I Believe
Read
UM Hymnal #880
Just
a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of listening to a presentation of
Bach’s Mass in B minor, a choral work that sets the text of the
Latin mass to music. I have sung it myself several times. When I
first learned it, I borrowed a missal from a Roman Catholic friend so
I could read the English translation and better understand the
context and mood of the music. I was inspired when I sung it but,
concentrating on making music, it was easy to forget that the text
spells out what we, as Christians, believe. Not so as I recently
listened to it.
Bach’s
use of music to set the tone of the text is a fitting subject for a
learned paper and I’m certainly not writing one of those. One
section of the Mass, the Credo, literally says what Christians
believe. Listening to one portion of the Credo in particular, though,
caused me to reflect somberly upon the enormity of God’s gift to
us, his son Jesus Christ. The text translates, “…[he] was
crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried.” All the
vocal parts end this section very quietly, in the lower parts of
their vocal ranges. Surely the suffering and death of Jesus is the
ultimate gift, but Bach tells us more.
Within
seconds after that most somber section of the piece, my mood swung to
the other side of the scale, as I realized, with joy, the victory
over sin and death that God has promised us. Accompanied by the
celebratory sounds of trumpets, the choir sings, “Et resurrexit
tertia die secundum Scripturas…” “On the third day he rose
according to the Scriptures.” Even if I didn’t know what the
words meant, I still could not help but feel the joy conveyed by the
music.
It’s
cliché to say it, but it’s the truth; the hair on the back of my
neck stood up as I listened to the beauty of the music and the power
of message. Christ lived among us, died, and returned to us. To
paraphrase another section of the Mass, “God, I thank you for your
great glory!”
Fred
Van de Putte
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