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Article Archive |
2008
Change the Beat?
by Jim Morris
One football season our middle school band director decided to spice up the half-time entertainment. He chose a jazz song from our stage band collection to play with the larger marching band on the field. At first I thought, “That is the one we learned from Doc Severnson's band. Wow! It will be great to play it at half-time.”
The first time we played the song on the field, I felt that something was seriously wrong. The notes dwindled and echoed sickly in the open air. We played louder but the cacophony only jangled our nerves.
Finally, the band members learned the song well enough to begin practicing our marching maneuvers. We modified one of our standard routines to accommodate the beat. It was a nightmare! None of us could march to the jazz beat. The song used an irregular, syncopated beat that made your heart swell and almost burst on the stage but it only tangled up our feet on the field. The band director's ultimate solution was to change the beat to make it easier on us. We played the song at the game. It was loud and it sort of resembled the original but it lost its power to control our heartbeats.
One Sunday I was asked to lead five other men at the Lord's Supper. As good “soldiers of Christ” we literally marched our way down the middle aisle to the front of the auditorium according to our tradition. I got the same feeling that I had standing on the parade field long ago as I stood at the “Lord's Table.” The small table was loaded with special serving trays containing crackers and grape juice. It didn't look like a “supper” to me.
My mind swam with images of my Lord sitting on the floor of the upper room surrounded by his beloved disciples and a traitor. The Passover meal lay before them—a reminder of God's deliverance from death and slavery. Israel later swore allegiance to God by a covenant. In the upper room Jesus took two pieces of the meal while they were eating—the unleavened bread and the new wine—and redefined them to represent the new covenant promised by the prophets (Mark 14:16-25). The promises made on that day made my heart swell with joy. Yet I wonder. Should we have changed the beat to make it easier on us? Our version sort of resembled the original but has it lost its power to control our heartbeats?
“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).
10-22-08
# 43
