Guitars and Saxes

Today I just want to share the joy the Lord gave me one night last week. Heck, what better service can we render each other than to share our joy?

It was my sister's birthday so we went to a jazz concert at the local Keswick Theater. Billed as "Guitars and Saxes," the artists were Peter White and Jeff Golub on electric guitar, and Gerald Albright and Kirk Whalum on sax. I hadn't heard of any of them.

There was so much wonderful about that concert that I need to focus on just one thing. I won't tell you that the music knocked our socks off, or that people couldn't sit in their seats for the contagion, or that the call-and-response going on between the audience and stage was reminiscent of a Deep South church service, or about the evident love between the half-black and white performers, or about how they gave us every ounce of themselves and stayed past the scheduled end time.

Space fails me to mention that the way the artists dug each other's gifts and derived pleasure from each other's glory reminded me of the old Mission Impossible TV series and about how the Apostle Paul says the church should be.

I just want to mention one thing: Toward the end of the evening's performance, all four musicians shared briefly about their origins and influences. When it was Kirk Whalum's turn, he played a few bars of a romantic song from the 1960s and then said this (as faithfully as I can reconstruct his words):

"Once I sang that song into the ear of a 14-year-old girl. A cute little thing. Her name was Ruby. And when I was 22, I asked her to marry me. Next week it will be 32 years that we are married. That's a miracle. Two selfish people come together and stay married. That's a miracle. Any of you been married for a year? [A scattering of hands raised.] That's a miracle too. And I knew there was no one who could help us do it---not my mother or father or my friends or a counselor. I knew there was only one who could help us do that. And I'm not ashamed. It's the Lord Jesus."

At the mention of Jesus, there was a mixed reaction in this audience of mostly liberal suburbanites---there was some palpable silence, and some scattered clapping and hoots of joy, including from Seat 105 in the HH section of aisle 2. The other musicians on the stage sat respectfully while Mr. Whalum said his peace. And in a minute it was done. He didn't go on and on. Just a brief, in-and-out testimony, without preaching or embellishment. No need, really.

And I felt a few things when he did that---shame, that I make such a big complicated deal out of finding the right cultural time and place to proclaim Christ when this man spoke with ease and boldness; hope, that I can do the same as him at the next opportunity; and encouragement, like Elijah must have felt when God reminded him that he was not alone but that God has his people everywhere and in every walk of life.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.