Precious Good Fridays – Just a Member

Everyone will experience Good Fridays in their lives. Sometimes it is only temporary–moments of doubt, distrust or feeling alone.

The Good Friday Christian story is much harsher. It includes betrayal, denial, false witnesses, suffering and ultimately a cruel death.

How we react or interpret these moments defines what we believe. Some will call upon faith; some fate; others just accept these trials as the ups and downs of the human condition.

Our society has grown skeptical of public testimonies of faith. The words often seem mismatched with the deeds or the personality of the speaker.

Until you see an example that rings so true, it erases any doubt about the power of belief. Especially in public life. When everything is at stake for you. And for all those around you.

For example, the picture of a Ukrainian solo cellist playing Bach in a vacant city square asserting his artistic humanity in war.

A Profession and a Calling

The brief recording below was posted on March 5, 2022 by the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (KSOC). That is ten days after the Russia’s invasion when the battle for Ukraine’s capital was much in doubt.

All religious music—including the great oratorios such as Handel’s Messiah—were banned under Communist rule.

These compositions based on Scripture, declare God’s glory to the nations. The musicians of the KSOC see music as both a profession and a calling. Their members are graduates of the world-renowned Tchaikovsky National Music Academy and regularly perform in Ukraine and tour the U.S. and Canada.

Their response to weapons of war are words of faith. When a prayer is sung, God hears it twice. In this case, first in Ukrainian, and then in English. The members of the KSOC are a witness to their country of the power of faith. And to the rest of us when we enter Good Friday moments of deep doubt and hurt.