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.

Lord, Have Mercy -- Steve Merkel

 

Steve Merkel seems to remember something started to sprout within himself in Poland, of all places, in the late 1980s. (See a seal of Poland here.) Like a new plant, it was really almost unnoticeable in its embryonic stage, but what he experienced there did not expire when he returned home. The Catholic worship that focuses on liturgy might seem like a mere mechanical exercise, but Steve says he felt something was budding, a bridge between his own Protestant background and that of his Catholic friends. It was a window that opened while he helped guide worship among some Catholic believers in Poland, where something like 70% of its citizens claim Roman Catholicism as their guide. Even while Steve set about making an album years later, he had continued to guide Protestant worship on Sundays, but also had related to his Catholic worshiping friends during the week. And, not unexpectedly, Steve’s close contact with his close Catholic friends gave him insights and inspiration that would help him reach deeper inside himself, to express more confession to and reliance on the God he’d known for some time. Appropriately, he was working on a large project he called Renewal Music, and the particular album that this new song inhabited was named Intimate Worship.

 

Perhaps what drew Steve’s attention most was the perspective a good friend (David Kauffman) shared with him one day about the differences between the music of Catholics versus Protestants. The former tended to focus more on confession and submission and dependence on Him, while the latter were more likely to approach God confidently. Steve indicates he felt convicted as he pondered these words, thereby spawning lyrics in ‘Lord, Have Mercy’ that echoed and built upon the song’s title. He says that long-time believers especially need to revisit the time when they were brand-new Christians who still identified themselves as weak, needy sinners, acknowledging that they needed a forbearing and understanding God. ‘Take off that mask’, Steve might say to sum up what he wanted to emphasize. At the same time, Steve says he was seeking to offer something new for his Catholic friends who were accustomed to liturgy in their experience, what they themselves would say was the ceremonial mass. Had it grown stale, we might ask? Steve doesn’t address that question directly, but certainly many Protestants might say (at least this blogger does) that on occasion, our worship songs can become so familiar that we drift into remote control. Steve thought both groups could ‘…intersect at the cross..’, where we can all recognize our humanity in the shadow of His sacrifice, and then seek to pass along this attitude to a world that still needs to know Him.

 

Dim, forgotten, doubting, unbelief…those are just a few potent words that Steve used in verse 1 to underscore the confession part of this attitude he sought to persuade others to adopt. Mercy -- a characteristic of Him who alone can dispense it to me, the often-wayward, disobedient creature He made – is what Steve has the worshipper cry a total of 20 times in this song. Is that enough? It’s as if Steve is underscoring for you and me that inescapable nature – human = imperfect. It doesn’t matter if I’m Protestant or Catholic, Islamic or Hindu, Jew or Buddhist, Baha’i or Sikh, or Zoroastrian or Mormon. Has anyone cornered the market on perfection? What about the Agnostic or Atheist…can they escape being human? Steve’s song has a second message, one that should resonate with all of us, deep down when we dare to look. God = mercy.

     

Read the brief song story here:  The Story Behind the Song Lord Have Mercy | PraiseCharts;  See it here also: Lord, Have Mercy | Hymnary.org;  and, here also: Stories behind songs that changed the way we worship | ChristianToday Australia

 

Read a longer version of the story here: Song Story: (crosswalk.com)

 

Read about Poland’s dominant faith here: Poland - Wikipedia

 

See information on the seal of Poland here: File:Herb Polski.svg - Wikimedia Commons. This image is in the public domain according to Article 4, case 2 of the Polish Copyright Law Act of February 4, 1994 (Dz. U. z 2022 r. poz. 2509 with later changes) "normative acts and drafts thereof as well as official documents, materials, signs and symbols are not subject to copyrights". Hence it is assumed that this image has been released into public domain. However in some instances the use of this image in Poland might be regulated by other laws.

Jesus Messiah -- Daniel Carson, Chris Tomlin, Ed Cash, Jesse Reeves

 

Chris Tomlin had been searching for a while, without success. And then around the year 2008, he found it – a way to say “Jesus Messiah”, through a combination of very old and contemporary voices to whom he listened. (See this Messiah depicted in Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement, here.) This special name for the Son was one that only He could wear, and so that distinction stuck with Chris, as a soul-stirring idea that he evidently shared with three others in his circle – Daniel Carson, Ed Cash, and Jesse Reeves – so that their collective thoughts could compose something special, something reflecting this name’s exceptional meaning. Find something so unique, and what do you do with it? You might hide it away to protect it from thieves, those who might have ulterior motives toward you and what you’ve found. But that’s human philosophy speaking, and not from the God who gave His Beloved this unique title, a name not to be hidden away, but shared even at the risk of His own human life.

 

It is a perilous name, one that Jesus surely knew would make him a target of anger and even murder. And yet, He boldly embraced that destiny, and perhaps that was part of what drew Chris Tomlin and his friends to seek a song speaking of this name. Some might even say it was a heartrending name, because of its import of danger for Jesus, and yet Chris says in one interview that it’s a beautiful name too. Messiah can be thought of as anointed or chosen in Isaiah’s prophecy (Is. 42:1; 61:1), and Chris evidently had read some of Isaiah’s book as a stepping stone for his search for a Messiah song. His hunt for the right combination of lyrics and music wandered a bit, he admits, until one day when he heard Daniel playing a melody that struck a chord, providing the beautiful tune that Chris felt corresponded with the nature of this matchless name. It was the platform that Chris says allowed various other descriptions of Jesus -- in the lyrics telling of His various names and the import of His life’s purpose – to ‘amplify’ the Messiah idea he wanted to describe, but had been inadequate to express previously. He’s the ‘Blessed Redeemer’, ‘Emmanuel’, the ‘Lord of all’, but also the one to become ‘sin’, even though ‘he knew no sin’. The ‘name above all names’ did what others could not, becoming ‘the rescue’, and ‘the ransom’. So, in their lyrics, what Chris and the others did was to convey a juxtaposition of a divine beauty mingled with tragedy, from a human standpoint. He’s a person impossible to ignore. You get that same sense of fascination among those watching and listening to Jesus recapture and apply to Himself (in Luke 4: 14-30) what Isaiah had said centuries earlier (Is. 61:1-2). Initially, His neighbors ‘spoke well of Him’ (v. 22), perhaps many glowing with hope regarding the ‘good news’ and healing from physical afflictions and Roman oppression that Isaiah’s words seemed to indicate. And yet, in very short order, they became ‘furious’ and tried to ‘throw Him off the cliff’ (v.28-29). Blessedly for all of us, Jesus understood all things, and was willing to be ‘humbled’, to let ‘His body (be) the ‘bread’, ‘His blood the wine’, the ultimate sacrifice that was ‘broken and poured out’, as Chris and company remind us.

 

Jesus as Messiah, especially in His death, might be compared to an accident scene – something horrible that we dread observing, yet He draws our attention; that’s why we call ourselves ‘rubber-neckers’ when we pass a car crash site. Jesus might also be like the loved one we see dying in a hospital bed; we’re torn with grief to see someone we cherish leave us, and yet we cannot make ourselves absent and miss those last few moments with them. Jesus understands all of that, how my mortality can create such an angst about precious life versus its ultimate demise. ‘Love so amazing’ is what Chris and his friends write about Jesus in His Messiah role; this love is really defiant in description, this great thing He passes on to us, rather than keeping it just for Himself. It needed to be amazing to overcome the dread of death that even Jesus experienced in the garden (Luke 22:42-44), a separation he fervently wanted to avoid. That really says so much about the character of this love, which He passes along to you and me, if we accept it. Even the Messiah – the ultimate Chosen One, the All-Powerful – did his duty because of love. He’s the possessor of both a unique character and role – love and Messiah.              

 

See a brief explanation of the story behind the song here (see it under FAQs 1): The Meaning Behind The Song: Jesus Messiah by Chris Tomlin - Old Time Music

 

Hear one of the songwriters talk about the song’s background (at 1:20 – 1:30, and 4:20 – 4:30) Chris Tomlin // Jesus Messiah // New Song Cafe (youtube.com)

 

Read a brief background for the song here:  Jesus Messiah by Chris Tomlin - Songfacts

 

See here for information on the image of The Last Judgement: Michelangelo Buonarroti - Jugement dernier - Last Judgment - Wikipedia. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Arnaud 25. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: Arnaud 25 grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law. 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.