By Elizabeth Prata
Making the rounds on social media this week is a 4 minute rendition of the hymn Nearer My God to Thee. It is a live clip from André Rieu’s tour in Maastricht a couple of years ago. It is now on his album The Sound of Heaven. The Album has a mixture classical masterpieces, romantic melodies, and evergreens, beautifully performed by André Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra.
In this clip, the jumbotron occasionally pans from the players, conductor, or singers, to the audience members who are caught wiping a tear or two from their eyes. The music is so moving.
A famous line from the 1697 play The Mourning Bride by English playwright William Congreve is: “Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.” I was surprised when I looked this up just now because I thought the attribution was to Shakespeare. But no. The concept in the quote is that music enchants. It soothes. It can calm anger, or appease the hardest heart.
Can you imagine the music in heaven? The New Song that will be sung by blameless tongues of the 144,000 who had been purchased from the earth. (Revelation 14:3).
And in Revelation 15:3 the tribulation martyrs sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb, holding the harps of God.
And in Revelation 5:8-9a the four living creatures and the 24 elders with the harps sang a new song.
We will sing in heaven and there will likely be instruments there too. Hezekiah said “We will sing with stringed instruments all the days of our lives in the temple of the Lord.” (Isaiah 38:20)
Randy Alcorn has an essay Will we sing in heaven? that I thought was good.
The wider issue is that we need beauty. We respond to it deep in our souls. We need it in music, art, architecture, nature, all ways and and at all times. We thirst for beauty. This world is beautiful, but there is much ugliness too, much cruelty, much pain. Let us drink in the Lord’s magnificence through beauty when we find it.
Indeed, the Psalmist in Psalm 27:4 said his ONE pursuit is to behold God’s beauty-
One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord
And to meditate in His temple.
What an incredible honor we believers have, to soon look upon the enthralling face of the Savior, his perfections, glory, infinite holiness. His beauty is unmatched by anything seen, created, or imagines. It was David’s ONE hope, and should be ours.
Jesus is the ultimate beauty, and all earthly beauty comes from Him. This is why we respond to it.
If hymns praising Him then move us toward that pursuit of His beauty, then all the better.
Further Resources
Sheehan Quirke is otherwise known as The Cultural Tutor. He has a variety of resources such as a book, podcast, newsletter, and social media speaking on topics of art, architecture, history, poetry, and literature. He is interesting. His website is here.
RC Sproul’s teaching series at Ligonier on Recovering the Beauty of the Arts is here. I took the course. It’s good. Download & stream the 9 lessons for $14.50
the-end-time.org 