Come Unto Jesus -- Jordan Kauflin, Matt Merker, Laura Story, Jesus

 

This song has many writers, but it must begin with the One who first spoke the words that no human being could disparage. What Jesus said about wanting to give people rest from their burdens should reverberate within every one of us, for who doesn’t want to be relieved of trouble? No one wants anxiety, and yet it comes, coaxing us to listen closely to the God-Son’s promise. The text of Matthew chapter 11 begins by saying that Jesus went through the region of Galilee (see the map-graphic here that shows that area in about 50 AD) teaching and preaching, and the chapter ends (vv. 28-30) with Him saying something that Thomas Moore and Thomas Hastings, along with the tune-writer Samuel Webbe, highlighted in a 19^th Century hymn, Come, Ye Disconsolate. That hymn underscored what Jesus said, and then spoke lyrically once more to three 21^st Century songwriters -- Jordan Kauflin, Matt Merker, and Laura Story – in Come Unto Jesus. It is evidence that what Jesus said is still relevant, and always will be to those of us who need what He offers.

 

Laura Story says that Come Unto Jesus is a modern hymn for today (the song was published in 2023), and yet its roots are in something that Jesus wanted all of us to know 2,000 years ago. She reminds us of what Jesus’ words mean – that we don’t have to fix ourselves before coming to Him for relief. It’s a fallacy that our culture tries to get us to accept, that we cannot admit weakness, cannot be anything but complete, and certainly cannot have a mess in our lives when we approach Him. Laura says that she and her two collaborators, Jordan and Matt, asked themselves what the people in our world needed to be reminded of most when they sat down to think and write Come Unto Jesus.  Busyness and distraction were apparent, they said, impeding the worship atmosphere they felt they needed to foster in the songs they would bring before the church. What the ancient writer Matthew remembered that Jesus said in the region of Galilee came to them, and provided the foundation for what they wanted to say. Their lyrics also leaned heavily upon their 19^th Century musical ancestors, Thomas Moore and Thomas Hastings, to reemphasize what those two evidently felt was plaguing their own era – the same thing that is still around in the 21^st Century. Weary people have all sorts of problems and turmoil, and may become the refuse of the culture, the ones society has shoved aside because of the chaos that is so pervasive in their lives. Laura points to what another writer, Paul, had to say regarding the peace that Jesus translates to us that is beyond all understanding (Philippians 4:7). People who have descended into a pit so deep that they cannot even recall how the mayhem actually began need something equally as powerful and transcendent to resurrect themselves. That is Jesus.  

 

Laura says another ancestor spoke words that still mean something today, because they also lean on this axiom – that Jesus is the only source of lasting peace. “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” Saint Augustine of Hippo reminded people of his own era (4^th/5^th Century A.D.) with those words, so what does that communicate? If you are one that thinks you can help yourself, if you are a ‘pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps’ type of person, then reconsider that mindset. Yes, everyone needs to have some abilities to function in the world, to make civil society possible. But wars, disease, prisons and the criminal activity that puts people in them, and the strains of just daily living – financially, relationally, emotionally, and otherwise – can make you and me crack under the pressure so easily. I cannot handle all of myself, and cannot even contemplate controlling everyone and everything else within view. It all is a recipe for trouble in a place I cannot escape, except by death. Jesus offers something that even overcomes that terminal option. Don’t try the death part before you give Him a shot, OK?   

 

Read about the song’s story here: https://www.leadworshipwell.com/behind-the-song/laura-story-come-unto-jesus

 

This site indicates the song’s publishing year: https://hymnary.org/tune/come_unto_jesus_kauflin

 

See information about the 19^th Century hymn here:  http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/c/y/d/i/cydiscon.htm

 

See information on the map-graphic here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Galilee.jpg... The author died in 1934, 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 80 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. The image can be found inside this document: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilee 

We Will Feast in the House of Zion -- Sandra McCracken and Joshua Moore

 

Was something troubling the writers or people they knew? The lyrics that Sandra McCracken and Joshua Moore penned in 2015 indicate that if the answer was ‘yes’, then they had been reading from various ancient scriptures for solace and encouragement. “We Will Feast in the House of Zion” was how Israel’s most faithful servants of the Lord God reassured themselves, through a remembrance of His past relationship with them and what these same afflicted people prayed He could do for them in the future. Some of their history included exile to another land, a situation that left the people longing for a joyous return to Zion, the land God had given to them. (See the 1903 illustration The Land of Zion, by Ephraim Moses Lilien, which shows the glow of the land off in the distance, which the people of God ached to inhabit once more.) The thoughts that Sandra and Joshua put on paper remind us that we often are in straits that menace us, even to the point of death. We call out and seek His protective presence once more, as His people have done over and over again.  

 

Since Sandra McCracken included the song ‘We Will Feast…’ on an album entitled Psalms, we can presume that much of the inspiration that she found, apparently with Joshua Moore’s collaboration, was from within that ancient Hebrew songbook. Particularly, Psalms 22 (verse 29) and 126 (verses 2-3) offer words that Sandra and Joshua could have borrowed to celebrate with ‘feast(ing)’ and to recall the ‘great things’ He has done for His people. Other various prophets or biblical visionaries like Isaiah (30:19; 43:2), Joel (2:21), Jeremiah (Lamentations 3:22), John (Revelation 5:5), and Solomon (Proverbs 7:9) wrote with words that these two 21^st Century songwriters seem to echo. What parallels to Israel’s history existed in Sandra’s and Joshua’s world that helped stimulate what they wrote? That’s a mystery, though any number of circumstances in our modern world so often make us feel as though a gap between the Lord and ourselves has formed. One thing is certain: He hasn’t moved; it’s always we who have strayed away from Him. ‘Fire’ and ‘flood’ may threaten us (v.1); or we feel surrounded by the ‘dark of night’, making us ‘afraid‘ as we look for the ‘dawn’(v.2); and finally admit that our trouble stems from a broken ‘vow’ to Him (v.3) – the trouble is therefore so often self-inflicted. Sandra and Joshua weren’t ready to sit down immediately at the feast; instead, they had to acknowledge that the dangers, using the phrases of their faith’s ancestors, were there. It’s clear that Isarel and we, many centuries later, still experience anxiety, even as we believe in God’s ‘strength’ (v.2). It’s been an ongoing issue for us humans -- ‘from the garden to the grave’ (v.3) --  that McCracken and Moore remind us hasn’t changed between the very beginning of human history until today. But, imposing as these perils have been and continue to be, they cannot defeat God’s rescue operation.

 

We’re not always feasting and rejoicing, feeling restored and protected, for in Sandra’s and Joshua’s world, there are things on the opposite side of the ledger. Their verses even begin with the difficulties, those things that most often, frankly, make us call out to our Protector and Redeemer. It’s just that human nature and daily life work out that way. Struggle almost seems necessary, and in a way, they do seem to make the eventual feast taste that much sweeter. That’s a lesson from real-life experience, from the history we can read of His people, and from this song that Sandra and Joshua have brought to us. Notice that the feasting is always the conclusion of the matter, the refrain in the song. It’s not an accident, is it? We couldn’t trust God and aim to be with Him if that wasn’t true. It’s worth singing and reading every day, that maladies might upset me, but I can count on the end being a reverse of that. He’s the reason, and He's preparing the meal in His house for me. Read John 14:2-3 and Revelation 19:6-9, and see if that whets your appetite!

 

Read about one of the authors here: Sandra McCracken - Wikipedia (see 8^th paragraph re: Psalms album)

 

This site indicates the song is part of the Psalms album: SANDRA MCCRACKEN - PSALMS ALBUM LYRICS (songlyrics.com)

 

See information on the sketch here: File:Lieder des Ghetto 11.jpg - Wikimedia Commons…This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1929, and if not then due to lack of notice or renewal. See this page for further explanation.

I Want to Know Christ – Paul, and Gerald Moore

 

Was he thinking of making his words into a song? Paul, the apostle of the Bible’s New Testament, certainly would have endorsed any system – like music – that aids memory retention of important things that one wants to implement as life strategies, like the declaration he made when he told a group of believers “I Want to Know Christ” (Philippians 3:10). This was an especially noteworthy assertion because Paul was under house arrest at the time, possibly in Rome (perhaps 61 A.D.), or maybe in either Ephesus (53-55 A.D.) or Caesarea (57-59 A.D.) (The picture, Saint Paul Arrested, was painted in the early 1900s [author Publisher of Bible Cards]). Would Paul have thought that the Greeks like Plato and Aristotle (who lived four or five centuries before himself) practiced something really useful for the Christian disciple to adopt, a memorization technique called Mnemonics? It might more certainly be said that Gerald Moore, a believer who helped popularize Paul’s words to the Philippian church, must have believed that this ancient Greek method was really valuable, since he borrowed it to create in 1991 his version of Paul’s prison-inspired words. Song-making is indeed one of His best gifts to us.

     

What would provoke a person to say something like what Paul voiced here – ‘bring it on, give it your best shot and make me suffer, just go ahead and kill me!’ Has the individual gone mad, beset by dementia, or else decided that suicide is his best option? One might say so, if Paul had not also included the part about ‘know(ing) Christ’, and more deeply ‘shar(ing)…’, and ‘conform(ing)’, and ‘ris(ing)’ in power like Him. One could look at this one-time enemy of Christ and say that he got what he had coming to himself; in fact, Jesus told Ananias, the first believer to encounter Paul (when he was still known as Saul), that this threat-breathing persecutor would be shown how much he needed to suffer for God’s name (Acts 9:16). In Paul’s many letters (Gal. 1:13-14; Eph. 3:8; 1 Tim. 1:15-16, and 1 Cor. 15:9), he comes across vividly as one who remembered his previous ways and still felt dogged with regret. He owed a lot, more than he could ever pay. And, the only way out was for him to offer the rest of himself in the service of Jesus’ cause. He saw his own life – hearkening to his Jewish roots – as a kind of drink offering that should be ‘poured out’ for his many sins (Philippians 2:17). Near the end of his life, Paul repeats this metaphor (2 Timothy 4:6), anticipating that his own demise and resurrection in the image of his Master was close at hand. Impossible, you say? Saul-Paul might have echoed this, had he not received the ‘fill(ing) with His Spirit’ through the ministering hands of Ananias (Acts 9:17). He never forgot how much damage he’d done, but he also never forgot how much he had received in his conversion, a story that he told at least two times, many years later in his life (Acts 22 and 26). Jesus’ words still rang like new in his ears. It was a life he couldn’t keep to himself, praying that others would likewise be filled in a powerful way with this same Spirit (Colossians 1:9), transforming the impossible into reality.

 

Gerald Moore enters the picture, some nineteen centuries later, with a tune that musically sums up Paul’s greatest purpose following his Damascus Road conversion. Nothing more than his name is known of Gerald. Is that intentional, so that the focus is on how to follow my ancient brother’s model, to be sculpted as a follower of the Holy Sacrifice, even as Paul was? Gerald was merely the conduit, as any believer is, of a Spirit who’s at work, doing something that takes years, even decades – as it did in Paul’s life – to be fully realized. Gerald may have been the arranger, the tune-writer, for what someone else already was singing – we just don’t know much about that part. If it was first sung around a campfire, as perhaps many folk melodies like this one were, an as yet anonymous soul must have also wanted what Paul had the insight and courage to say. Look deep inside his words…they’re more than a campfire song. Want to know Christ? Gerald helps remind us what Paul knew comes with this life goal.

 

See here for publication information about the song and its full text: Praise for the Lord (Expanded Edition) 864. I want to know Christ and the pow'r of His rising | Hymnary.org

 

See here for description of memory system called Mnemonics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic

 

Information on Paul gleaned from the NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1985.

 

See here for information on the picture showing Paul being arrested: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_arrested.jpg. 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 70 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.