IN HIS BOOK, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, Dr. Paul Brand Writes:

“A kindly looking old gentleman with a more-than-prominent nose and a face seamed with wrinkles crosses the stage.  His shoulders slump, and his eyes seem sunken and cloudy–he is over ninety years old.  He sits on a stark black bench, adjusting it slightly.  After a deep breath, he raises his hands.  Trembling slightly, they pose for a moment above a black and white keyboard.  And then the music begins.  All images of age and frailty slip quietly from the minds of the four thousand people gathered to hear Arthur Rubinstein.

His program tonight is simple:  Schubert’s Impromptus, several Rachmaninoff’s Preludes, and Beethoven’s familiar Moonlight Sonata, any of which could be heard at a music school recital.  But they could not be heard as played by Rubenstein.  Defying mortality, he weds a flawless technique to a poetic style, rendering interpretations that evoke prolonged shouts of “Bravo!” from the wildly cheering audience.  Rubinstein bows slightly, folds those marvelous nonagenarian hands, and pads offstage.

I must confess that a bravura performance such as that by Rubinstein engrosses my eyes as much as my ears.  Hands are my profession.  I have studied them all my life.  A piano performance is a ballet of fingers, a glorious flourish of ligaments and joints, tendons, nerves, and muscles.  From my own careful calculations, I know that some of the movements required, such as the powerful arpeggios in Moonlight’s third movement, are simply too fast for the body to accomplish consciously.  Nerve impulses do not travel with enough speed for the brain to sort out that the third finger has just lifted in time to order the fourth finger to strike the next key.  Months of practice must pattern the brain to treat the movements as subconscious reflex actions. . .finger memory, musicians call it.

I marvel too at the slow, lilting passages.  A good pianist controls his or her fingers independently, so that when striking a two-handed chord of eight notes, each of the fingers exerts a slightly different pressure for emphasis, with the melody note ringing loudest.  The effect of a few grams more or less pressure in a crucial pianissimo passage is so minuscule only a sophisticated laboratory could measure it.  But the human ear contains such a laboratory, and musicians like Rubinstein gain acclaim because discriminating listeners can savor their subtlest nuances of control.”

THOUGHT:  That’s the way we are.  We are Christ’s Arthur Rubinstein.  We are His body.  We might even say, we are Christ’s orchestra.  We each are musicians, and we each have a part to play…  …You are a musician.  You have a part to play.  You are part of something larger, greater, and grander than yourself.  We are creating a symphony of praise to the glory of God.  When the Great Maestro raises His baton and signals you to play, as He does now, then on the downbeat, play!  You have a part.  He has gifted you so that you can play it… Max Anders, Holman New Testament Commentary – Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians & Colossians, 157-158

“For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”  Ephesians 4.12

–Mike Benson