Holy Spirit -- Keith Getty and Stuart Townend

 

Have you ever been a signpost? Hopefully, a Christian could say ‘indeed, I am one everyday’. As a blogger about the songs we sing, I offer one here today for your consideration without much commentary by me, because it is unnecessary. Keith Getty and Stuart Townend have provided every explanation that we could hope for in their 2005 prayer-song that addresses perhaps the Godhead’s least recognized person – the “Holy Spirit”. (See here the angel Gabriel telling Mary that she would give birth to Jesus through the Holy Spirit descending on her as a dove in beams of light, in the 17^th Century masterpiece artwork Annunciation by Peter Paul Rubens.) I’m just pointing you, the reader, to this online published story; and, Keith’s account tells us that he and Stuart were, in their own way, trying to be signposts, too. So, see below for what Keith says about “Holy Spirt”, in italics (or see one of the two links to his words below.)

“Holy Spirit” is the final hymn I wrote with Stuart Townend as part of the 'Apostle’s Creed' album we created in 2005. This collection of songs focuses on the basic tenants of the Christian faith outlined in the ancient creed.

As in much of our songwriting, we wanted to connect the radical truths of what we believe with everyday life. In this particular song, we desired the hymn to function as a sung prayer about the Holy Spirit’s renewing power. In church services, it works well used just prior to the sermon or at its conclusion, as well as before the service or during a prayer time.

We divided the hymn into three verses. The first expresses a prayer for inward change, asking the Holy Spirit to transform us from the core of our being. Without such change, all religious attempts are futile. We must daily ask for renewal and the desire to love and treasure God’s word and his ways.

Verse two petitions the Spirit to abide in us so we’re able to bountifully bear His fruit, such as the kindness and gentleness described so beautifully in Galatians 5:22-23. Closing this verse is a prayer “to show Christ is all I do.”

Verse three is a more expansive prayer for the church. During the songwriting process, we kept revisiting this verse as we examined the role of the Holy Spirit throughout the New Testament. In passage after passage, evidence of the Holy Spirit’s power in someone’s life was marked by two characteristics--Christ is magnified, and the individual is led on a path of sacrifice.

We thus combined the lyric and arrangement of the last verse to build through the first five lines as we convey the power of the Spirit and our desire to see the church hunger for His ways. Then in line six, we suddenly stop with the prayer, “Lead us on the road to sacrifice/ That in unity the face of Christ/ Will be clear for all the world to see.” Artistically, this works as a bit of a surprise as we underscore the paradox and wonder of Christ’s power in us. Only through experiencing sacrifice are we unified as the body of Christ. Only through reaching the end of ourselves can we achieve a vibrant Christian witness that everyone on the outside can see as different. 

Keith Getty

 See this link for story:  The Story Behind the Song Holy Spirit | PraiseCharts

 

See the story here also: Holy Spirit, Breath of God - Getty/Townend Hymn - Worship Matters

 

See information on the masterpiece artwork here: Peter_Paul_Rubens_-_Annunciation_-_WGA20250.jpg (876×1353)…. 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-1996}} – public domain in its source country on January 1, 1996 and in the United States.

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.

Hear the Sound -- Leslie Jordan, David Leonard, Matt Maher

 

How would a people who’ve just realized they’ve been rescued sound; what would they say to the One who has made the seemingly impossible happen? That was the sensation that Leslie Jordan and David Leonard were trying to access with so much of their music when they formed All Sons and Daughters in the Nashville area (see the map here of the Nashville area [in Davidson County] in Tennessee) in the latter part of the first decade of the 21^st Century. “Hear the Sound”, from the period around 2012, occupied a place alongside other songs that they felt would connect broken, struggling people with an appreciation for the God who freed them. Is a ‘thank you’ enough, or would any number of words be sufficient for such an episode? Just consider what Leslie and David, with some apparent help from Matt Maher, thought would be appropriate words to say to the God-Redeemer.

 

Though these composers don’t share what precisely was behind ‘Hear the Sound’, what they have made clear (in an interview in NewReleaseToday, see link below) was their intent to make their music relevant to people gathered in a church for worship, to invite these people to join in with them. And, something in the lyrics they wrote further suggests they had a particular idea about what such a group of people should ask God to hear. Take a look through Psalms, and notice how ‘hear’ is used, as the ancient songwriters asked for help while in distress, with so many cries for mercy or deliverance or perhaps just complaints offered up to Him who can deliver. Alternately, many praise psalms to extol God are also evident in this ancient songbook, and perhaps that is where these 21^st Century songwriters went when they sought to offer a contemporary version of a psalm of praise. Though God is a Divine Being with love and compassion at His core that guide His response to our distress, He has so many other characteristics that stand out. We can certainly ask for His help, but Leslie, David, and Matt must have been dwelling on other reasons why a people might call out to Him – to tell Him we acknowledge and honor Him for who He is. These three would have found a large number of psalms that speak of His ‘mercy’, ‘grace’, patience (‘slow to anger’), ‘majesty’, ‘forgive(ness)’, and His ‘redeem(ing)’ and ‘restor(ing)’ mission, and of course His ‘love’. One other term they use four times, however, is ‘forever’, for which there are abundant references in Psalms to laud Him: Psalm 9, 29, 33, 48, 66, 68, 89, 92, 100, 102, 105-7, 110-11, 117-19, 125, 133, 135-6, 138, 146, is not an exhaustive list. ‘Let the heavens roar’, and ‘echo across the ground’, they lift to Him, as a prompt for His ears to have His own creation tell of His greatness.

 

Lest Luke 19:40 be called into play (Jesus said ‘stones will cry out’, if the people did not shout His name), Leslie, David, and Matt give today’s disciples one more psalm to shout our admiration for Him. What’s the best way to have Him listen to you and me? That’s what these three answer with their song. And, it’s a reminder that His attributes haven’t stopped just because Psalm 136 ended with 26 verses, for example. How about if you and I could pick up where that psalmist stopped, since He focused so many of his thoughts on earth’s and Israel’s ancient history? Has not God been praiseworthy for the last two millennia, or more personally in yours and my lifetime? Make sure those stones aren’t warming up today, to do what we’re neglecting to do!    

 

 

Read here about the worship duo who were two of the three composers of the song: All Sons & Daughters - Wikipedia

 

Read here about the album on which the song appears: Live (All Sons & Daughters album) - Wikipedia

 

Read about two of the composers here: All Sons And Daughters Artist Profile | Biography And Discography | NewReleaseToday

 

See here for information on the map-picture of Nashville metro area: File:Map of Tennessee highlighting Davidson County.svg - Wikimedia Commons