A Touch of the Masters Hand
Here are the Lyrics to a song most relevant to this Article, and we Quote; “Well it was battered and scarred and the auctioneer felt, It was hardly worth his while, To waste much time on the old violin, But he held it up with a smile, He said it sure ain’t much but it’s all we’ve got left, I guess we oughta sell it too, Oh, now who’ll start the bid on this old violin, Just one more and we’ll be through. And then he cried: One, give me one dollar, who’ll make it two, Only two dollars, who’ll make it three, Three dollars twice, now that’s a good price, Who’s gonna bid for me, Raise up your hand now, don’t wait any longer, The auction’s about to end, Who’s got four just one dollar more to bid on this old violin.
Well, the air was hot and the people stood around, As the sun was setting low, And from the back of the crowd, a gray haired man, Came forward and picked up the bow, He wiped the dust from the old violin and he tightened up the strings, and then he played a melody pure and sweet, sweeter than Angel’s sing, And then the music stopped and the Auctioneer with a voice that was quiet and low, He said now what am I bid for this old violin and he held it up with the bow.
Then he cried out One give me one thousand; who’ll make it two, only two thousand, Who’ll make it three? Three thousand twice you know that’s a good price, Come on who’s gonna bid for me? And the people cried out, What made the change? We don’t understand. Then the auctioneer stopped and said with a smile, It was the touch of the Master’s Hand.
You know there’s many a man with his life out of tune, Battered and scarred with sin, And he’s Auctioned cheap to a thankless world much like that old violin, but then the Master comes and the foolish crowd, they never understand, the worth of a soul and the change that it wrought, just by one touch of the Master’s Hand. – Booth Brothers Lyrics.
After the Auction, the old Violin was then sent off to a qualified restorer, to repair and to refurbish so that his children could learn how to play it, but as there are only six parts to a violin, this is fiddly but not overly complex. Now as old violins are glued together with “Hide Glue,” this glue does actually break down over time, so many joints were weak or separating, so he carefully split it back into its individual components, and the awkward joints were easily softened with a hot knife and soon there were only parts on his bench. Then upon closer inspection, he noticed that faded paper label, he read it once more, and then read it slowly again, he actually had spread out on his bench, a genuine Antonio Stradivari, Latin rendition is Stradivarius, of Cremona, Italy, spread out before him in pieces.
Each piece was then very closely inspected, then the old joints were cleaned, and then the sides were glued back together, the top was glued back on next, and then the chipped corners were carefully cut back along the grain, and a new piece of timber was glued in, to be then carefully shaped to match the other side. The two halves of the back were glued back together and held firmly while the glue dried. A long crack in the top was cleaned and re-glued, and then thin slivers of carefully crafted timber were made and glued across the crack at about 3cm spacing’s, with the patch grain going across the crack. Now the long slow process of scraping off the grime of years, and old varnish, the back was then glued on, and the sad old instrument started to look much better. As the hours passed, the violin was back to bare timber, and then the staining was completed, the varnish was next applied, and it was now looking just like it had when leaving the workshop all those decades ago. When all complete, it was re-strung, and then played, and its tone was classically amazing Stradivarius. A new bow, and a new case, and it was ready for collection, not as something for children to practice upon, but back to the Auctioneer, and a Maestro, to then play it before packed auditoriums. It was sold for an undisclosed figure of many millions of dollars, purchased and redeemed cheaply from a thoughtless crowd.
How often we sell ourselves off cheaply, something of infinite value to Heaven, just being viewed as trash, a toy to be played with, knocked about, but when we are actually “Children of the Heavenly King,” or in this concept, a Genuine Stradivarius, Royalty, sitting neglected in a pig pen just like the Prodigal Son. The Maestro is just waiting for us to turn our hearts Heavenward, to cry out in our wretchedness, to be no longer bashed about by sin and rebellion, to be restored back as near as possible to how we were initially made in the image of God, and to once more sing out in purity of classical sound, ringing and echoing through the volume of Heaven.
Now back to the song; “You know there’s many a man with his life out of tune, Battered and scarred with sin, And he’s Auctioned cheap to a thankless world much like that old violin, but then the Master comes and the foolish crowd, they never quite understand, the worth of a soul and the change that it wrought, just by one touch of the Master’s Hand.” We can so easily become like the “Prodigal Son” lost in a Pig Pen, yet others are the “Prodigal Brother,” who was just as lost yet living at home with his Father. We can be just as easily “Lost” sitting right in Church as we can be when living in Babylon or Egypt. You are of infinite value to Heaven, even to the length that if you were the only person to have sinned in the Universe, Jesus would still have died just for you. Hosea 6:1 “Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight?”
