Categories: uncategorized
Date: 24 November 2005 21:22:39
While beginning to write draft 4 of Sunday's sermon I got distracted by my music collection. This is not an unusual thing to happen.
I've begun tranferring my CD collection to my PC ready for installation on my MP3 player. With the amount of driving and travelling I do its very useful to be able to carry it around with me. You never know when you're going to want to hear an old track.
What distracted me tonight was the amount of christan music I have accumulated. Some of this is standard stuff by Larry Norman, Daniel Amos & Randy Stonehill. However I've also found my Dylan albums (Saved & Slow Train Coming) and a track, called Hymn, from a 70's prog band called Barclay James Harvest.
I first heard Hymn on BBC 2. At the start of the 80's BBC 2 used to have a "Modern Music" weekend over the August Bank Holiday weekend. You'd get documentaries and concert films from many different people and old clips of The Old Grey Whistle Test. At the time Top of The Pops or The Whistle Test were most people's only chance to see groups on TV.
I remember that I got to see Floyd's Pompei film, some Hendrix and Who. However the one that stood out for me was the Barclay gig from Berlin.
In the background was the ruined Reichstag and the Wall. In front are a band little heard of in the UK but big in Germany, much like David Hasselhoff's singing career. The concert had both concert footage and one or too little films showing people escaping over the Wall.
Then at the end was this song about Jesus. Its simple and gives a very basic, and not completely theologically sound, life of Jesus. There are these Germans singing along to what is evidently a crowd favourite.
When we visited Berlin 2 weeks ago we stood in front of the restored Reichstag. The Walls has, of course, gone and the area in front of, and around, the Reichstag is landscaped and developed. Yet my mental image remains of about 10-15,000 Germans listening to an English band sing about Jesus.
Here I am, preparing a sermon on Nehemiah rebuilding the temple, thinking of the planning that went into rebuilding the city walls. Yet my mind keeps thinking of that Wall that divided a city for almost 30 years. They can not only be used to protect you from enemies but also divide you from loved ones.
Its strange how the images remain with you. Maybe its time to dig out my copy of Floyd's The Wall....