For Wilshire Baptist Church
I was listening to WRR-FM while driving to a meeting when the “William Tell Overture” came galloping through the speakers. The occasion was the 225 birthday of composer Gioachino Rossini. As I listened somewhat mindlessly to the familiar finale, I wondered if there was ever a time in my life when this melody wasn’t familiar. I probably first heard it as a kid watching reruns of “The Lone Ranger” on TV, but I don’t have memories of how I felt when I first heard it.
I’ve known the melody all of my life, and I dare say it is one of the most familiar melodies in the history of music and certainly classical music. Even those who don’t know the name of the piece might say: “Yes, I’ve heard that. I know that.” They’ve heard a snippet of it on a TV commercial, in a movie or in some other form of popular culture. It’s been played and over-played.
But it wasn’t always that way. On Aug. 3, 1829, an audience at the Paris Opera House heard the “William Tell Overture” for the first time. History doesn’t tell us their reaction – although the opera it comes from was immediately deemed too long and some parts politically controversial – but their response to this fresh and new piece of music may have run the gamut from excited and invigorated to irritated and annoyed. Certainly nobody responded like I did today: “Yep, here it comes again.”
My relationship with the gospel story may be much the same. On the day I was born the gospel of Jesus Christ was centuries old and familiar to everyone around me. I learned “the good news” in the same way I learned to walk and talk; it came to me as I came along. Just as I don’t recall a time when I couldn’t speak, I don’t recall a time when I didn’t know the name of Jesus. Certainly I have grown into a deeper knowledge and understanding of Christ as I have grown older, but he has always been there like a familiar melody.
For me, the challenge of Lent – which begins this week with Ash Wednesday – is to try to go back to the beginning of what I know of the Gospel and take it in as if hearing it and knowing it for the first time. I need fresh meaning and new understanding. I want an “aha” moment instead of a shrug and, “Yep, here it comes again.”
I don’t have a tried-and-true suggestion for how to do this, but perhaps acknowledging familiarity is a good start. Perhaps the way to hear the gospel fresh and new is to seek unfamiliar ways to listen.