Sermon, 7/23/2000
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Sermon for July 23, 2000

Pastor Gunnar L. Anderson

"BACK TO BACH"

Text: Ephesians 2:11-22

"250 years ago and more, Johann Sebastian Bach created music, joyous and fresh, as if time had never been. Revered as perhaps the greatest composer of Western music," according to Linda Romine in this month's 'Lutheran' Magazine, "Bach was not as well known as a composer in his time. The organ, though, in those days, was the king of instruments and Bach was the acknowledged prince of players. What's more, he knew so much about the instrument, he would moonlight from his regular jobs, called upon to test newly installed organs from pedal to pipe before they could be approved for use. It is a matter of record that Bach was often at odds with the organ builders, 'holding out,' as he always did for quality, allowing for no cutting of corners! 'Music is my voice,' he said, 'and the organ is my pulpit!'"

Indeed, as stated in the video, "The Joy of Bach," "Of all the composers who have sung to their fellow mortals, few have equaled Bach in the creation of music as an act of worship. Let him now speak for himself in praise of his God, and in thanks for the gift of his Son, and in rejoicing in his resurrection." From Bach's work, "St. John's Passion:"

And when from death I will arise
Your face to see with my own eyes,
How great the joy in God's own son,
My Savior King, most Gracious One!

O Jesus Christ, O hear my plea,
O hear my plea,
To hear my praise eternally!

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany, and died at age 65 in Leipzig in 1750. Therefore, this coming Friday, July 28th, marks the 250th anniversary of Bach's death! A worthy commemorative moment to be sure!

"In Bach's day a musician could earn his bread and beer in two places: the church and the court," and Bach did both. "As a court composer Bach cheerfully turned out what he called, 'delights of the spirit.'" He even composed music while spending 30 days in jail charged with switching jobs from the court of one nobleman to another without permission! Starting as an organist before accepting appointment to royal courts, "He spent the last 27 years of his life as cantor and music director at St. Thomas Church and School in Leipzig." Called by the city council to this position, he was not their first choice. Records indicate the town fathers thought Bach "a mediocrity!" But the truth is that this man, this third string substitute, hired to turn out music like a shoemaker for countless church services, became for Leipzig what Shakespeare was for Stratford and Michaelangelo for Rome - a man for all time...for from Leipzig came the most incredible outpouring of music for the church the world has known: over 300 cantatas, 59 in one year; 400 chorales; 20 pages of music a day, every day, for his 65 years!"

"Still Bach found the time to be a loving husband and father. it was quite a family, for Bach was married twice with a total of 20 children! Only 9 outlived their father. He used to boast of his young wife's clear soprano - Anna Magdalena."P> In the 250 years now since his death, Johann Sebastian Bach has often been referred to as the "musical Luther!" "Bach loved God with his whole life," says Lorraine Brugh, organist and assistant professor of music at Valparaiso University. "Bach was so consistent with Martin Luther's ideas, both of theology and music...Bach owned the collected edition of Luther's works. His Bible is filled with notations that suggest he had it beside him as he composed."

At the beginning of each composition Bach would scrawl "J.J.," Latin initials for "Jesus help me!" At the conclusion of each piece he would add, "S.D.G., "Sola Deo Gloria," meaning, "to the Glory of God alone." "His was a lifelong festival of faith." As choirmaster at his school in Leipzig, he said to the boys, "Let us with voices unite and adore (God)!" For Bach, "all music was to glorify God!"

And "Bach drew no distinction between sacred and secular music." He would use folk tunes or "street songs," and turn them into something quite divine! After all, thought Bach, "there is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred!" Isn't that what the incarnation is all about: God's own Son being born in human form? So Bach turned one "popular street song" into a well known anthem of our faith: "O sacred head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down."

"Bach's music describes a power you can't put into words," gushes Lorraine Brugh. "He was able to express what he believed God's majesty was all about in musical form...Bach's music does tell me there is something greater going on in the universe than just us."

Johann Sebastian Bach may have been the "Musical Luther," but it seems to me, he was also a lot like Christ! Remember the lovely literary piece about Jesus called, "One Solitary Life?" "He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. he never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. he never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born...He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to the cross between two thieves...He was laid in a borrowed grave...(Yet) Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race..."

Just so, "For most of his life Bach sought recognition. In the evening of his years it (fleetingly) came. Summoned to the court of Frederick the Great to perform, never to know that he soon would be gone, obscurity to follow, his music forgotten; never to know his Anna Magdalena to become a pauper, his very manuscripts peddled by his children, some bound around trees, smeared with tar against insects! Soon he would go blind. And while dictating a chorale, in mid-melody, he would die" - 250 years ago this Friday, July 28th!

But then, "Only a few years ago, men of our time implanted into a spacecraft named Voyager II a recording, fashioned of copper and gold to last a billion years," It was Bach! His "Allegro from Brandenburg Concerto No. 2!"

"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us"

"40,000 years from now, beyond our universe, Voyager II will roam among the galaxies for hundreds of millions of years, carrying this calling card from the human race. There may be life out there. If there is, and if by some miracle those creatures can decipher the directions for playing that record, they will hear Johann Sebastian Bach!"

"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God..."

"Long after we, and perhaps our planet, are dust, other life may hear the exuberance and joy of this man whose life was encompassed within 200 square miles" - Johann Sebastian Bach, "who sings now into all eternity!"

AMEN


Copyright © 2000 Gunnar L. Anderson. All Rights Reserved.

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