A Good Musician Can Make Beautiful Music…Even with The Worst Of Instruments

A lot of people haven’t been given “ears to hear.”

I’m not talking about Jesus’s words though, I’m talking about the delightful music that comes from the accordion.

It can make some truly great music. So why do I get the side-eye every time I mention it? How did it become the punchline to the world of music?

I’m willing to bet we’ll hear some accordions in heaven (see Psalm 33:3) and then we will have ears to hear. Weird Al Yankovic agrees, although he might be partially responsible for making it the least serious weapon in the musician’s arsenal.

Weapon is the wrong word though. Weapons take life, and instruments, when used correctly, bring life. Don’t believe me? How else do you explain those moments of transcendence at a concert where the audience gets lost in the moment and are brought together through lyric and music?

“The glory of God is man fully alive,” wrote the second century Church father Ireneaus. He was just repackaging Jesus’s words, “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance” (John 10:10).

I wish I was exposed to Ireneaus earlier on in my journey following Jesus because that’s exactly what my experience has been as I’ve encountered the risen savior. I’ve become more and more fully alive. I’ve been ushered into abundant life.

I know many people will wince at the illustration, but in my mind’s eye I picture my life before Christ as that of an accordion clasped shut. Not making beautiful music, not stretched to its full expanse—but minimized, diminished, gathering dust in some corner somewhere.

But Jesus…

He delights to take the weak and diminished things of this world, dust them off, tune them, and begin making beautiful music. Stretching them beyond what they once were and making them human again. Using them to make beautiful music, magnifying, and multiplying his abundant life. To be sure, sometimes the songs they sing are joyful, other times sad, but always becoming more and more “fully alive.”

Some have remarked that God makes straight lines using crooked sticks. He also makes beautiful music using broken instruments. For those who have been given ears to hear, he is displaying his glory through us. He is making us fully alive.

And in his economy, to his ears, even the accordion can play the most beautiful of sonatas.