I was stunned to the verge of tears, as I read the richly illustrated piece in Civilization magazine, The Gospel According to J.S. Bach. “Two hundred fifty years ago, he was known as a civil servant, a coffee drinker, and a second-rate composer,” the teaser read. “Today, his music is Christianity incarnate.” Christianity incarnate…You don’t see that every day.

I ventured into the text by Uwe Siemon-Netto, chronicling his return to Liepzig, Germany for the first time since the Red Army occupied his boyhood home in World War II.

Three paragraphs later my curiosity turned to astonishment:

Now, 250 years after his death, at the birth of a new century, an enormous Bach resurgence is underway – particularly in Japan. There, in one of the most unreligious countries in the world, thousands of people are converting to Christianity after listening to Bach’s cantatas. On a recent visit to Tokyo, I was astounded at the enthusiasm there for music that seems to me to have such a specific, and alien, genesis.

My Japanese interpreter came to me one morning and said, ‘Let’s hear some Bach to start the day.’ She pulled out a CD of the cantata Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seeleenlust, whose lyrics say that God’s name is Love. ‘This has taught me what these two words mean to Christians,’ she said. ‘And I like it very much.’

Around the turn of the century, the Lutheran archbishop of Uppsala, in Sweden, called Bach’s cantatas the ‘fifth gospel’; today, such religious terms are just as likely to be applied to Bach by the founder of the Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki, who has said, ‘Bach is teaching us the Christian concept of hope,’ and Yoshikazu Tokuzen, of Japan’s National Christian Council, who has called Bach ‘a vehicle of the Holy Spirit.’ⁱ

The first reason this hit with such force is that I am half Japanese—born and raised in Japan. I know firsthand the resistance in that culture to the message of Christian faith. After more than a century of Christian missionary activity in Japan the result is statistically tiny. So, from my point of view, it was a joy to read about a breakthrough…and by such a remarkable means!

The second reason I was astonished by the Bach story sprang from my involvement in an eight-year project to uncover the Scriptural Roots of Commerce. My concept of the meaning of work was transformed in the process and, against that backdrop, the impact of Bach’s work in Japan stood as a vivid example of what the scriptures teach about the meaning and value of work.

I think the meaning of work is a nearly universal concern in developed economies. People like us—living beyond subsistence to say the least—have a compelling desire to do meaningful work. And most of us seek out ways to create that meaning in our own images.

For some, the meaning of work lies in sustaining enjoyable lifestyles. For others, the satisfaction of discovering and utilizing personal gifts and abilities imparts meaning. And of course there is always the elevated meaning of work that serves others.

Workers in the Christian tradition sometimes assign another class of meaning to work, thinking in terms of the testimony of work or the platform of work. The testimony concept maintains that a worker can (and should) work in such a way as to demonstrate the presence of Christ in the work place. The currency of that testimony is personal character, values, and conduct. The platform model is subtly different. Advocates of the platform notion believe the chief value of work is providing an arena of relational connections for personal evangelism.

Truth be told, every one of these concepts has at least a little validity. And each of them falls short of the bedrock meaning of work because each one understands work as a secondary value where the results (whether frankly selfish or mainly generous) matter more than work itself.

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a comfortable lifestyle, but work is not about that. Discovering and using gifts can certainly be satisfying and still miss altogether the meaning behind those gifts. Working on behalf of others is noble, but is that work’s noblest purpose (I think not)? And the two christianized views—work-as-testimony and work-as-platform—tend to disconnect the worker from the meaning of the work. A person can be a testimony AT work, but not be meaningfully engaged IN work. A person can view the work arena as a platform to convey meaning but not really view the work itself as meaningful. Work becomes what one does to purchase the platform. Compare any of these to J.S. Bach’s work ethic and I think you’ll find it looks like a very low view of work indeed.

The first thing Bach teaches us is the value of working soli deo gloria, for the glory of God alone. Francis Shaeffer noted that Bach inscribed his scores with the initials of phrases like ‘With the help of Jesus and To God alone be the glory’. “…Bach consciously related both the form and the words of his music to biblical truth. Out of the biblical context came a rich combination of music and words…”ⁱⁱ

Bach’s work was probably satisfying to him and it certainly expressed his giftedness. But it was not performed primarily for personal satisfaction. Bach composed music for the glory of God. It was not meant to be a testimony where the work was secondary to his “ministry.” Nor did he work to gain a platform for his “ministry.” It was not work done to secure a place in history or to gain notoriety or to earn the right to be heard. Bach’s first commitment was honoring God in the act of creation. In this sense his work was worship.

A second lesson is derived from Bach’s endeavor to communicate and demonstrate biblical truth through the content and quality of his work. His compositions are powerful because they combine a rich biblical subtext with the full force of a musical imagination passionately committed to honoring God.

The third lesson lies in the directness and integrity of Bach’s work. There was no intellectual exercise to “christianize” the music. His work was the deepest expression of his passionate love for God. Charles Colson said, “When Bach was composing the majestic St. Matthew Passion, which depicts the suffering and death of Christ, he was so deeply moved that tears rolled down his face. The work is punctuated with devotional arias in which the composer pours out his intense sorrow and gratitude over Christ’s suffering.”ⁱⁱⁱ That said, the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations are best-of-class, mainstream compositions executed with the same fire; different subjects but these too were offered soli deo gloria.

In the Civilization article, Siemon-Netto declared “Johann Sebastian Bach was a theologian; his compositions have been called ‘theology set to music.’”

Theology set to music. THEOLOGY set to music. Theology set to MUSIC.

What about theology set to real estate development?

Or theology set to software programming?

What about theology set to retail merchandising, farming, teaching, cooking, banking, marriage, parenting or friendship?

Can you imagine our impact on the world if we lived and worked that way?

Siemon-Netto concludes with Japanese Musicologist Keisuke Maruyama’s visit to Bach’s workplace at Thomaskirche where Maruyama told Dean Johannes Richter, “I want to be a Christian myself.”

Why would Maruyama say such a thing?

It’s the worker speaking through the work. Remember the earlier quotes from Siemon-Netto: “This has taught me what these two words [God, Love] mean, and I like it very much,” and “Bach is teaching us the Christian concept of hope.” These declarations are reactions to exceptional work performed soli deo gloria.

• Do you do your work each day soli deo gloria?
• Do you richly infuse your work with the best of your imagination and abilities along with a rich context of biblical truth to create something that is good, true, and beautiful?
• Does your work express your passionate love for Christ?
• As theology set to your particular work do people listen to your “music” and grasp the nature of God, His love, and the hope God gives?

If you can answer yes, with God’s help, you’re getting your arms around what I think Bach understood about the meaning of work. And wouldn’t it be amazing if somehow your work and mine brought the kind of hope Bach’s work brings to people? Now there’s a reason to get out of bed in the morning.