must make those decisions.

So the child’s deceptively simple transference of the “Ready or not, here I come!” game teaches us a profound lesson.

During Lent, this year, there was another game in e-mail threads and social media that diverted eyes from the truth and power of the Resurrection, rather than focusing our proper attention. And this was frequently perpetrated by “Christian” sites and “experts.”

You might have seen them: articles about Who killed Jesus? Was it the Jews or the Romans? Have the Jews been smeared by anti-Semitic charges? What does the Bible really say? What have recent historical studies suggested about Roman law in their courts and Jewish rules in their temples…?

Academic pabulum, scholasticism that diverts.

God killed Jesus. To put it another way, Jesus virtually scrambled up the cross.
Jesus’s “killing” was God’s plan, set out long before. His Will was done, and Jesus the Messiah – even Jesus the Man – submitted willingly. A sanctified suicide, in its way, for our salvation. Nit-picking about Roman laws and politics, Jewish traditions and rules, does little but to move the focus from the Savior’s vicarious act to take our sins upon Himself.

These “experts” seek to persuade us that it was not that “God so loved the world…” but that “Roman authorities and Jewish leaders so shaped events…” This view is evil. We should not consider for a moment that the most heinous acts of cruelty and suffering, the shedding of Holy Blood, was – Ready or not, here comes the truth – anything but an act of love.

The most extreme form of punishment was endured so that we would not endure it ourselves at the hand of a Just God. For God so loved us. And when Jesus emerged from the tomb we were graced with the means to avoid eternity in hell – which brings up another fairy tale of this season, a church leader’s reported intimation that there IS no hell. This is for another discussion, but Jesus’s death and Resurrection were in vain if this were so.

In the meantime, welcome the risen Savior with open arms! But be “ready” for the implications of the New Life.

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Without denying the undeniable joy of the Resurrection, I have tried to suggest today that in the freedom of the New Life comes a spiritual responsibility that is profound, for our own souls and those of our families and friends. In that sense, the tears of former life are mirrored in the tears we shed as born-again believers for the unsaved, and tears of joy as New Creatures in Christ.

Therefore I chose this video clip, “Have Mercy, My God,” from Bach’s “St Matthew’s Passion.” Julia Hamari, solost; Otto Büchner, violin; Karl Richter conducting the Munich Bach Orchestra and Choir.

Have mercy, my God, for the sake of my tears! See before You heart and eyes that weep. Have mercy, my God. / Erbarme dich, mein Gott, um meiner Zähren willen! Schaue hier, Herz und Auge weint vor dir bitterlich. Erbarme dich, mein Gott.

Click: Heart and Eyes That Weep

3-24-14

At Christmastime many people listen to Handel’s “Messiah.” Some of us listen to excerpts; some listen to the entire work. Some people attend performances at local churches or watch television broadcasts. For some people it is their only exposure to Baroque music during the year… and for too many, sadly, their only exposure to church music. Yet, in the words of the Sursum Corda portion of the liturgy, it is meet and right so to do. In all times and in all places – or, as often as possible – we should commune with our God. And that should apply to Easter as much as Christmas; with other supernal music as much as the traditional “Messiah.”

If we would wade into the waters of debate about the relative importance of dates in the Christian calendar, we would be reminded that over the centuries, Christmas was a relatively minor celebration, at least compared to Easter. (And that the Feast of the Ascension – marking Jesus’s physical rise to Heaven, completing the affirmation of His divinity, closing the theological circle of the Incarnation, begun with the Virgin Birth – was once more observed than it is in today’s churches.)

A propos these observations, I offer a suggestion that we all reverently replicate the consideration we give to Easter, and the attention we pay to the “Messiah,” by something new this Lenten season. Lent should be more than giving up chocolate, anyway!

Additionally, Lent gives us 40 days (that is, more than the week or so that Christmas affords) to enjoy music, and contemplate this season, concerning the most profound event in the history of humankind.

Let us avoid the temptation, for a time, to watch and wait upon events that explode in our midst, as compelling as are Russian osmotic invasions, or the perplexing disappearance of passenger planes. Let us look inward and commemorate an event 2000 years old but as immediate as the seconds and minutes of our fleeting lives.

I suggest we listen to one of the greatest creative works of the human race, Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Passion According to St Matthew.” The word Passion refers specifically to the rejection, betrayal, suffering, humiliation, torture, pain, and death of Jesus. That we should focus on these details indicates no prurience: that any person, much less the Son of God who could have waved it all away, endured such things, for us, ought to inspire our devotion.

So the “St Matthew Passion” enables us to understand, to internalize, to enrich our faith. There is a link below to an astonishing performance. I commend it, to watch in portions or in one dedicated private time. If you cannot, I will still explain why it is beneficial, and how art can serve our appreciation of the gospel.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s setting of the Passion story is based on Matthew chapters 27 and 28. Christian composers, as early as the eighth century, but mainly in the 16th-18th centuries, wrote Passions to be distinct from other church music. Passions used large ensembles, sometimes two choirs, orchestras, and organs. They were dramatic presentations, with “narrators” and soloists. Sometimes they were performed outside churches, occasionally in costumes and with dramatic action, a halfway-house to oratorios or opera.

In Bach’s version, he declined costumes but achieved great drama. In our video link you will see a stark and spare performance stage, singers in simple suits or dresses. There are no props; it is not in a cathedral. However you will notice profound symbolism in the changing placement of the singers; the colors that light the performance stage; and the illuminated Cross that floats above the performers – changing shades, morphing from dark to light to dark.

This video – made in 1971, and conducted by the legendary Bach interpreter Karl Richter – is an immense work of art in itself.

You will be grateful that the text, translated to English, is on the screen. When subtitles do not appear, it is because singers are repeating phrases. This impactful video allows you to appreciate the myriad of subtleties Bach used to emphasize the STORY of the Passion, behind the lyrics and melodies. Words are biblical passages, or the librettist’s paraphrases.

Take note of the highlighting of meaningful words, by orchestral emphasis. Notice that solo voices have keyboard accompaniment; Jesus has keyboard and strings… except for His dramatic cry “Why hast Thou forsaken me?”

Notice the music (instrumentation and style of play) reflecting singers’ hope, sorrow, or desperation.

Notice the musical (and the camera’s) emphasis on words like “Barabbas!” and “kill Him!” and “crucify!” Notice Bach’s use of musical devices – pulsating rhythms for tension; short bursts by the flutes to suggest tears; upward modulation when hope is displayed.

Note the repetition of musical themes (popular church tunes) by the choruses to unify the narrative themes.

This is a monumental work of art.

The “St Matthew Passion” was considered by Bach to be his most significant work. It was first performed in Leipzig at the St-Thomas Church in 1727, and many Holy Weeks thereafter; he frequently revised it. His autograph score shows loving attention, written in red or brown inks according to the biblical and dramatic libretto sources, and employing calligraphy in careful Gothic or Latin letters. He preserved it as an heirloom.

Baroque music and Bach’s genius temporarily were out of fashion after his death in 1750, and the “St Matthew Passion” was never performed again until 102 years after its debut. Felix Mendelssohn had discovered it, conducted a condensed version in Berlin… and the Bach Revival, which has never stopped, began. Mendelssohn, a Jew converted to Christianity, found his Lutheran faith much strengthened by Bach’s work.

Other famous Passions of our time include the play in Oberammergau, a small Bavarian town of two thousand inhabitants, half of whom stage and act in the seven-hour re-creation of Holy Week events. The play has been produced every ten years since 1634 when the town, threatened by the bubonic plague, collectively prayed for mercy and vowed to share with the world this portion of the gospel story if they were spared. In Drumheller, Alberta, Canada, every July the Canadian Badlands Passion Play is presented in a thirty-acre canyon bowl that forms a natural amphitheater. And of course many people watched the movie “The Passion of the Christ” a decade ago.

None can be more powerful than Bach’s version. If you are unfamiliar with, or dislike, “classical music,” this video will not kill you. If the hairstyles or once-cool eyeglasses of 1971’s performers look squirrely, just imagine how we would look to them; or how a magical capture of the actual 1727 debut in Leipzig would look to us. Or how the original suffering and death of Jesus, nearly 2000 years ago, would have seemed if we were there…

… ah! THAT is the art of J S Bach. This performance of the “Passion of Jesus Christ as Recorded by St Matthew,” DOES bring us back to the amazing, profound, and significant events of our Savior’s willing sacrifice for us. It is REAL. All the elements of Art – not just music and words, but the nuances of staging – drive the meaningful messages home. To our hearts.

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Click: Bach’s “St Matthew Passion”

The conductor and musical director of Munich Bach ensembles, as noted, is the great Karl Richter. The members of the instrumental and vocal ensembles are more numerous than in Bach’s more intimate times. This performance is longer than three hours (and was originally performed in segments during the weeks of Lent in Bach’s churches) but I beg you not to make it “background music.” The staging – the arrangement of the singers, the lighting, especially the position and illumination of the cross that floats above all – is profoundly significant.