Of all of
the artistic gifts that God gave to man, one of the greatest is the ability to
create music. Music is such a powerful
force in the world. It can be used to
prepare people to make war or to make love.
It can teach, rebuke, excite, depress, correct, inform and even
propagandize. Music is an indispensable
part of worship. We are commanded to
sing and make melody in our heart to the Lord with psalms, hymns and spiritual
songs. Those who create music can serve as ministers and teachers as well as
mentors in our lives. I have had several musical mentors that have encouraged,
challenged, chided and even provoked me to a closer walk with Christ. I have also had the fortune to be able to see
most of them perform in person and thank them for the part that their art has played in my life. There are two men in
particular that I was not able to let know of my
appreciation for their work before they passed from this world into the presence
of Jesus; Keith Green and Mark Heard.
This past July marked 30 years since Keith’s death in a plane crash
near Lindale, Texas. And on August 16th while the world was remembering the 35th anniversary of the passing of Elvis Presley, I was reminded that it had been 20 years since complications from a heart attack took Mark Heard. Many of you reading this may be familiar with Keith and his music, but more than likely you have never heard of Mark, and that is a crying shame.
I became aware of Keith Green’s music in 1980. Just a few months earlier I had been introduced to“Jesus”
music as it was known in the 70s. Before then I didn’t
know anything about this great rock music with lyrics that praised the Lord and
warned about the schemes of the devil. A few months earlier, a guy at work had introduced me to the
likes of Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, and the Resurrection Band. Bob Dylan's recently
released Slow Train Coming testified of a dynamic born again experience
in his life. Keith Green had already
been on the Christian music scene for several years when I started
listening to his music, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Keith composed beautiful songs of praise and
adoration about the Lord Jesus, and he also wrote some of the most scathing
songs directed at the spiritual apathy and malaise that had gripped so many
Christians and churches in America (and still does). In “Asleep in the Light,” Keith nailed us right
where we lived with lyrics such as, “Bless
me Lord, bless me Lord You know it's all I ever hear; No one aches, no one
hurts; No one even sheds one tear; But He cries, He weeps, He bleeds; And He
cares for your needs; And you just lay back And keep soaking it in, Oh, can't
you see it's such sin?” These words
haven’t lost their effecitveness and veracity 36 years after they were
written. Not just content to be a
musician, Keith was also a man of firm convictions and wrote several articles
and tracts for his Last Days Newsletter.
Keith's decision to make his album So You Want to Go Back to
Egypt available to anyone without cost made waves in the industry. He believed the Gospel
should not be for sale, but if you wanted to help defray the cost of the
recording you could donate money toward that end. His commitment to a lifestyle of
discipleship had a profound impact on this 20 year old college student.
Just a
couple of years later I stumbled across the music of Mark Heard, which filled
another need in my growing spiritual walk. Mark’s writing was of a distinctively
different variety than that of Keith Green.
While the name of Jesus flowed through Keith’s music with great
regularity, and his messages were clear and plain; Mark wrote in imagery
and metaphor and spoke about the great human condition that we all struggle with. His music required
repeated listening and deeper thinking, but it always came from a Christian worldview. Beginning with his early work on albums, Stop
the Dominoes and Victims of the Age,
I was struck with how honest and probing and even satirical his writing could
be. His songs demonstrated to me that we needed to create
quality art if we want to be salt and light in this world. In his music Mark Heard would remind us of
the “Strong hand of love hidden in the shadows,” as well as “in the eye of
the storm the friends of God suffer no permanent harm.” Mark’s musical talent moved him beyond the
strict confines of the Christian music scene and earned
him the respect of many mainstream artists, as evidenced on the tribute album
made several years after his death, Orphans
of God. Olivia Newton-John, Michael
Been of the Call, Bruce Cockburn. Kevin Max of DC Talk and others recorded Mark’s songs because they were
influenced by his artistry and message. His commitment to excellence in his craft helped me to see how art shouldn't be confined to a particular subculture. We have to go into the world, it will not come to us.
PS - If you want to find Keith and Mark's respective albums, many are still available and there are various You Tube clips of their performances. Christianity Today has a wonderful tribute to Mark that can be viewed at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/august-web-only/remembering-mark-heard.html
No comments:
Post a Comment