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.

Burdens Are Lifted at Calvary -- John M. Moore

 

This songwriter was prepared, or someone might actually say he was surprised, when the story of “Burdens Are Lifted at Calvary” is told. The Scottish minister John M. Moore responded to an urgent call one day in 1952 while going about his daily routine in Glasgow, and he did what ministers do when called to visit someone in the hospital. The young fellow whom he saw could not have been said to be in a foxhole, since he was in fact a seaman, but he nevertheless did what others in danger like that do: call for a man of God to help ‘lift the burden’, and bring some sense of peace and protection. John had a handy piece of literature (see a picture from it here) to give this seaman, probably a sign that he had some experience at this sort of ministering – you give the afflicted some really good, to-the-point advice that is written just for that specific circumstance. John must have felt a sense of accomplishment and confirmation, as he left that hospital, that he had done his duty well. Later that night, John’s hospital experience stayed with him, perhaps in a way that he could not have predicted.

 

The day’s events compelled John to write some song words to match the picture of what had happened. Part of their inspiration came from the tract he had probably carried in his bag for some time; it was one from Pilgrim’s Progress, and it had seemed very appropriate for the young seaman’s troubled spirit that day. The sick mariner nodded that he felt the weight of a burden on his back, but his facial expression when he prayed with John and sensed that the weight had been removed got John’s attention.  John just had to write what his mind would not allow him to forget. What he saw on the man’s face was a glow -- no more ‘sorrow and care’ (v.1), ‘worry and fear’ (v.2), or heartache and tear (v.3). John must have felt especially that ‘Jesus is very near’, because he wrote this concluding thought in every verse. Though John may have seen similar reactions from others from time-to-time, something special had occurred in that hospital room. Was it the depth of this merchant mariner’s conviction, as if his life was filled with more debauchery than the average person, that underscored the transformation of the man’s despair into peace? It was like a man walking out of the prison cell through the door opened at long last. How would you feel toward the person who put the key in the hole and turned it so the door unlatched and let you free? That’s kinda what John Moore saw happen that day in 1952.

 

John Moore was just 27 years old that day in 1952. Just a young pup in ministry was he, he might say, looking back on this episode. He went on to several other locations in a lifelong ministry that was ongoing still in 2013 (he was apparently still living, as of 2022, making him 97 years old, according to available sources). How many more times did John pull out that Pilgrim’s Progress that had proved so effective that day in a Glasgow hospital? What’s so great about this incident is not that it happened one time and created a special memory. No, it keeps going on, because the heart of the song’s message is still true. John just rediscovered that it was so in 1952.

   

   

   

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; and 101 More Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985.

 

Also see this link for a brief version of the author’s biography: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/m/o/o/r/moore_jm.htm  

 

See link here to the key piece of information the author used in this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pilgrim%27s_Progress