“The Christian life should produce truth—flaming truth—but also beauty,” wrote Francis Schaeffer. Last week I saw a video which brilliantly illustrated his belief. Originally performed on “America’s Got Talent” this trio wowed the crowd and the judges with their singing of a prayer. A prayer written in Latin, which I’m quite sure, no one in the audience understood, not even a word.
But what the audience and the judges did understand was the pure beauty of the voices, the inspiration of elegant music, the sound of transcendence that spoke of something higher and better than our every day ordinary. Why else did many in the audience stand almost from the beginning? Why was everyone, including the judges, standing at the end, many with their jaws dropping in awe, tears in their eyes?
“Beauty by its very nature always elicits a response, one simply cannot experience a form or a phenomenon as beautiful without responding.” (Edward Oakes) Elegant music sparks a thirst for the divine and that is what I saw on faces, a desire to worship. Watch the video if you haven’t already and enjoy a moment of transcendent beauty.
Btw, the English translation is “Pious Lord Jesus, give them rest. Pious Lord Jesus give them everlasting rest. Pious Jesus, who takes away the sins of the world, give them rest. Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, give them everlasting rest.”
This is the flaming truth that Forte sang.
