Bach's St. "Matthew's Passion"

I have been working may way through Bach's "St. Matthew's Passion" for the last couple weeks, listening to a popular recording of it as well as spending some time in the lyrics (translated from the original German).  I must say I am absolutely blown away so far.  I have been extremely moved by the complexity of the multiple choirs, soloists, orchestras all working together to connect so well melodically and dynamically with some incredible lyrics.

I found a blog today that had a post on this Passion piece.  There was a really cool story about how this tremendous work from Bach did not receive much attention after his death. However, another famous composer, Felix Mendelssohn, found "St. Matthew's Passion" 70 years after Bach's death.  Felix was Jewish.  His parents had made a superficial conversion to Christianity for social/political reasons, but he was not a believer.  In the process of going through "St. Matthew's Passion," and then later  performing it in Berlin, Mendelssohn was deeply moved on a spiritual level.  It was his exposure to Christ through Bach's work that led to his eventual faith in Jesus.  At that point there was not much to learn from the mainstream church of the day, so Felix had the Bible and Bach, and eventually a few good Christian friends to help him grow in his walk with Christ.  Seems like a pretty good set of teachers to me.

How incredible is it that God used Bach's musical work to share the gospel with another tremendous composer from a later generation?!  As a musician and songwriter I am encouraged by this story, but even more just as a believer, I am in awe of God's faithfulness and creativity in bringing the lost to Himself.

One last thing to share.  Mendelssohn talked about the Bible as being "fresh and true, and the method of expression always as good and fresh as it could possibly be.”  His encouragement was that music inspired by the Word should also be as good and fresh as it could possibly be. I think that principle can be applied to whatever means we use to try to express God's word to others.  Its easy for us to just settle in the things we do in our ministries or in our art as Christians.  This story makes a great point of what kind of impact a quality piece of Gospel-centered art can have.  I am certainly challenged to create or be a part of things that are good and fresh for the glory of God.