BEHOLD!
Hanns F Skoutajan
There are times when, at least to me, this world seems old and worn out, its people aged and exhausted. Our environment is threatened and devastated. Nation wars against nation and peaceful solutions do not seem imminent. It is a rather negative assessment and no way to invite a readership.
This, I suppose is nothing new. 100 years ago the Great War began with a shot in the streets of Sarajevo. A devastating war followed in which thousands lost their lives in battles that seemed to gain nothing until an exhausted Germany and Austria pleaded for amnesty. Twenty years later they did it all over again. Margaret McMillan called it The War that Ended Peace.
But even much longer ago the world, at least as it was known then, seemed problematic. Empires clashed, refugees even then wandered the globe. St. John the Divine to whom is attributed that last and most enigmatic of biblical writings known as The Revelations of St. John the Divine, pictured God sitting on his throne and announcing renewal, “Behold I make all things new,” Revelations 21: 5, inspired by the words of Isaiah 43: 18 - 19. I have long felt that these words ought to be set to music, and indeed, they have been.
For a time in my ministry I dabbled with music for worship. Nothing I composed made it into Voices United, the new United Church hymn book or its successor, More Voices.
I was looking for a tune to accompany St. John’s words. Then one evening I attended a concert at Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto. The Czech Philharmonic orchestra performed the tone poem My Fatherland by Smetana. Best known of that musical cycle is The Moldau which describes the river as it springs in the mountains and forests of his homeland and makes its way to the sea.
Another less well-known segment of that composition is called In Bohemia’s Forests and Meadows. As I sat, listening and enjoying the music from my land of birth, I was suddenly aware that one of the themes of that piece suited itself to the words of St. John: Behold I make all things new.”
On coming home that evening I found the vinyl platter of Smetana’s composition and discovered the bars of music that had so moved me. I scribbled some notes which I then took to my amiable and gifted organist Roger Hobbs and together we came up with a tune based on that theme.
I am not sure whether lyrics beget tunes or is it the other way round, but having a melody to work with I soon came up with meaningful words:
Behold I make all things new, the bread, the wine and you,
The kernels fall to the ground, there they must die,
and bring forth new shoots of hope, food for all folk, they’ll hunger no more.
Behold I make all things new, the bread, the wine and you.
The grapes are plucked from the vine, give forth their blood, and
slake the hot pain of thirst, gladden the heart and bring forth new life.
Behold I make all things new, the bread, the wine and you.
If you would come after me, take up your cross and
follow the path of love, justice and peace proclaim, and rejoice.
In other words, renewal always comes with sacrifice. Unfortunately humans are too prone to attempt to bring in new eras by means of strife, the rich enriching themselves at the cost of the poor and ravishing the environment to the detriment of all living creatures.
Perhaps I am naive to hope that it can be otherwise, that humans can learn that to live together as peaceful people in a clean environment requires sacrifice. To me that is the predominant message of a true religious faith.
Many years ago while visiting Isreal/Palestine I encountered Faisal Huseini, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Movement. He had just come home from an Israeli prison, Without bitterness he said to me something that I shall never forget. “Israelis and Palestinians must get rid of a hope and a fear, hope that they can have all this to themselves, and fear that they will be pushed out into the desert or the sea.”
These words had a profound affect on me because they apply to all the world, not merely the much troubled Middle East. The citizens of the world must banish the hope that they can have it all their own way, and the fear that they will be overcome by the enemy.
Spirit Quest 06/07/2014
