A lifelong dream had finally become a reality. Sitting in the massive stadium I had to convince myself that I was going to see Hans Zimmer in person perform his greatest pieces of music live. Not until he walked across the stage did I fully realise that this wasn’t any trick and that my eyes were in fact seeing one of my heroes right in front of me. As the orchestra played their first song I was already in disbelief. How I survived over three hours of this without my heart failing is a miracle.
As I was enthralled by the magnificent music coming from the stage, I began to realise how this one man whom I had never even spoken one word to, had influenced my life in such incredible ways. Before I even knew that iconic German name ‘Hans Zimmer’, young Christopher was captivated by the music of ‘The Prince of Egypt’ (a movie older Christopher still loves to this day). As I began to learn piano, it was listening to Zimmer’s compositions which developed my interest in music. In the following years I became such a Zimmer fan, that I played the main theme to ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ for a school music performance night, dressed head to toe as a pirate, complete with a hook hand (yes that’s right, but I only played with it for two bars).
Fascinated by the world of music, I began to listen to other composers who further broadened my love of music. The musical landscape shaped by Jay Vincent and Michael Kramer in ‘Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitsu’ motivated me to learn how to play music by ear for the first time. Within minutes, my mind surveyed my musical development which had led me to this concert today, and I was struck that it had begun with one man on the other side of the world.
I’ve often thought it to be incredibly cliché to say ‘music can change the world’. To be honest, when was the last time you remember a top chart single shattering the very foundations of a culture or challenging social norms to the point of complete reform? Undoubtedly there are artists whose music attempts to capture this relevancy, but few ever reach it. But as I looked around the stadium of people willing to travel to hear and see this one musician, I could not deny that in a way, he had changed the world. While an album is unlikely to change the very fabric of society, it can change the life of an individual. When millions upon millions of individuals are influenced through music, that is when the world is changed.
Speaking loosely as a ‘musician’ myself, I can attest that it is the hope of every artist for their music to create an enduring legacy. Yet when music speaks only to temporal concerns, its legacy is limited to the temporal world. How then does an artist create music which will change the world not just for years or even centuries, but forever?
Though Hans Zimmer has played a critical role in my musical development, nothing has shaped my musical ability, personal spirituality and walk with God more than this one book: The Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal. Each week at church I would hear beautiful songs from this book, and over the years began to learn them by heart. As my musical capabilities developed, I began to not only sing but also play the hymns. This was in fact how I learnt to sight read music, a very useful tool in a musician’s arsenal. It was ‘Near the Cross’ which welcomed me out of the baptismal waters the day I committed my life to serving Jesus. It has been ‘Softly and Tenderly’, ‘Because He Lives’, and ‘I Surrender All’ which have encouraged me, uplifted me, and affirmed me in my Christian walk and personal ministry. It is these songs written by men and women I have never met, which have had an enduring legacy on my life for eternity.
To borrow Pauline language, the songs of ‘this age’ while beautiful and undeniably magnificently artistic are temporal in their legacy. But the songs of the ‘age to come’ are eternal. These songs of praise, celebration and exaltation to God for his salvific power and love to wretched sinners, have been the foundation of the Christian walk of faith for centuries. It has been songs about the power of the blood of Jesus, his soon return and the hope we have of going to Heaven, the struggles of Christian life and warfare, the creative power of God to uphold the universe in his hand, and the forgiveness of sins for Christians, which has shaped the lives of believers for eternity.
A young teenager sat with his family in the pews of his church for week after week. Bored senseless by the worship music, he complained to his father, who promptly replied by saying that if he was so frustrated with the music, then he should compose his own songs. Isaac Watts would go on to write over 750 hymns hundreds of which you can still hear today in many churches.
There can never be enough songs written about how great the God we serve truly is. There are so many facets to his mercy and grace, such depths of his love that we will never comprehend. We would run out of both words to describe with and paper to inscribe on before we had even come close to scratching the surface of God’s character.
To any aspiring musicians, if you want to create music which endures for eternity and has the legacy of influencing fellow believers for generations to come, I encourage you to have the attitude of Isaac Watts. To create as many beautiful songs as possible with your God-given talents, to thank him, praise him, and glorify him. Your music can do more than change the world, it can shape eternity.
WRITER: Christopher Petersen, attends Coffs Harbour Church