You Were There -- Ben Glover

Ben Glover was still in the early years of his music-writing career in 2004, but he was a more seasoned human being (he was 26 years old), and so the things that challenge mortality most were certainly not foreign to him. Two biblical episodes in which lives were threatened evidently struck Ben especially, and so he tried to imagine what it would have been like if someone had said “You Were There”. From his home in Nashville (the author-composer had moved to Nashville in 2000, so he may have been in Tennessee when he wrote “You Were There” that was released in January 2004; see the seal of Nashville here), Ben transported himself thousands of miles away and centuries apart from his own world in order to visualize a couple of scenes when the Great Protector-God was present to give confidence to two of His servants. And then in a third scene, this same God became the one who’s life was in the balance. Ben concluded that he could trust this God, since He was there in all three scenes. He can not only appreciate and empathize with us in similar moments, but He absorbs those moments and ultimately overpowers them for us.   

 

Ben Glover was perhaps reading about or had been aware of stories in the Bible, probably for many years, when he decided to make them the focal point of “You Were There”. Though Ben hasn’t related what circumstance drew his attention in this song-writing episode, the lyrics he penned cannot be explained except in the context of some biblical story knowledge upon which Ben drew. That much we could say for certain. Was someone nearby in danger, also? Could Ben have been watching a rerun of the old television series You Are There, hosted by Walter Cronkite, imagining a different era in history and what it would have been like to be present? Certainly, Ben was doing something like that when he thought about David and Goliath, about Abraham and Isaac, and about Jesus in the throes of death at Calvary. Those three incidents grabbed Ben’s attention, no doubt because someone’s life was in danger in all three.  ‘David stood to face Goliath’ (v.1); ‘Abraham…poised to kill’ his own son, Isaac (v.2); and especially Jesus ‘on a cross’ all told Ben that God has control over life and death, even His own. Matthew 27:50, Luke 23:46, and John 19:30 all indicate that Jesus, even while on the cross of crucifixion, chose when to die; no one took His life or even had the ability to do so (John 10:17-18). Ben said in his poetry ‘I wonder’ or ‘imagine’, but didn’t spend a lot of words using the first person ‘I’; instead, he used ‘you/yours’ – 40 times in the song – most often as he addressed God directly. Ben’s attention was riveted upon God. God was/is/will be so many things to so many people, it just makes sense to talk to Him, and to see oneself in relation to who He is.   

 

If you check out the Cronkite-told stories of history, they allow one to see and hear a rendition of episodes that none of us living in the 21^st Century, except for the most-senior citizens who are still alive to tell of World War II or early Cold War incidents, have actually witnessed personally. You can be there, in a sense. And, we get the advantage of hearing Walter’s resonant baritone narrating the activity (see an image of Walter Cronkite here). Notably, none of the stories told in the five seasons of You Are There are from the Bible. Is it because they were too controversial when the show was produced, and so executives decided not to ‘push the envelope’ and risk   shrinking viewership? It doesn’t matter, really, since God was there. And, I don’t need to audibly hear someone mimic His voice and tell me what to believe. Can you and I believe without seeing and hearing, tasting and touching, or smelling? My five senses aren’t necessarily engaged when I trust God (although I do read my bible to know about Him), and it seems that neither were Ben Glover’s. How about yours?  

 

Read about the author-composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Glover

 

The following site indicates the release/publication date of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmhiRX89FTM

 

See information on the old TV show here: You Are There (series) - Wikipedia

 

See information on the graphic here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seal_of_Nashville,_Tennessee.png …This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1930 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart as well as a detailed definition of "publication" for public art. Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (50 p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 p.m.a.), Mexico (100 p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties. This graphic may be found inside the document here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tennessee

 

See information on the image of Walter Cronkite here: File:Walter Cronkite on television 1976.jpg - Wikimedia Commons …This work is from the U.S. News & World Report collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work. This photograph is a work for hire created between 1952 and 1986 by one of the following staff photographers at U.S. News & World Report:Warren K. Leffler (WKL); Thomas J. O'Halloran (TOH); Marion S. Trikosko (MST); John Bledsoe (JTB); Chick Harrity (CWH). It is part of a collection donated to the Library of Congress. Per the deed of gift, U.S. News & World Report dedicated to the public all rights it held for the photographs in this collection upon its donation to the Library. The image may be found inside this article: You Are There (series) - Wikipedia

 

Here With Us -- Ben Glover, Jason Ingram, Joy Williams

 

They said it was still a mystery, but that doesn’t mean they shrugged their shoulders and dismissed the seasonal celebration, nor did they diminish the miracle of His being “Here With Us”. It was Christmastime for three composers in 2005, and Ben Glover, Jason Ingram, and Joy Williams were undoubtedly thinking about the Christ child (see here the nativity picture, Adoration of the Shepherds, by 17^th Century Italian artist Matthias Stom [Stomer in English]), apparently in a way that was similar to the emotions we can imagine were expressed on the faces of the people at that time. Wonder and probably bewilderment at the same time, and yet great joy inhabited these witnesses, as God still invites us to do today. Will you and I ever figure out everything about this, or is that really what He wants from us during the annual Christmas celebration? Or, how about everyday life? Perhaps the mystery part is something He intends to leave alone, as part of the lure, the fascination that keeps drawing us toward Him, to a time and place and attachment. Just draw nearer.

 

From the lyrics these three wrote, one might ask if Ben, Jason, or Joy had recently welcomed a newborn into their midst. Or, maybe they had visited a hospital’s neonatal unit and beheld some new arrivals of one or more friends or acquaintances. We could expect that these three might also have been reading from biblical accounts of the Christ-child’s birth or expected arrival, perhaps in Isaiah 9:6, or in Matthew 2 or Luke 1-2. And yet, none of these biblical stories contain details about the child’s physical appearance, so we cannot say for certain what Ben, Jason, and Joy used for inspiration for their own words about Him as a baby. Videos for the song strongly imply the songwriters were thinking of the Christmas story, so that much we could say, although no more specifics are known. The lyrics that Ben, Jason, and Joy wrote are pretty clear about what mystified them – and should, likewise, stun us – about this baby, however. They marveled at the ‘tiny fingers’ of hands ‘so small’, that these same flesh-and-blood human appendages had also ‘measured the sky’ as the universe’s Creator. Or, how about His ‘infant eyes’ and ‘ears’ that made the ‘dawn’ and heard ‘an angel’s symphony’, demonstrating that His human form and divine nature had been amazingly accomplished in the same small body. Someone once said ‘great things come in small packages’, and this was never more true than with Jesus in Bethlehem on a night over two millennia past. No one ever arrived as a baby carrying such significance, a divine ‘love reaching down to save the world’, in the form of a baby. Incredible. And yet, we know that Jesus Himself would say that saving people wasn’t impossible (Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27). A baby who is God…nonetheless, that still staggers the imagination, until you realize that the Creator-God in involved.   

 

The words Ben, Jason, and Joy wrote tell us something more on top of the incredible but true God-baby story that we should remember. Don’t let it become routine. Something quite predictable happens when people live through several Christmases: they begin to say, ‘Oh yeh, we’ve heard this one before, and it’s no different than what we heard last year’. But, could that be why these three composers have us remember that this human form that occupied a manger also made everything we can see above us in the heavens? The next time Christmas seems hum drum, take a close look at a newborn baby, and then look up and observe the stars, the moon, some of the larger planets, and even the sun. His handiwork is there, in that small child’s diminutive hands and goo-goo eyes looking back at you, and in those heavenly bodies that look down on us too. Who else but Him could have fingerprints in both?

 

Read here some thoughts about the song’s meaning: Here With Us | Joy Williams Lyrics, Meaning & Videos

 

Watch a video of the song here: Bing Videos

 

See information on the image here: File:Adoration of the sheperds - Matthias Stomer.jpg - Wikimedia Commons…The author died in 1660, so 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. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1930.