The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:24)
Eddie Carswell is a guy from Georgia, who formed a music group with three friends at a church in Valdosta in 1981. NewSong is its name, and though it has had a lot of turnover in members during the last 30 years, Carswell is still there, seemingly as energized as ever with the group’s objective – spreading the Good News. One of NewSong’s most well-known efforts, “Arise, My Love”, is likewise still going strong. What makes it so popular? What was its composer thinking or feeling that made his creativity so inspired in 1987? Let’s see what may be there below the surface that isn’t well-advertised.
Carswell and one of the other founding members of NewSong, Billy Goodwin (the other two friends that were part of the original four group members were Eddie Middleton and Bobby Apon) say that their group’s formation was a calling. It was a faith that they exercised and handed to God to do with as He saw fit. They felt, and still feel, that this faithful God is doing great things every day. Perhaps that was the attitude (straight from 1 Thessalonians 5:24) that spurred Eddie to write the song in 1987 that remains such a favorite today. Imagine a guy, probably a 20-something?, in 1987 who was exercising his sense that God is potent and dependable. What would he write? Looking at the words that emerged from Carswell’s consciousness, “Arise, My Love” has many words to draw upon from the Bible for its storyline, but he tells us something more. We know there were soldiers guarding Jesus’ grave, that it had been three days, that a great tremor and an angel accompanied His resurrection, striking these hardened soldiers with terror. What a scene, one that Carswell recalls in his music with a passion to match the Matthewian account of this historic, time-splitting moment. What - or Who - could cause such a moment, except the call of the Father? Every believer knows He must have been responsible for the resurrection, but Carswell puts it into words for us – the Father said “Arise”. It’s special, and even surreal, that I’m in a position, when I sing this song, of voicing for God the words He called out to His son that day. What a calling it must have been to raise Jesus!
Not much more explanation seems necessary to rationalize why “Arise, My Love” remains among NewSong’s most well-known hits. We don’t know what particularly spoke to Eddie as he wrote, but we can surmise that he longs for the resurrection as any Christian does. Carswell, like me or you, can no doubt think of loved ones or himself being called home. The album that NewSong produced in 1987 -- it’s entitled ‘Say Yes!’ -- may say something about what Carswell and his bandmates were feeling then too. The resurrection is a fist-pumping, ‘yes!’ moment. It’s one in which we’ll all recall what the writer meant, really, when he wrote to the Thessalonians. It’s what the Nike commercials tell us. God will ‘just do it’.
Biographic information on the composer and the group New Song at these sites:
http://www.cbanews.org/article.php?id=933
Awesome song should have been a hit!!!
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