Sermon: The Fifth Evangelist - J.S. Bach

SERMONS

FROM RIVERSIDE

THE FIFTH EVANGELIST - J.S. BACH

Dr. Ernest T, Campbell

MAY 2, 1971

THE FIFTH EVANGELIST - J. Sc BACH

Ordinarily one would not make a musician the sub-
ject of a sermon- But Johann Sebastian Bach was no ordi-
nary musician, and this is no ordinary occasion.

I should like to thank publicly Fred Swann and those
who have labored with him to make this Bach Festival a
reality. We are lastingly in their debt,,

It is not within my competence to comment on Bach!s
musical techniques. Suffice it to say that the forms and de-
vices he employed he ennobled and developed to the fuih I
want rather to focus on Bach the man, whose genius was so
mightily used of God*

The basic history is not complicated,, Johann Sebas
tian Bach was born in 1685 in Thuringia, a State in central
Germany that only 200 years earlier had given the world
Martin Luther . He was born of a family that was steeped
in music for seven generations. At the age of nine he was
orphaned and spent his early teen years with an older
brother „

At the age of nineteen he became organist for a
church in Arnstadt* He stayed there for about two years
before moving on to a similar post in Miihlhausen, One
year later he accepted the post of organist in the Ducal
Chapel at Weimar, This was Bach's first major position
and he held it for nine years.

In 1717 he became Kapellmeister at Kothen where
he prepared orchestral and chamber music for the young
Prince Leopold. His first wife died in 1720, In 1721 he
married again. In May of 1723 he took his last post as Can-
tor at St. Thomas -Schule in Leipzig where he served for
fifteen years.

Bach died in 1750 and was buried in the churchyard of St.
John in Leipzig. No identification was placed upon his grave,
It wasn't until 1894 that his grave was discovered, and his
body buried, this time, within the church.

As one reads the literature on Bach there are three
main impressions that tower over all the rest. First,
Johann Sebastian Bach was a church musician. Not only in
the sense that for the most part he earned his livelihood in
the employ of the church. But primarily in the sense that
the work he produced was designed to enhance the worship
of Almighty God. He lived but to worship God and write
music. At the age of twenty -three he could state his life
purpose: A regulated church music in honor of God.

In this connection it is critically important to remem-
ber that Bach was a Lutheran. It was providential that this
was so because Luther alone of the reformers had a warm
place in his heart for music. This is what prompted Albert
Schweitzer to ask what Bach would have done had he been
born in Zurich or in Geneva?

Luther was one who could not tolerate the banish-
ment of choir and art-song from the church. It was this
ioveabie reformer who noted one time that the devil did not
deserve all the good tunes. On another occasion he said:
"I am not of the opinion that on account of the Gospel all
the arts should be crushed out of existence, as some over-
religious people pretend, but I would willingly see all the
arts, especially music, in the service of Him who has given
and created them." 2_

The worship for which Bach wrote adhered very
closely to the Church Year. This was the only year that
mattered. There was no civil year intruding. There was
no ecclesiastical promotional year intruding. The only year
the church knew was the year that began with Advent and
moved on through Epiphany, and Lent, and Easter, and
Pentecost, and the Trinity season. The Scriptures for each
Sunday were very pointedly prescribed, and it was Bach's

desire to write music that would help those Scriptures come
alive for those who worshipped.

Worship for Bach was a collective response made by
the people of God to God's redeeming action in Jesus Christ,
Music was not an end in itself "but existed to assist men in
making their response to God. Bach was something of an
exegete and theologian in his own right. He had to be, for in
order to write cantatas that were based on Scripture he had
to sense what those Scriptures meant.

There were times when Bach felt that his under-
standing of what the Scriptures meant, and what music
would be appropriate,, exceeded that of the preacher. At
one point during his stay in Leipzig the town fathers found
it necessary to reprimand Bach through a Deacon of the
Nicolai Church who was ordered "to inform the Cantor that
when the ministers who are preaching cause it to be an-
nounced that particular hymns are to be sung before or af-
ter the sermon, he shall be governed accordingly and have the
same sung!" 3_ He was first and foremost a church
musician.

The second major impression that one gains is that
of a man who was capable of a prodigious output. In a day
when we prattle on and on about being overworked, and
anxiously anticipate a shorter work-week, Bach's achieve-
ments stand out as monumentally incredible. Over the
course of his lifetime he composed no less than three hun-
dred cantatas and probably more. During his Leipzig years
alone he composed one hundred Cantatas, the Magnificat, a
Sanctus, unnumbered Chorales and Motets, the Passion
According to St. Matthew, the Christmas Oratorio, and the
B minor Mass !

His life had a remarkable focus. It was not the
scattered and extended life that we rather envision for our-
selves. He never travelled any further north than Llibeck
or Hamburg; never any further south than Carlsbad; never
any further west than Cass el; never any further east than
Dresden. Yet, ponder the impact of that life.

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His productivity was achieved against considerable
adversity. His first wife died while he was on a trip with
the young Prince. Upon his return he learned that she had
died and was already buried. His first marriage produced
seven children, only three of whom survived. His second
marriage produced thirteen children, but he lost four of
the six sons born to that union. One of his children was
mentally deficient. He was grossly under -appreciated
throughout his vocational life. He got the job in Leipzig
because, as one of the Council members said: "Since the
best man cannot be obtained we will have to resort to a
mediocre one." 4

He continuously encountered resistance from small
minds that could not embrace the lift that he was giving to
church music. In his very first church in Arnstadt the
authorities complained: "Bach had made many peculiar
variations in the chorale; he smuggled many foreign tones
into the melodies, and thus greatly confused the congrega-
tion." 5

Yet through it all — personal losses within the fami-
ly, and professional frustrations, Bach maintained a loyalty
to perfection that never quit. Perhaps it is true when ail is
said and done that we do our best work under the pressure
of time and heavy circumstance.

The third major impression helps to explain the
other two. It is the impression of a man who was possessed
of a profound personal faith in God. In Bach's day the
Pietists were a threat to the orthodox Lutheran Church,
The Pietists in some ways might be likened to the fundamen-
talists of our time. They had a low view of the church.
They were wary of the arts. They put great stress on inner
feeling. How one felt the word of God was more important
than the objective word itself. But Bach was Lutheran.
And Lutherans do not sentimentalize God. Bach always pre-
ferred the pure text of Scripture to poetry that men wrote
about the Scriptures.

He was convinced of God's love not because of what

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he felt in his heart, but because of whalj God had done in
Jesus Christ. He would have subscribed heartily to Luther's
answer to the question, "How do you know you are a Chris-
tian?" when Luther replied, "Because I've been baptised,"
— not because of any inner steadfastness on my part, but
because of the steadfastness of God's abiding love. If one
of those Pietists had asked Bach where and when he had
been saved, he would have answered: "At Golgotha on Good
Friday, between twelve and three in the afternoon."

Yet his faith was deeply personal. It is well known
that at the top of his scores he wrote the letters " J. J0 "
Jesu Juva, Jesus Help. And at the end of every one of
them, Soli Deo Gloria, To God alone be glory.

His favorite portions of the Bible, which he knew
well, were the Prophets, the Psalms and the Gospels, Of
these the Gospels were most important to him. He wrote
more cantatas on verses from the Gospels than from any
other portion. Of the Gospels themselves, his mind and
heart were drawn continually to the Passion Narratives.
The cantatas that he wrote were liturgicaily placed, mind
you, between the reading of the New Testament Lesson and
the sermon. This means that they had to be very much on
target and as true to the meaning of Scripture as possible.
He interpreted the Bible with such remarkable care that
many of the passages of Bach's music that befuddle us be-
come clear when we see more clearly the passage that he
was setting to music.

William Scheide of Princeton comments on Bach's
Cantata 79 where a chorale setting is given of Psalm 84:11:
"The Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace
and glory: no good thing will be withhold/from them that
walk uprightly." "Bach built his chorus around three main
ideas: a powerful jubilant dance melody for two horns, mas-
sive chorda! passages for the voices, and exultant counter-
point in the strings. All three are expanded indefinitely
and interwoven with an effect that belies description. The
continuously glittering horn color, the waves of choral sound,
and the stupendous joy throughout assume here an almost
military aspect, Albert Schweitzer felt this when he de-

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clared that 'a positively blinding radiance gleams from this
chorus; it is as if we were looking at a victorious battle in
the rays of morning. "' 6^

He has a cantata, one of very few that he did on any
of Paul's words, on II Timothy 2:8: "Remember Jesus
Christ raised from the dead." In this cantata one feels the
tumult of the world and the disciples caught up in it, alter-
nating with the majestic transcendent benediction of the
risen Christ, which at length mingles with and stills the
commotion and ultimately prevails,,

We can well understand how a friend of Goethe could
say to him one time: "If you could hear one of Sebastian
Bach's motets you would feel yourself at the center of the
world," ]_ He opened his spirit to the mystery of truth and
entered into that mystery for us alL

On Easter day of 1948 and again in 1949 CBS tele-
vision did a special that featured readings from the Gospels
and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, The announcer for
those telecasts dared to describe Bach as "The Fifth Evan-
gelists" Such company is not too exalted for Bach* He be-
longs with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, An evangelist
is not one who tells people that they ought to trust God; but
rather one who creates in people the desire to trust. Only
heaven knows in how many hearts Bach's music has in-
spired faith in the living Christ, and kept that faith strong!

CLOSING PRAYER

O Thou who art the source of every good
and perfect gift — receive our thanks
for this man sent from Thee whose name
was John.

Make us responsive to the impact of his
music on our souls: that we, like him,
might be sustained in life and death by
an unwavering confidence in Thee.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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