It was a tough time, a particular two weeks during the year 2020, when Phil Wickham says the world’s volume was pretty loud and overwhelming. If you don’t remember, it is probably a year that most people on planet Earth would rather forget, because of a one-word crisis that spoke of something that last occurred a century earlier: Pandemic. Though he doesn’t say directly that it was the pandemic, Phil’s response to that year’s events would be apt no matter what the predicament might actually have been for him personally. Instead of feeling trapped terrestrially, Phil decided to place himself, emotionally and spiritually, in heaven (see here a 19th Century depiction of Heaven, author Gustave Dore, Rosa Celeste: Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean; in The Divine Comedy by Dante), because he trusted God, who has said circumstances in eternity will be radically different. Phil didn’t feel like waiting for the journey to heaven; he determined that he could help usher in a song that would be fitting for that eternal place – a “Hymn of Heaven”.
Phil Wickham says he sees the ‘Hymn of Heaven’ as one that’s full of hope, a kind of prayer for us to have Jesus as king now. And, it’s not just one that’s reserved strictly for believers, but that the whole world can sing the same song if it chooses to do so. Something pretty distracting was trying to grab his attention, and so Phil says he needed the perspective of God being on the throne as king, to remind himself that God was still Lord, the Creator. Some people might actually think that means ‘I will eventually go to meet Him, one day’, and so be willing to endure whatever transpires here below. But, Phil responds that by the end of the song he had opted to think of his and everyone else’s situation in a different way. Instead of escaping eventually to heaven, why not trust God that the kingdom is already here, ‘in the way we act, speak, and live…let Jesus take over in His way’? Nevertheless, Phil didn’t have on rose-colored glasses, and most of this song’s poetry does admit what one sees before his eyes while still mortal – that one ‘long(s) to breathe the air of Heaven’ (v.1). ‘There will be a day…’, and ‘that day’ echo through the verses, so we are called to acknowledge that what we will inherit eventually is still off in the distance. But why wait? Phil and his collaborators (Brian Johnson, Bill Johnson, and Chris Davenport) evidently believed collectively in the hopefulness of God’s promises – that there is great strength in believing today what He has guaranteed for tomorrow. So, there’s another set of words -- ‘Holy holy is the Lord’ – that reverberates in the words they set to music. These words have us calling out very much like the angels in one prophet’s vision (Isaiah 6:3), or like exotic living creatures in another’s revelation (Revelation 4:8). Join in with those beings who are already celebrating!
The words of Phil, Brian, Bill, and Chris are an invitation, but one that doesn’t avoid what goes on around us. There’s a certain amount of ‘pain’, ‘desperation’, and eventually ‘death’ and a ‘grave’ – enough to impose ‘doubt’ and ‘fear’ and ‘tears’ (all words that this quartet of musicians use in their lyrics) on even the most devoted God-followers. Could that be why they coax us to call out, with voices saying something like what the angels and the living creatures said in heavenly visions? Those beings say ‘holy’ three times, according to Isaiah and John, while Phil and his cohorts have us utter ‘holy’ just twice. We can call out to Him, can imagine ourselves being with Him forever, and understand we’re getting the foretaste, a preview or a sample, of what’s to come. I straddle the divide between here and there, and so do you. I’m warming up my voice with the two holies, in expectation of the three holies, and the complete eyes-on-God, no-more-waiting, clock-is-off, eternal morning. Get ready to ‘shout’ and ‘raise a mighty roar’ with that third holy!
See song story here: Bing Videos
See here for information about the song and the album with the same name: Hymn of Heaven - Wikipedia
See here for brief description of the song’s story: Hymn of Heaven (song) - Wikipedia
See/hear some of the song’s words here: Bing Videos
See link here for image of heaven information: File:Paradiso Canto 31.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. 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, 1928.
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