March 30, 2025
This week we are looking at the end of Luke 12. Particularly v54-59. Part of the narrative as Jesus heads to Jerusalem.
Theologian Tom Wright comments on this section:
The great composer Ludwig van Beethoven used sometimes to play a trick on polite salon audiences, especially when he guessed that they weren’t really interested in serious music. He would perform a piece on the piano, one of his own slow movements perhaps, which would be so gentle and beautiful that everyone would be lulled into thinking the world was a soft, cosy place, where they could think beautiful thoughts and relax into semi-slumber. Then, just as the final notes were dying away, Beethoven would bring his whole forearm down with a crash across the keyboard and laugh at the shock he gave to the assembled company.
A bit cruel and impolite, perhaps. And of course, in many of his own compositions Beethoven found less antisocial ways of telling his hearers that the world was full of pain as well as of beauty – and also of making the transition in the other direction, bringing joy out of tragedy, including his own tragic life, in wonderful and lasting ways. But the shock of that crash of notes interrupting the haunting melody is a good image for what Jesus had to say at the end of Luke 12.
Julian Holdsworth
BSBC Pastor
