Pointing to Christ

“Liturgical music must be like John the Baptist; always pointing to Christ, never calling attention to itself.”

– brother roger of taize

A few days ago, I assisted a friend of mine by writing a descant over the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”—you can find the PDF attached below.  Upon finishing it, she requested that we videoconference to discuss my process for writing a descant to a hymn.  In this meeting, we made a list of tenets to follow when composing music of this type.  To avoid complicating this post, I’ll focus only on these two tenets:

• A good descant doesn’t immediately draw attention to itself.
• It doesn’t draw attention away from the text, but rather adorns, affirms, beautifies it.

As Brother Roger of the Taize Community in France put it, the focus of a church musician’s vocation should be very similar to that of John the Baptist.  The goal of a church musician and his or her music is not self-glorification, nor is it “music for music’s sake.”  Church music has a much higher and grander purpose than this—with this beautiful gift of music, what more can we do with it than return it to the Giver as thanks and praise for what He has done for us? When we keep Christ at the center of our arts and skills, we reject the temptation of self-glorification through them.

This level of selflessness can be a great challenge to all church workers (indeed, all Christians).  Therefore, the goal must remain always before us, as it was for John:  point to Christ.