The short answer is that these three love God and love making music with each other. It started with Phil Wickham and Josh Farro (probably in 2012/2013), two friends who just had some ideas they wanted to bat around for a song in which they somehow wanted to say “This Is Amazing Grace”. Honestly, they thought it was a finished work, until a series of events transpired to take the song across an ocean and back again to the U.S., finally arriving at a church in northern California (Redding, see its seal here), where Jeremy Riddle repackaged and enlarged the song’s form several months (or even years) later. What was it that Phil, Josh, and Jeremy thought would be so refreshing about the subject of amazing grace, which John Newton had already made so well-known in his classic hymn, centuries ago (see the Song Scoop from 1/12/2010)? Perhaps it was the questions they posed, which made what they wanted to say seem more potent.
Whether it was one or a combination of the three composers (Phil, or Josh, or ultimately Jeremy) who had been mulling over many questions, their probe into the depth of God’s amazing act is magnified by inviting worshippers to marvel at the only answer to each of the questions. Who? That’s the abbreviated version of the query they keep asking you and me to contemplate. This Who is God, the One who does so much to rescue mortals made in His image. Phil says that he and Josh both had ideas for the verses, after they had crafted the song’s chorus, so perhaps it was a two-way joint effort, which Phil says ended with them high-fiving each other after just 20 minutes. The questions have God being the holy ‘power (over) sin and darkness’; One with a ‘love…mighty and so much stronger’; a Creator who can ‘shake…earth with holy thunder’; and make us speechless in ‘awe and wonder’; One who’s capable of making ‘order…(out of) chaos’; making lost people His ‘son(s) and daughter(s)’; dispensing ‘truth and justice’; and One who ‘shines’ with a sun-like ‘brilliance’ that we’ll all behold someday. It was Jeremy, in California, who apparently contributed thoughts about God’s supremacy and life-giving act. This God ‘take(s) my place’, ‘bear(s) my cross’, so that I can be ‘set free’. That’s what these fellas felt in the moment, as they worshipped and created together. To say something poignant in a poetic way, perhaps that’s the incalculable method these three might say the Spirit inspired to enable them to say ‘amazing grace…unending love’, and especially that He’s ‘worthy’, even though a ‘slain…Lamb’, because He ‘conquered the grave’. That the song’s final version came together after crossing the Atlantic Ocean to the United Kingdom, and then to a conference (via someone’s phone) on America’s West Coast, really just underscores how far-reaching He is when He wants to say something musically. It’s just another amazing echo of what He already did over 2,000 years ago.
Will this version of Amazing Grace be the last one? It depends…on when He plans on returning to culminate our history! Will it be tomorrow, or hundreds of years from now? In either case, He’s not less or more amazing, because He’s unchanging (Hebrews 13:8 and 6:17). All that will be different is that many more voices will be added to the multitudes already in the cosmic chorus, if time goes on past today, for however long God decides it shall go. So, there could be more John Newtons; and Chris Tomlins and Louie Giglios (see 9/2/2022 Song Scoop for their version of Newton’s original hymn); and Phil Wickhams, Jerermy Riddles, and Josh Farros somewhere out in the future, which God may decide He wants to hear before He is satisfied. Just imagine hearing these voices, with a new angle or angles on ‘amazing grace’. Do you plan on being in the chorus when those songs premiere?
Here are some details about the genesis of the song: This is Amazing Grace by Phil Wickham - Songfacts
See here for more information on the song: This Is Amazing Grace - Wikipedia
See here for information on the seal of Redding: File:Seal of Redding, California.png - Wikimedia Commons. This work was created by a government unit (including state, county, city, and municipal government agencies) that derives its powers from the laws of the State of California and is subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act (Government Code § 6250 et seq.). It is a public record that was not created by an agency which state law has allowed to claim copyright, and is therefore in the public domain in the United States.
No comments:
Post a Comment