Have you ever noticed how the best days seem to be layered? Here's what I mean. The day begins with just the right breakfast foods that get you going for the day and then on top of that, you find that you are running early. Your absolute favorite song comes on as you start the engine to head for the day's journey. 
The day continues and one thing after another falls into place as your day gets made time and again with each passing event building on the other until it all concludes with the ovation of the day being a grand evening meal, entertainment of your favorite variety and topping all off with a good night's sleep. I confess that these kinds of days are rare, yet when they do they might remind you of music, especially the kind that has lots and lots of layers, well, like harmony...
The day continues and one thing after another falls into place as your day gets made time and again with each passing event building on the other until it all concludes with the ovation of the day being a grand evening meal, entertainment of your favorite variety and topping all off with a good night's sleep. I confess that these kinds of days are rare, yet when they do they might remind you of music, especially the kind that has lots and lots of layers, well, like harmony...
and
"An Old Fashioned Love Song" was originally intended for The Carpenters. Written by Paul Williams, who penned the previous Carpenters hit "We've Only Just Begun" (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "We've Only Just Begun" (The Carpenters)). "An Old Fashioned Love Song" was turned down by Richard Carpenter after Williams had offered this as a follow-up. (The Carpenters would later perform the song on an episode of The Carol Burnett Show, The Carpenters on The Carol Burnett Show)
Williams then offered "An Old Fashioned Love Song" to the band Three Dog Night (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Black And White" (Three Dog Night), Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Liar" (Three Dog Night)) who recorded it for their 1971 album Harmony. Oddly enough, if you listen to the song closely, most of the Three Dog Night version is sung in unison (one-part) as opposed to the harmony of the Old Fashioned Love Songs (three-part) on which the song is based and the album is titled.
In the same year, Williams would record a cover of the song for his album Just An Old Fashioned Love Song, an album filled with Williams' songs that were hits for other artists.
Three Dog Night parlayed their new song into a #4 hit on Billboard's Hot 100. This venture into the top ten marked the 7th for Three Dog Night which was finding its stride in 1971. As with many bands, success and excess took their toll and by the 80s Three Dog Night had seen its day.
They have 12 studio albums (7 gold and 1 platinum (Three Dog Night) that spawned 11 top ten hits from 1969 to 1974. Danny Hutton (lead vocals) continues to tour with the band with a current lineup that still includes enough quality vocalists to lay down that three-part harmony.
During the time of Three Dog Night's popularity, the term harmony has been a catchphrase for the cultures of the world attempting to find peace and balance. It seems that just about the time warring factions find common ground, another conflict breaks out. This is not the original plan. The plan was for harmony, in this context, as defined by dictionary.com, as agreement or accord.
We find the following musical connotation equally applicable: any simultaneous combination of tones. You see friends harmony has to have a couple of things to be...well, harmonious. First, it must have more than one voice. It may have any number of voices, but it must have at least 2. Secondly, there must be an agreement in those voices. Even if the agreement comes up with a note cluster or conversation that is dissonant or discordant. Even if there is disagreement, there can still be harmony. Please see Jazz music for examples... Finally, there must be gaps that are filled. Harmony portends the filling up of a chord in music, or perhaps the completion of a task or thought in a nonmusical group scenario. The same can be said of Scripture, God's Word. This harmony can be found specifically in The Gospels.
Okay, we definitely are out of order now. If we stay with our chronology of the Bible through which we have been proceeding that should have been a passage from Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John right? We will certainly get to those specific stories, but for today, we must get approach them as a harmonious narrative of Jesus' life. To read one without the other would make the story incomplete and the portions that are really important would belie the emphasis that they need and deserve. What we see in Paul's letter to Timothy is that all of Scripture is necessary for our preparation to do the works God has for us when we believe in Jesus' restorative sacrifice. This harmony of the Bible flows through its pages and becomes more evident through the Old Testament passages of Kings and Chronicles, as well as, through the Prophets where many of the stories are reinforced and complete accounts are filled in by differing writers.
There is no place where this harmony is found better than in The Gospel accounts of Jesus' life. As we saw last week with Jesus' ancestry, each of The Gospels provides portions of the story from the perspective of the individual writer. These perspectives are necessary to see the completion of the chronicle of Jesus' life, sacrifice, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
As each Gospel author unpacks their account of Jesus, you find some differences. Now let me be clear. The Bible as we know it is free of error. Tuesday's Musical Notes holds this truth as one of its founding standards. But we must admit that there is criticism foisted on The Gospels as being disparate from each other. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. The Gospels provide a complete story, and yes some of them repeat instances in Jesus' life. As we've stated before, repetition in the Bible is a tool that God uses to reinforce those important points. He wants us to get this part of the story. The below chart puts what is known as the "Harmony Of The Gospels", these reinforced stories in a visual format. And besides...who doesn't love a good chart?
As you can see, the stories from each of the Gospel writers follow Jesus' life. While they take a different path, they have intersections, harmonies if you will, that bring the story to a point of reinforcement and then go on to the next portion from that writer's perspective. All of these stories about Jesus are true and as you can see, 1) the story of John the Baptist, 2) Jesus'miraculous feeding of 5000, 3) Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, 4) Jesus' experience and prayers in the Garden of Gethsemene, 5) Jesus' crucifixion, and 6) the accounts of Jesus' empty tomb all combine to be seminal events in the life of Jesus from which we must learn significant truths. Through these times we can see where the backgrounds of the writers provide character to the story and provide the perspectives that multitudes can easily understand and perhaps relate.
There are other portions of Jesus' life that are told by Matthew, the tax collector, Mark, the evangelist, Luke, the doctor, and John, the fisherman. These narratives provide the additional layers and nuance, the harmonies, to the emphasized stories. These divergent accounts of the life of Jesus build on the harmonious portions to become the framework by which every person since Adam and Eve can have restoration to God.
The best part of all of this is that wrapped around The Gospels is the sound of someone promising they'll never go. Ultimately, it is an Old Fashioned Love Song comin' down in four-part harmony. One I'm sure He wrote for you and me.
'Til Tuesday,
Loving HIM by Loving You,
randy
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment