On June 1, 2008, a fire broke out in a section of Universal Studios Hollywood. What began as routine, overnight maintenance on the roof of some of the buildings used by the studio led to a significant fire that not only destroyed the theme park’s “King Kong” attraction, but also reached Building 6197. At the time of the incident, the company reported that the building was simply a “video vault” which housed videotapes and film reels and that the materials destroyed were only copies of old works.

But 11 years later, an investigative report by the New York Times, published on June 11, 2019 revealed that much more than old videos and film reels were destroyed. The vault also contained a library of master sound recordings owned by Universal Music Group, including works produced by some of the most famous musicians of the 20th century. In total, the company reported that estimated 500,000 song titles were destroyed in the blaze, nearly the entire library of master recordings stored in Building 6197.

Niraj Chokshi, writing at the release of the original NY Times article, summarized the loss from the fire:

The lost works most likely included masters in the Decca Records collection by Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald and Judy Garland. The fire probably also claimed some of Chuck Berry’s greatest recordings, produced for Chess Records, as well as the masters of some of Aretha Franklin’s first appearances on record…. Almost of [sic] all of Buddy Holly’s masters were lost, as were most of John Coltrane’s masters in the Impulse Records collection. The fire also claimed numerous hit singles, likely including Bill Haley and His Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock,” Etta James’s “At Last” and the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie.”

The article goes on to list the numerous artists whose master recordings were lost in the fire:

• Ray Charles
• B.B. King
• The Four Tops
• Joan Baez
• Neil Diamond
• Sonny and Cher
• Joni Mitchell
• Cat Stevens
• Gladys Knight and the Pips
• Al Green
• Elton John
• Eric Clapton
• Jimmy Buffett
• The Eagles
• Aerosmith
• Rufus and Chaka Khan
• Barry White
• Patty LaBelle
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• The Police
• Sting
• Steve Earle
• R.E.M.
• Janet Jackson
• Guns N’ Roses
• Mary J. Blige
• No Doubt
• Nine Inch Nails
• Snoop Dogg
• Nirvanna
• Beck
• Sheryl Crow
• Tupac Shakur
• Eminem
• 50 Cent
• The Roots

Master recordings are unique, “one-of-a-kind original recordings of a piece of music” which become the “source from which other vinyl records, CDs, and MP3s and all other recordings are made.” Adam Block, former president of Legacy Recordings commented, “A master is the truest capture of a piece of recorded music…. Sonically, masters can be stunning in their capturing of an event in time. Every copy thereafter is a sonic step away.”

I came across this article when it was first published two years ago, at which time I filed it away in my browser “favorites” only to forget about it until the other day, when I discovered it once again as I went on a cleaning spree through my disheveled folder of website bookmarks. The article immediately hit me with the same level of rhetorical and practical force as it did then. And in the length of a single nanosecond, the same reference came to my mind placing the musical loss in metaphysical context:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21)

Certainly there is a lesson here regarding God’s accountability. Some of those recordings needed to be destroyed. Many of the songs lost in the fire represented the kind of godless and sensual morality that marks our western culture. But that’s a different point. The point I want to make is how fragile and transient earthly treasures are. They can be here today and gone tomorrow. They are as permanent as anything else in this life. Do we really want to devote our lives to the accumulation of things which can so quickly vanish? Do we want to hang our hopes, our livelihoods, and our sense of worth and fulfillment on fodder for the fire?

James warned the rich about this temptation. He told them to “weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you” (5:1). He told them that “your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire” (5:2-3a). In other words, those who would be tempted to glory in their wealth and to base their self-worth upon their possessions will come to realize that what they have been accumulating for themselves is actually going to purchase their punishment: “You have laid up treasure in the last days” (5:3b).

Earthly possessions, in and of themselves, aren’t the problem. We can’t take some kind of anti-materialistic stance that says anything earthly, anything material, anything tangible is bad and evil. That kind of dualism is a common feature of false doctrine, from the Gnosticism of the 2nd century to modern-day heresies such as Christian Science, and it flies in the face of Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 4:4-5…”For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”

The issue isn’t with the material things. It’s not money or possessions, or anything like that. The issue is with us. We each have, in the words of John Calvin, a heart that is “a perpetual factory of idols.” Our hearts constantly roam, like heat-seeking missiles, searching for something to latch onto in worship and devotion. Material possessions offer an easy and convenient target. They seem to offer so much…satisfaction, prestige, power, influence, hope…the list goes on. Until a fire sweeps through and unmasks these things for what they are. We’ve given our loyalty over to something that cannot fulfill what we’re asking of it.

Thus, the call for each of us is to daily inspect the desires of our heart. “Where your treasure is,” Jesus stated, “there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21). Our hearts can either be devoted to earthly treasure or heavenly treasure. We either desire the things of this world or the things of the world to come. And what we desire tells us volumes about who we are. It can diagnose our spiritual issues and and reveal the core motivations for our sin (Jas 4:1-4). But it can also steady us in the inevitable turbulences of life in a corrupt and sinful world, for it is God who, speaking through the psalmist, promised: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps 37:4).

I firmly agree with John Piper that when we find our full satisfaction, joy, and delight in God, we bring him the most glory. Or, to put it as he does in his modified version of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever” (Piper, Desiring God, 28). When we have that kind of perspective, the material possessions of this world take on a completely different kind of value. They become expressions of grace, gifts from a good Father which we hold loosely with the understanding that he can take them back at any point. They’re not ours, really. They are his, given to us to use, to enjoy, and to share. They are not given at the expense of our satisfaction in him. They don’t replace him in our hearts. They are tokens of his grace which we recognize are here today and can be gone tomorrow.

So, in the end, what do we learn from a fire that destroyed thousands of irreplaceable recordings from some of the most important and iconic musicians of the 20th century? Simply put: recognize that we live on the brink of eternity. As Piper writes,

In 1 Timothy, Paul’s purpose is to help us lay hold of eternal life and not lose it. Paul never dabbles in unessentials. He lives on the brink of eternity. That’s why he sees things so clearly. He stands there like God’s gatekeeper and treats us like reasonable Christian Hedonists: You want life that is life indeed, don’t you (v. 19)? You don’t want ruin, destruction, and pangs of heart, do you (vv. 9-10)? You want all the gain that godliness can bring, don’t you (v. 6)? Then use the currency of Christian Hedonism wisely: Do not desire to be rich, be content with wartime necessities of life, set your hope fully on God, guard yourself from pride, and let your joy in God overflow in a wealth of liberality to a lost and needy world” (Piper, 203).