Fidelio and Apocalyptic

All Saints Church, River Ridge, La. 11 10 08

Dear Friends in Christ,

The other day, I was listening to the radio and they happened to play one of my favorite pieces of music (from my favorite opera), and I was totally overcome by its power and beauty. The piece is the Prisoners’ Chorus, “O welche Lust” (Oh, what joy), from Act I of Beethoven’s Fidelio. It is a powerful piece where a large group of political prisoners are briefly released from the dungeon to experience a beautiful day in a beautiful garden, before going back down into the dungeon. The burst of joy is palpable because of the glimpse of freedom and of fresh air. Freedom is seen as coming from God. It is the hope that is whispered in the ear in the darkness of the dungeon. For Beethoven, the opera and these prisoners were a kind of paradigm for all unjustly imprisoned. The stirring music and beautiful singing reinforces its power. In the Christian tradition, art, music, beauty connect in an interesting way with Christian apocalyptic – a theme in this part of the church year.

Having grown up in a practical Modernist mindset, many of us see art or music or beauty as peripheral aspects of our lives. They are viewed as a kind of luxury and impractical. In schools (including at St. Martin’s) these are referred to as “enrichment” subjects. Yet, as N.T. Wright, the Anglican theologian and current Bishop of Durham notes, beauty as expressed in art or music is a way of experiencing aspects of the in-breaking of the Kingdom (or Reign) of God. Apocalyptic visions of God, of the new heaven and earth, of the peaceable kingdom, all contain visions of incredible and unspeakable beauty. When the artist or musician or architect or gardener creates a piece or place of beauty it is not merely “nice,” it has a kind of spiritual power to move us and transform us. This power which beauty can exert over us is because it taps into something very deep in our souls. Our souls yearn for the in-breaking of the kingdom. It is not coincidental that our ancestors built great churches of incredible beauty and artistry, and produced amazing pieces of music. It not that they had more money than we have, probably much less, it is rather that they saw art as a way of expressing their spiritual values, and this was worth considerable sacrifice.

The genius in Beethoven’s Prisoners’ Chorus is the contrast which the prisoners experience in the bright and fresh daylight from their confinement in the dark and dank dungeon. This leads them to this burst of joy. It is my prayer that when we experience beauty in art, music, nature, architecture, or (perhaps) in church – that we experience in it a brief glimpse of the unspeakable beauty of that coming Kingdom. It is a Kingdom which the biblical writers can only describe with the most exuberant and lavish imagery. We pray for this Kingdom each time we say the Lord’s Prayer, “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”