Isaiah 60:1: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.”
This is verse is a beautiful poetic express.  Arise shine in Hebrew is qumi ori written as two trochees (a metrical foot used in formal poetry consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one conveying a rolling rhythm).  The writer uses the two torcheesqumi ori to express the idea of holding on or hang in there your light has come.
In the late 19th and early 20th Century there lived the son of a former slave named Scott Joplin. He is buried in a pauper’s grave in Queens New York.  Up until the early 1970’s it was unmarked. Scott Joplin, as we know today, was an artist and musical genius who wrote the opera Treemonisha whose theme was that education would rescue the black race.  The opera was a total failure during his life time, except in 1911 Irvin Berlin took one of the melodies from the opera and produced Alexander’s Ragtime Band which made millions of dollars and nothing for Scott Joplin who decided not to sue Irvin Berlin.  In 1976 the opera won a Pulitzer Prize, sixty years after Scott Joplin died. Most people have heard of Scott Joplin from the hit song in the seventies The Entertainer wrongly referred to by many people as The Sting which was the name of the movie which used the song as its theme.  Marvin Hamlisch won an Oscar for the song.  Marvin Hamlisch is the only composer in history to win an Academy Award for a song he did not write, compose or score. Marvin Hamlisch discovered an old player piano roll that had the original record of Scott Joplin playing The Entertainer.  Marvin Hamlisch used the exact composition for the movie The Sting.  Today it has been digitally re-mastered and you can download the original song played by Scott Joplin himself on your I Pod.  Many people have it as a ring tone on their phones.   Today the works of Scott Joplin has made millions of dollars to its copyright owners.  During his lifetime, Scott Joplin never made more than $600 a year, which is about $15,000 dollars a year in today’s money and below the poverty level.
The reason Scott Joplin never achieved wealth or fame during his lifetime, even though he was the father of Ragtime music is because he was an African American. People in those days did not believe an African American could be a genius or produce actual art.  Scott Joplin was considered just The Entertainer.   Yet with the release of his works in the 1970’s when a new wave of thinking and acceptance toward black artist was sweeping the country as well as the world, musical scholars started to take a close look at the works of Scott Joplin and declared that he was truly an artist and genius. His opera, Treemonisha, was uncovered and produce and earned millions of dollars and a Pulitzer Prize.  They even put a marker (not a grave stone) over his grave.
But here is the rest of the story.  When Scott Joplin was a child a brilliant musical scholar and professor of music who emigrated from Germany heard him play the piano and immediately recognize his genius.  He personally mentored Scott Joplin giving him free music lessons and, of course the professor being German, trained him in the Classics, the works of the masters such as Bach, Mozart, Brahms and all the other long haired composers.  He trained Scott Joplin to be a concert class pianist.  Had Scott Joplin lived today he would have played in some of the greatest concert halls in the world.  Yet, in his day a black pianist could only play in church or in saloons or brothels.  As I said, in those days no one would believe an African American could be an artist or genius, hence they only saw him as an entertainer. Nobody in saloons or brothels was interested in classical music so Scott Joplin used his classical training to develop a new style of music that would appeal to the common people called Ragtime. Yet, sixty years later with a change in attitude Scott Joplin’s musical genius, his artist light began to shine and he was awarded, posthumously, the Pulitzer Prize.
The Targum (Aramaic translation of the Old Testament) says “Arise Jerusalem and shine.”   Jerusalem at this time was in ruins, no one expected anything to come of this defeated city. Yet, today it is the center of the world’s attention.  It was the home of the temple of God during the day of Jesus.  One day it will be the capital city of the world with Jesus as its supreme ruler.  The word is Hebrew for arise is qumi which is in an imperative form. It is arising because God commands it to arise.  The word has its roots in corn or wheat which has reached its full growth and it is ready to fulfill its purpose which is to be harvested and consumed to bring life and strength to the body.  The word for shine is ori which is the light of God.  It is the light of God that will bring this life and strength.
Go to You Tube and click on “The Entertainer” played by Scott Joplin. Listen closely, listen with your heart,  do you hear it, God is speaking a command over you, He is speaking the same words over you qumi ori arise and shine or hang in there, the light of God is come and will one day shine forth from you to bring life and strength to others.  Maybe now you are in ruins, like Scott Joplin, nobody notices that artist (the light of God) in you but God is commanding you to grow, mature (yes, even if you are a senior citizen) and reach that point where His light will shine forth from you.   In Scott Joplin’s day the prejudices and fear of the masses kept his artistic light from shining.  So too today, many Christians with the light of God ready to shine through are held back by religious prejudices and fears but God is commanding you to qumi arise anyways, grow and nourish that Light of God within you for one day the prejudices will break down as it did for Scott Joplin and as the world now sees the true artistic light of genius in Scott Joplin, so too will others see the light of God in you.

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