Stradivarius
January 12, 2016
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Ephesians 1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
One of the greatest ambitions of any violinist is to play a Stradivarius. Stradivarius violins are unrivalled in their sound. You can imagine the excitement of acclaimed British violinist Peter Cropper when, in 1981, London’s Royal Academy of Music offered him a 258-year-old Stradivarius for a series of concerts. But then the unimaginable happened. When Peter entered the stage he tripped, landed on top of the violin, and he broke it. He snapped the neck off. A priceless masterpiece was destroyed! Cropper was inconsolable. He took the violin to a master craftsman in the hope he might be able to repair it. And repair it he did. So perfect was the repair that the break was undetectable, and, more important, the sound was exquisite. Night after night, as Peter drew his bow across those strings, he was reminded of the fact that what he once thought was irreparably damaged had been fully restored by the hand of a Master craftsman. Remember the Bible says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” That means all of us fall into sin, but the good news is that Jesus is the Master Craftsman who can make us whole again. He died on the cross for our sins so that we can be cleansed from sin and receive the gift of eternal life.
Ephesians 1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
One of the greatest ambitions of any violinist is to play a Stradivarius. Stradivarius violins are unrivalled in their sound. You can imagine the excitement of acclaimed British violinist Peter Cropper when, in 1981, London’s Royal Academy of Music offered him a 258-year-old Stradivarius for a series of concerts. But then the unimaginable happened. When Peter entered the stage he tripped, landed on top of the violin, and he broke it. He snapped the neck off. A priceless masterpiece was destroyed! Cropper was inconsolable. He took the violin to a master craftsman in the hope he might be able to repair it. And repair it he did. So perfect was the repair that the break was undetectable, and, more important, the sound was exquisite. Night after night, as Peter drew his bow across those strings, he was reminded of the fact that what he once thought was irreparably damaged had been fully restored by the hand of a Master craftsman. Remember the Bible says, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” That means all of us fall into sin, but the good news is that Jesus is the Master Craftsman who can make us whole again. He died on the cross for our sins so that we can be cleansed from sin and receive the gift of eternal life.