We could say that these writers-composers had taken the words imparted by a musical ancestor and applied them, almost three centuries later. Chris Tomlin, J.D. Walt, and Jessie Reeves collaborated to write their own answer to what a six-word hymn title coaxed them to do, and summed up those thoughts in “The Wonderful Cross” in 2000. That there’s no story they tell regarding specific circumstances of the song’s birth may indicate only that they appreciated Isaac Watts’ initial effort, and wanted to echo his thoughts. Isaac had shared something pretty personal when he said out loud ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ (see the SongScoops blog entry for August 25, 2012). Had Tomlin, Walt, and Reeves considered how revolutionary Watts’ reflections were for his generation, or how unconventional their own words still are today?
To most lay people, particularly those who do not trust God, an implement of execution is certainly not something you would call wonderful, like Tomlin, Walt, and Reeves proposed, nor wondrous, like Watts said. A Roman cross was not only a way to carry out capital punishment in the ancient world, but also merciless in that it heaped shame on the guilty in a most public way. It was a slow, brutal death that the convicted criminal suffered, from exhaustion and suffocation. Similar to digging one’s own grave, the condemned person was often forced to carry his own cross, or at least the crossbeam, to the final place of execution. Nails might have secured the person’s limbs to that piece of wood, as scripture indicates was true in the case of Jesus Christ’s cross. So, wonderful!? Really? What Isaac and his 21st Century brethren express, however, is the effect on us and the act of supreme love that the Messiah’s journey and submission to this form of punishment shows. Chris, J.D., and Jessie do in a similar way what Isaac first did in his 1707 hymn. Isaac says the ‘richest gain’ is a ‘loss’ (v.1) when the value of Jesus’ sacrifice is calculated; in the chorus that the 21st Century threesome penned, I must ‘die’ in order to ‘truly live’. God reverses the consequences, though the witnesses to such an episode experience the horror, still. Perhaps that is the point God is making for you and me in this calculus. Make the apparent death so horrific, that no one but the True, the most Almighty, God Himself, could turn this incident on its head. And, that’s exactly what He has done! And, that same reversal in fortune awaits all of us at out deaths. That must be a large part of the ‘wonderful’ that Chris, and J.D., and Jessie have in mind, when they echo what Isaac said, so long ago. It’s the only way to ‘truly’ live, they say.
You and I can put our lives in His hands, even if they’ve been pierced, according to the above four composers who have us thinking about His cross. This is the ultimate bet that I must take a chance on making. If it’s true – this wonderful cross – my wager for it buys me everything, forever. Alternatively, if I think it’s just a hoax, and I cast this cross aside – it’s nothing but trash – I lose everything forever, if it is actually true. Nothing could be more stark in a mortal’s life. What’s the other equation look like? If death is really all that awaits me, then I really lose nothing if I bet on a cross that is false; the result of a false cross I bet on, or a dead-end death I buy instead, is the same – nothing but emptiness and hurt, and especially no God. So, why not risk it all, and count on a God saving you with a wonderful cross? Does the alternative really look better to you?
See biographic information on one author here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Tomlin
See information here on the form of execution that the cross represents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion
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