The senior man lived alone with his beloved cello. He played it when he was distressed and sad, and he would play it when he was happy and filled with gratitude. Sometimes he would play it for no reason at all, just for the sheer enjoyment of it.
Like all instruments, the old cello got out of tune from time to time. When it did, he would call the local radio station, asking the announcer to broadcast the true and precise tone of an A. By that authentic tone the elderly man would tune his cello and he was ready to play again.
What a brilliant metaphor for the Christian. Jesus is the Announcer. I get my pitch from listening to Him every day. He seems to know when I’m flat, or when I’m high pitched. He knows that for me to be in tune with my surroundings there has to be a certain amount of tension in my strings. Every so often I feel the stretch of His fine-tuning process. I know then He is preparing me for a ‘concert of teaching’ where I must publicly ‘preach in pitch’. Speaking His Word demands true tone. It’s agony to sit by someone in church who sings off-key! I have found that when I turn my voice towards them they soon slide into sync with me. My voice becomes the tuning fork they need to hear. Same goes for my spoken words; they must be in sync with the Divine tuning fork of the Word in order to tune up another’s life.
I am quite sure that is what Jesus meant when he said:
“I have given you this as an example,
so that you in turn should do what I have done to you.”
John 13:15
AMP.