I Will Rise -- Louis Giglio, Chris Tomlin, Matt Maher, Jesse Reeves

 

He was thinking musically of a moment unlike any other that will fully define and culminate all of human history. Chris Tomlin says his friend Louis Giglio gave him a mission to sing something like that. So, Chris, evidently with the help of two other friends, Matt Maher and Jesse Reeves, used Louis’s charge and a one-liner that he said he couldn’t shake, to say “I Will Rise” in 2008. So many masterpiece artists have taken on this same mission with the paintbrush, which Chris and his friends alternately articulated in their music. See the Noel Coypel work of art here (painted in 1700), which only attempts to show, but cannot possibly depict with full appreciation, the stunning moment when Jesus arose from death, terrifying those nearby with how He overcame the grave. What a moment! Maybe if you and I combine looking at something like this painting and singing the song by Chris and friends, we might come just a little closer to reality. We all need hope in that most difficult moment, when we’re staring at the grave.

 

Chris shares that he was having lunch with Louis when the toughest part of life came up in the conversation. It happens to all of us, eventually, and maybe you’ve also been in Louis’s shoes, having a heart-to-heart with a friend over a meal. He was still bereaved over his father’s recent death, and while scriptures like Psalm 46 – with the line ‘Be still and know that I am God’ – provided solace, he asked Chris to write something new, a song that would echo that old hymn ‘It Is Well (With My Soul)’ (by Horatio Spafford, see 5/31/2014 blog entry). That one line that Louis said was stuck in his brain was this: The grave is overwhelmed. Chris says his goal was to gird the spirits of people like Louis who’ve lost someone, by singing about how mortal death is not the final chapter. Death cannot be overcome any other way, except by knowing it is not the end, it’s just an interlude. No doubt, Chris and his friends had read other scriptures (in addition to Psalm 46) to salve a broken spirit. Jesus also had moments when he felt bereaved, including over his friend Lazarus and the woe that others around Him felt (Luke 11: 33-35). The poignancy got to Him…He was really human. But, unlike us, He has already experienced that death-conquering moment, and He’s the ‘firstborn’ (Colossians 1:18; Revelation 1:5), preparing to lead the army of believers into eternity. That’s got to be worth a ‘hallelujah!’, and more than one. So, that’s what Louis and Chris thought about, that there needs to be more than Horatio Spafford’s song (and others that have been written) to remind us, to re-christen that hope that lies within. Jesus rose, and so will I. That brings a ‘peace’, an ‘anchor’, and a ‘victory’, all contained in this new ‘hallelujah’ song to prompt the believer that those are available even now, before this death interlude ensues.  

 

So, you’re sitting in the funeral home, just trying to get through that gloomy episode. Been there? No one likes to remember, but somehow those memories don’t fade very easily. I still remember the minister saying that death and what follows is an appointment (Acts 17:31). That passage moment won’t last forever, and then at some point I will go on to another place. It can be scary, terrifying. Even Jesus said that He felt forsaken (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34), and that must have been the lowest point for Him and those who stood watching and listening. But, this same God has Spafford, and Tomlin and friends, and so many other writers and artists depict the scene three days hence, also. Someone has summed up Revelation and the end this way: God wins. Choose a side. Don’t be stupid! Don’t get trapped dwelling on the interlude, the passageway, that appointment with death, unless you also imprint Louis’s line onto your brain waves, and into your heart. The grave is overwhelmed. And add the exclamation mark (!) also. Feel free to use more than one…like this !!!!  

 

 

Read the song story here: I Will Rise by Chris Tomlin - Songfacts

 

Read some more about the song’s story here: The Meaning Behind The Song: I Will Rise by Louie Giglio - Old Time Music

 

Another source of the song story is here: Chris Tomlin talks about "I Will Rise" (youtube.com)

 

See information about the image of Christ’s Resurrection here: File:Noel-coypel-the-resurrection-of-christ-1700.jpg - Wikimedia Commons . This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.  {{PD-US}} – US work that is in the public domain in the US for an unspecified reason, but presumably because it was published in the US before 1929.

Amazing Grace, My Chains Are Gone -- John Newton, Chris Tomlin, Louie Giglio

 

How many song ideas have been born thousands of feet in the air? Chris Tomlin did not get to complete his version of John Newton’s “Amazing Grace” while still airborne in 2006, but it wasn’t long before “My Chains Are Gone” leapt out of his mind and onto a page one night. Reading about Newton’s history and considering the impact of the slave trade’s end in Britain in the early 19^th Century, Chris had a rush of feelings and words that came effortlessly. Perhaps it was not unlike what would happen many years later on another continent., when the Emancipation Proclamation emerged to free millions of slaves in the U.S., an event that is still commemorated (including on stamps like the one in this picture.) Isn’t it kind of interesting that today a cross of execution still symbolizes the spiritual freedom that Chris was pondering?

 

What’s a slave’s ransom worth? Chris says that was the question he asked himself as he mused about slavery’s payoff. John Newton does not use the word in his poetry to describe his own thoughts about slavery’s cost, but the price God paid is nevertheless clear. And so, when Chris was on a plane ride and had a coincidental chat with a friend about a movie that would re-tell the stories of the abolitionist heroes in 19^th Century Britain, his brain went into action. The 2007 movie Amazing Grace told the story of William Wilberforce – with the former slave-trader Newton also included – and the decades-long struggle to end slavery’s influence on England’s economy. ‘Ransom’ was the key word in Chris’ refrain, building upon the timelessly classic words that Newton (and an unknown author of one verse) had written over two centuries earlier. Chris says he offered the modified lyrics to the movie-makers, and the rest is history, including its use as one of the movie’s soundtracks. Chris’s friend and minister, Louie Giglio, also apparently may have contributed to the song (he’s listed on some sites as a co-contributor), although exactly what role that was is unclear; perhaps he was a sounding board for Chris’ ideas for the refrain, or helped coax Chris’ thinking about Amazing Grace’s origins. Whatever the case, Chris mentions in one interview that he did not originally intend to add to this enduring hymn, since it was already so great, an attitude that suggests somebody else indeed persuaded his input. That’s not unlike what John Newton must have felt when he created the original hymn’s words, a creation from a ‘wretch’ who was ‘lost’ and ‘blind’, someone who felt unworthy of His grace. A prostrate humility…that seems to be the posture for all who are blessed with the musical talent that helps the rest of us capture the essence of God’s amazing gift.   

 

We’ve been taken hostage. That is implicit in the word ‘ransom’ that Chris Tomlin uses, so something pretty powerful was necessary to break that hold on you and me, in fact extraordinarily so in this case. Usually, one thinks of a ransom that is necessary to free an innocent and implicitly important person who’s been taken hostage. From Newton’s perspective, he was not that innocent nor valuable, however. And yet, God paid the ultimate price, without negotiation. The astonishing part of this divine equation was His love, something no other being in the universe across all time could have added. Could that be where Satan miscalculated, that he thought God would eventually think the freedom for all of us demands too costly a price? And yet, that kind of love is a ‘flood’, Chris reminds us. It envelopes us; somebody might even say we drown in this flood. But in this ocean of God’s love, you and I don’t gasp for air. This love not only frees, it transforms. He’s ‘forever mine’, as John Newton first said. Drink that in.    

 

 

 

See the song’s story, as told by the primary contemporary author(Tomlin), here: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/history-of-hymns-amazing-grace-my-chains-are-gone

 

See information on one author here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Tomlin

 

Information on the song is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_the_Morning#Amazing_Grace_(My_Chains_Are_Gone)

 

See information on the website of one author here: https://www.christomlin.com/

 

See information on another author here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Giglio