Listen for the hope

Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified.

John 19:41

Vedran Smailovic, the principal cellist of the Sarajevo Opera, was heartbroken at the massacre that occurred in his city in 1992, when a breadline of citizens waited in front of a bakery and a mortar landed, killing 22 people.

Twenty four hours after the massacre, he did the only thing he knew. He settled his stool beside the smoking crater. And he began to play Albinoni's stirring piece, Adagio. In the midst of the suffering, he played every day for 22 days, while the war surrounded him. One author said, "He dispensed hope in his music, he became hope to his people."

Boston Cello Quartet plays Albinoni's Adagio

The gift he gave to his fellow citizens was hope that the good and beautiful and peaceful things in life would return. 

At the center of our Three Days are our own longings for hope. 

As a cellist myself, I invite you to pause this Good Friday for six minutes, and listen to an arrangement of the piece played by the Cellist of Sarajevo. 

Listen for the hope.

--Pastor Kent Mueller

Director for Administration and Communication