DAILY BYTE
Over the past couple of days we’ve explored some of Jesus’ parables of the kingdom. Today, I’d like to share with you a true story that I think can stand as a modern-day parable of the kingdom.
It’s about a young man who has become known as the cellist of Sarajevo. This is his story:
On the 27 May 1992, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, a mortar shell exploded in the streets of Sarajevo, during the bloody Bosnian War. The shell instantly killed 22 people who were queuing for bread outside a bakery, and left a massive crater in the street.
The gruesome incident was witnessed by a young man by the name of Vedran Smailovic. He was a musician, a cellist in the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra. The next day, 28 May 1992, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon Vedran Smailovic, dressed formally in evening tails as he would for a concert performance, took his cello down into the crater, and started to play.
For 22 days, one for each of the people killed, Smailovic played the same piece of music at the same time in the same spot – even as bullets and mortar shells continued to rain down on Sarajevo.
He played to honour the memory of those who had died. He played for human dignity and to highlight the senseless waste of war. He played to fill a monstrous time and place with a little beauty, even if only for a moment. He played to give expression to the seemingly futile hope that joy and laughter and singing and dancing would once again be known in those desolate streets. He played amidst the rubble and ruins of his bombed-out city because something within him compelled him to play - a dissonant solo against a backdrop of death, a defiant witness in celebration of life.
The piece he chose to play was Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor. It’s a moving piece of music that has a remarkable story of its own. The arrangement that is played and popularly known today comes from a manuscript fragment found amidst the ruins of Dresden after the Second World War. Music that miraculously survived the horror of the firebombing that obliterated much of that city and the cultural treasures it contained.
As the haunting strains of this piece sounded from Vedran Smailovic’s cello, who would have imagined that these tremoring notes would even be heard amidst the hideous screeching of falling bombs, the anguished screams of bullet-seared flesh, or the hysterical sobbing of mothers cradling lifeless children in their arms?
And yet today, the Siege of Sarajevo has ended and its architects are being brought to justice, while the story of Vedran Smailovic continues to be told as an inspiration to millions around the world. And though the notes have long since died away, the rich resonance of that faith-filled music of the cellist of Sarajevo continues to stir people’s hearts and imaginations even now.
That’s what the kingdom of God is like.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Meditate on these words from a well-known hymn, and let them lead you into a time of prayer:
Hark we hear a distant music and it comes with fuller swell.
Tis the triumph song of Jesus, of our King, Immanuel….
For his angels here are human not the shining hosts above
And the drum-beats of his army are the heart-beats of our love.
SCRIPTURE READING
Acts 16:25-26
In the dead of night Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose.
