Music and the Lord ...

Wednesday, July 3, 2013. I ran into a verse in 1Ch 23:5 this morning: “Four thousand are to be gatekeepers and four thousand are to praise the Lord with the musical instruments I have provided for that purpose.” It is surprising command here …

4000 musicians …

The above passage is about David, who is arranging things for the temple of the Lord. There are 24000 people working on the temple, and 4000 gatekeepers and 4000 musicians. For me, that is a stunning high number of musicians. Music and worship played a crucial role in the life of David - and this is reflecting the role of music and worship for God!

Music is of significant importance for our relationship to the Lord. God loves music, and he is surrounded by music. There are many reasons and purposes of music in our life and our relationship to the Lord. Music is so important that we can hardly imagine a Christian group of faith without it.

Last weekend we had a training session for the music teams of our church. When I remember right, the number of people was about 20 out of 140. That is a ration which approximately fits the numbers above, where 4000 out of 28000 in terms of the active members of the congragation. When we see God as the leader of our community, it looks like he is still doing it in a similar way as he did 3000 years ago.

Why music? …

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Why is music so important? Music has a direct access to our soul, to our deeper feelings, to the levels of our life which are not directly touched by reason and thought. Music has a much wider range than our reason. Music can move us, music can be consoling, healing, helpful, supportive …

Also, I believe that we need to be drawn out of our immediate environment and tasks again and again. The Lord is above all tasks and targets in this world. He is full of peace, he is even called peace itself. That means that in him, everything is good, everything is done, everything is finalized and completed. It is not a dead peace, but a peace full of life, a peace of new birth, a peace of a new beginning, a new creation. But is is full peace - and music is a part of this peace. Music can guide us and lead us into his presence and into his peace!

Music is just great. It is great without purpose. It is dance. It is joy. It is movement. It is rest. Music has several dimensions which are not covered by efficiency, achievement or competition. Music can help us to heal and to find integral parts of humanity! (Roland Potthast) ... more texts