How a Rush Concert Honors God

On Saturday, August 24, my wife and I attended the Rush concert here in St. Louis. Once again, this Canadian power trio put on a fine show, highlighted (at least to me) by the playing of a lot of new material from their current album Snakes and Arrows. Every time I see them play, I am struck by their abundant musical gifts and genius. I sometimes think to myself, "I wish they were Christians who honored God with their music." For those who don't know the band, or much about them, Rush has been around for over 30 years, as a progressive rock band characterized by vituoso musicianship, complex musical signatures, and philosophical subject matter. The band's drummer, Neil Peart, is also their main lyricist. Neil is an agnostic, if not an atheist. His views do come out in several songs. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that God still ultimately gets the glory whenever human beings produce creations of beauty, whether they acknowledge God or not. Or to put it another way, who ultimately gave rush the ability to play music so well? GOD DID! Just because they don't acknowledge that doesn't mean it isn't true. But, they are missing out on the very purpose of their existence - to bring glory to God. It makes me think about the words of Eric Liddell, in the film Chariots of Fire. He stated "God made me for a purpose, to go to China. But He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure..." That's the great paradox, if you will. When we become more concerned with God's glory than with our own, we put ourselves in a place where we also receive true, pure, pleasure in the knowledge of pleasing Him.

Well, since this is my first post, I think I'll go ahead and explain the title of this blog,
"the light is on." It goes back several years to when a couple of very good friends and I would periodically get together, simply to talk over coffee. In our caffeine induced buzz, we would generally discuss philosophy/theology, and apply to whichever current issue resonated with us at the time. As time went on, we went our separate ways and because of geography, could only get together one or two times a year (now its even less than that :( ). But we found these discussions so invigorating, and at times even profitable, that we decided we would continue them when and where time and circumstances allowed. My friend Steve then said that it was kind of like a small esoteric order which met infrequently in a mighty tower. When people looked at the tower, it was dark. But every so often, pretty rarely in fact, the light in the tower would come on. This meant that the three were back, to discuss deep and important truths. Hence "the light is on". Let me be clear, neither me, nor my two comrades consider ourselves quite that important! But let me also add that my friend Steve's point was that it is a good thing to come aside to talk about eternal things, the things that are really important. But we don't spend our live in the tower. We leave the tower to engage the world with the mighty truths of the love and revelation of God in his Son, Jesus Christ. Indeed, HE is the Light of the world - still.