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Do You Know Who You Just Walked By?

Joshua.Bell.jpg

The Washington Post pulled off a very intriguing feat. They asked one of the world's greatest violinists to play one of the world's finest violins in the middle of rush hour at a downtown Metro station. It was an experiment of sorts. They wanted to see how many people would take note of the incredible music being played and stop to listen. Outside of the context of a concert hall, and with world-renown musician Joshua Bell disguised in a baseball cap would people realize what their ears were being treated to?

The full story is worth reading. And it's fascinating to watch the video footage that shows the response. In brief, hardly anyone noticed or took the time to stop and listen.

I read this story the night before Easter Sunday. I'd been studying the story of Thomas and Jesus in John 20 where Jesus reprimands his disciple's disbelief. The similarity between the hurried and preoccupied Metro riders walking by Joshua Bell and the people who pass by Jesus without giving him the slightest attention was striking to me.

How many people attended a church on Easter, heard a message about Jesus, and barely paused to truly listen? How many people preoccupied with the worries and cares of life walk right by the Savior of the world, the one person who can save them from God's wrath?

Do you know who Jesus is? If you've never stopped, looked with faith and repentance on his cross, and received forgiveness, do you know who you just passed by?

Posted by on April 12, 2007

Comments (7)

I wonder how the experiment would work in reverse - if someone who was not as great a violin player wore a tux and was announced at Carnegie Hall on stage as a brilliant player.

How many people would applaud? Everyone.

Perceptions . . . context . . .
This experiment has been done time and again, notably on Candid Camera. :)

Posted by Diana Barry Blythe | April 12, 2007 6:13 PM

This was a intriguing situation, and written up very well in the Post. It made me think about the profound handicaps that we all are subject to as sinners. It's really not a question of "are we blind and deaf?" but "to what extent?" and "how are we to be changed?"

-The hearing ear and the seeing eye are from the Lord. (prov 20:12)

Posted by damien howard | April 13, 2007 7:21 AM

Thanks for the article Josh! I'd like to think of these paragraphs capture nicely a tribute to Christ in modernity :)

"It was all videotaped by a hidden camera. You can play the recording once or 15 times, and it never gets any easier to watch. Try speeding it up, and it becomes one of those herky-jerky World War I-era silent newsreels. The people scurry by in comical little hops and starts, cups of coffee in their hands, cellphones at their ears, ID tags slapping at their bellies, a grim danse macabre to indifference, inertia and the dingy, gray rush of modernity.

Even at this accelerated pace, though, the fiddler's movements remain fluid and graceful; he seems so apart from his audience -- unseen, unheard, otherworldly -- that you find yourself thinking that he's not really there. A ghost.

Only then do you see it: He is the one who is real. They are the ghosts."

Posted by Chang Wei Hao | April 13, 2007 1:09 PM

Events like this happen regularly here in tourism-driven Belize. Often times, celebrities, artist, politicians, etc, would vacation here and normally go unnoticed, unless they go to a secluded prestigious resort. Those who go to the "average" hotels and sites, go unnoticed.

My main thought is this: Are we careful to serve, in small ways, common people? Or are we like how James calls it, respecters of men? Our love for God is shown in how we treat and appreciate little people.

This has been on my heart for a while. With sacrifice, I have begun to notice people on the street. Wave to them, give directions, smile, give a complement to a worker, ask a lone child about his parents, things like that. It takes about ten times the amount of time to get anything done, but in the end, it is the souls of men, not my education or career, that will last.

Posted by Elizabeth Andrus | April 15, 2007 4:27 PM

I suspect that had they tried the same thing at a mall or somewhere other than a place where most everyone is rushing to get to and from work, catch a train that wont wait for them, etc., there would have been more people that actually stopped to listen.

Posted by Jason | April 16, 2007 2:57 AM

I wonder if I would have stopped. I assumed I wouldn't, until I heard the story in NPR, and I heard the violin play. They introduced the story with that, and I knew right away what story they were leading into. The playing was beautiful, even in the low quality medium they had recorded it with. I might have stopped for that - unless, of course, I was in a big hurry.

I'm glad God opened my eyes, and I stopped for him. So many miss him in the streets.

Posted by B. Minich | April 16, 2007 10:00 AM

I would have stopped for a moment and appreciated the musician and his artistry. I probably would have given him any money I had (within reason) for I can appreciate the violinist's skills and musicality. I also would have recognized him as well knowing he was famous and I've been to one of his concerts.

Why?

I think it is b/c I am a musician myself and I know a good one when I hear it. Why didn't many of the people stop? Because they don't know any better and they do not realize what they are missing. They are uneducated, untrained,ignorant, too busy, unappreciative and I am not just talking about music.

Posted by A. Watson | December 30, 2007 6:03 PM

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