Bach & the Beauty of Vocation

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the initials “J.J.” (i.e. Jesu, juva, “Jesus, help”) at the beginning of many of his scores and “S.D.G.” (i.e. Soli Deo Gloria, “To God alone be glory”) at the end. This was much more than slapping a Christian slogan on sloppy work, so that he could be a “good witness for Jesus”. No way! Bach is someone who understood the lordship of Jesus over all of life and its necessary implications as it relates to one’s vocation. He had been schooled in the theological tradition of the Protestant Reformation that taught that every person was a priest and every profession was a calling from God, and thus a sacred duty to our Creator.

Bach was a musician and composer. This was his job, and by it he made a living. But he didn’t do it merely to make money. Rather, he did it because music was valuable in and of itself…because music is beautiful…because God is the originator of beauty…because God himself is beautiful…because this is God’s world.

When we understand that this is God’s world and that we are His agents, then all of life becomes a work of art. Even the lowliest profession in the world’s eyes becomes a beautiful melody that the Creator is singing through us.

Listen to Bach: “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.”

May God make such beautiful music of our vocations this day!

Something to think about from “The Kingdom Perspective”.

Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.

~Colossians 3:22-24 (NASB)