I’ll be Bach

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” – Matthew 5: 14 – 16

I was in baptism class yesterday and my pastor started with the question “who is Johann Sebastian Bach?” and segued it to the the question “how do we know his music is good?” Being the punny person that I envision myself as  (not to be confused with puny), I quickly exclaimed “The guy who said I’ll be bach!” This is a reference, of course, to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s famous line on The Terminator series (not to be confused with the Star Wars series *ahem* Joyce Zhu *ahem*). With any misunderstood unrelated cases, we continued on to what my Pastor was trying to draw out from our collective heads. We know that his music is good because we experience it.

We know Bach’s music is good because we can listen to it, through sound we can experience his work, but that is not the only way  people can know and experience Bach. Composers can look at and read his music while others can even play his music to share with others.

Before I continue, however, there are two things I would like to point out. One is that the majority of people experience his music through listening and two not everyone enjoys Bach.

Our Pastor then asked us to read a verse that he assigned, and  gave us an unfair amount of time to draw what the verse says. I got the verse at the beginning of this post. This is what I drew. Keep in mind, I had like 2 minutes.

This is how I saw God in the passage. God uses three key points to reveal himself to the world. The first one is the Bible, this is His music sheet, He is the great composer that reveals how the music ought to be played. The second point is through the music itself, Christ played God’s music perfectly, He is the one who showed the world how to play and how the music sounds like when it is played. Lastly, through those who listen and share God’s music. This is where us Christians come in. If you enjoy the music share it, don’t just listen to it, try to play it. Not everyone will like it but if you love His music enough let the world know of the encore waiting to happen.

He will be Bach.