Many times in life we are faced with the opportunity to begin something new. A new job, a new investment, trying a new restaurant, or a new place to go on vacation all share the upside of anticipation providing their own brand of anxieties and excitement. 
In my previous occupation, new things occurred every week as there was an expectancy on Tuesdays of what new material (primarily music and video) would be released on this day. (Sadly, the Music and Motion Picture industries have since switched to Fridays as a release day for new releases. That leaves us with having all of our excitement on Tuesdays saved for, well, Tuesday's Musical Notes!) With each Tuesday at the store, we would have the aforementioned anxieties and excitement in the hopes that we had enough product to meet the needs and desires of the public for the material that would make its premiere in its given formats. Our levels of stress would be directly dependent on the hype and buzz surrounding each release. Then the day arrived. Tuesday was here!!! And it was finally time to get down to the heart of the matter...
Today's featured song was written by Don Henley (Tuesday's Musical Notes search - The Eagles), Mike Campbell (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (Tuesday's Musical Notes search - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers) & Fleetwood Mac (Tuesday's Musical Notes search - Fleetwood Mac), and JD Souther (see previous Eagles references). It was released as part of Don Henley's third studio collection, the Billboard 200 #8 hit record, The End Of The Innocence. "The Heart Of The Matter peaked at #21 on Billboard's Hot 100 and #2 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks charts.
The song gained a resurgence, as did many of the individual Eagle's solo hits, when featured on their Hell Freezes Over tour. "The Heart Of The Matter" was prominent in the acoustic portion of their setlist.
It was also covered by soul artist India.Arie whose version went all the way to #7 on Billboard's Smooth Jazz Songs chart. (Do they have a chart for EVERYTHING?) This version of "The Heart Of The Matter" has seen its own share of popularity buoyed by its inclusion in television (Brothers & Sisters episode "Act Of Will") and motion pictures (Sex And The City trailer and snippet in the movie)
Good songs never go away, you just wait for an equally good cover to come along. For Don Henley and maybe India.Arie, their heart of the matter may not as yet have peaked as they wait with anticipation and excitement for a new chapter in the song's life. Perhaps... like being featured at Tuesday's Musical Notes!!!
Have you ever experienced a similar time in your life? A time where you could hardly wait to get to your heart of the matter? More than likely your existence probably doesn't depend on what new music or video may be released this week, but there are other new things in your life about which you are equally as excited or anxious. The day arrives for your new thing and it's time to get down to the heart of the matter and experience it for yourself.
That's where we find ourselves in our Notesland travels. We have been traversing the landscape of the Bible and exploring the great lessons that can be learned from the examples of the Israelites and their prophets in the Old Testament.
But before we continue our deep dive into the specific stories, and the lessons they teach about life, we must take a side road of celebration. (Pick your favorite noisemaker sound. Got it? Make a celebration noise now!!!) Next Tuesday, Tuesday's Musical Notes will celebrate 10 years of existence on the internetosphere. That's right, that makes 520 episodes of Tuesday's Musical Notes!!! You really should check out some of the great songs featured. They are to your left in the year and month breakdown that is the Tuesday's Musical Notes Archive...look left....almost there...got it! Now peruse and ponder!!! Join us next week as we take a moment to reflect on the past decade of musical and meditative discoveries. You don't want to miss this one!!!
But for today, we must traverse back down our "new thing" highway. We find ourselves today on the precipice of something new and exciting. There is much anticipation and perhaps a bit of anxiety. Welcome to The New Testament! Let's take a minute with our friends from The Bible Project to take a peek at what lies ahead (after the Anniversary celebration next week of course...did we mention it's been 10 years?)
As you can see, there is much we need to unpack in the coming weeks. We will do that in our own unique, musical soundtracky Tuesday's Musical Notes way to which you have become accustomed, but for today, let's take a moment and take a bird's eye view of The New Testament.
My personal conviction is that all of the incredible lessons learned in The Old Testament provide a pathway to the events of The New Testament. We have witnessed many great lessons provided by the stories of God's chosen people. They have been tasked with telling the world about God. Unfortunately, they missed the mark many times as their idolatry and disobedience led them down pathways they were not supposed to go. This missing the mark is called sin and The Old Testament is replete with example after example of those who were good folks but inherited the sinful nature given to all of us by Adam. Unfortunately, those who came after them rarely learned the lessons that their ancestors provided and strayed even further away from God.
This is where we find ourselves today. After the Intertestamental Period we discussed last week (https://tuesdaysmusicalnotes.blogspot.com/2022/05/tuesdays-musical-notes-stuck-in-middle.html), we come to The New Testament and the heart of the matter, the Man Jesus. That's right. Jesus was a man. But He was also God. He was 1/3 of the Trinity (God (Father), Jesus (Son), and God (Holy Spirit)). The New Testament frames this God coming to earth event in the form that we could understand. Now don't get me wrong, there is much in The New Testament that I have yet to grasp. "...The more I know, the less I understand. All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning again..." You too? That's what reading the Bible is all about. With each trip, we discover and rediscover that there is more and more we need and ultimately want to learn about God's character, Jesus' sacrifice, and Holy Spirit's indwelling. All of this is on occasion partnered, especially in the later sections of The New Testament, with some very confusing portions that combine allegory and metaphor to enhance our journey but cause some real conversations as interpretations vary. Notice we said the "interpretations" vary, NOT the Word Of God. We'll get to some of those passages in the coming weeks. There may be some really different music heading our way as a result too!!!
Remember that those who wrote The New Testament were just as inspired by God as were Isaiah, Jeremiah, David, Daniel, Moses, et.al. The difference in their inspiration? God in the form of Jesus was right there with some of them. Yes, there were episodes where Jesus appeared in the Old Testament, however, He rarely did life with the patriarchs He encountered during those times. As pointed out in the overview video, the writers of The New Testament were a part of the narrative of Jesus' life for at least 3 years. His brothers, Jude and James, were part of His story for a much longer part of the time even though they came to a saving knowledge of Jesus sometime after His resurrection. Regardless of their exposure, (Paul had an afternoon...) the writers of The New Testament understood that what they penned was the heart of the matter and that The Old Testament had been laying the foundation for the new thing that was about to be experienced by the entirety of the world.
In The New Testament, we see many of the prophecies of The Old Testament come true, especially with regard to Jesus. You see friend, The Bible is Jesus' story. The Old Testament points to Him as each book has some illumination of Him or prophecy regarding Him. The New Testament points to Him as The Gospels tell of His life, death, and resurrection and then goes on to tell the story of His bride, the church. Depending on your Bible, the table of contents, maps, indices, and concordances can all point to Him as well!!!
I think Don Henley was making a valid point: "...These times are so uncertain. There's a yearning undefined and people filled with rage. We all need a little tenderness. How can love survive in such a graceless age?..." There is an answer to Mr. Henley's lyric regarding love's survival. It is God's people, embracing God's plan, and working through God's will to make sure that more people go to heaven and fewer people go to hell. God's plan was to redeem and restore mankind through the family of Abraham. This story of the execution of that plan becomes The Old Testament. The plan continues being accomplished in The New Testament as followers of Jesus become adopted into the family of Abraham and become a part of the restorative plan.
So friend, are you a part of that family? Are you part of the restorative process back to God? You can be even... "...though your will gets weak and your thoughts seem to scatter, you soon see that it's about forgiveness...forgiveness..." A forgiveness that we cannot comprehend or perceive. But one that God grants mercifully and gracefully for those who realize that it's time to get down to the real heart of the matter...
Loving HIM by Loving You,
randy
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