Is He Worthy? -- Andrew Peterson, Ben Shive

 

He thought others were doing what already needed to be done, until he read something that made him imagine an upcoming scene. Andrew Peterson says he was stunned when he read in the bible’s last book  a question that was asked and then answered in a resounding way – a question that came to be his song’s title – “Is He Worthy?” The church in Nashville (see map-graphic here for the location of Nashville) where Andrew had been spending his time in 2008 had reminded him that ‘church’ is not just for consuming, for mere watching by a bunch of people content to sit on their hands. Instead, if believers want a preview of what worshipping will be like, just look at what John was permitted to see while holed up in an island penal colony. Along with his musical collaborator Ben Shive, Andrew brought to fruition something that adds to communal worship and reminds believers what ‘church’ is for: to tell each other what’s most important, to celebrate and practice eternity’s purpose in bringing Him glory. It’s not just what awaits in the future. It’s now.

 

Andrew recalls that there was plenty of order to the worship service in the church where he was raised, something called liturgy. The word literally means ‘the work of the people’, a concept that most people probably accept implicitly when it comes to ‘orderly worship’, because even Paul wrote more than a few words to some Corinthian believers who apparently were struggling with this idea (1 Cor. 14:26-40). Nobody would want to be part of a chaotic assembly that lacked focus and stumbled as it tried to glorify God amidst a cacophony. But you wouldn’t want worship practices to become rote, either. What Andrew says he appreciates about the liturgy in the Nashville church is the involvement of the people in doing various acts to edify one another. Everyone participates. Up until he began working on something he called Resurrection Letters – a new album of worship hymns – Andrew admits that he thought plenty of other contemporary Christian songwriters were filling the need for corporate worship music. And then, as he began the journey of thinking and writing about the resurrection, Andrew’s opinion changed. What he read and could see in his mind’s eye as Revelation chapter 5 washed over him gave him the inspiration for ‘Is He Worthy?’. There seemed to be a liturgy embedded in the exchange between an angel who asks Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll? (5:2), which finds no one on earth or in heaven – except Jesus – capable of accomplishing this task. ‘Jesus is!’ That’s the answer that all beings in heaven and on earth can exclaim in response to the question ‘Is He Worthy?’ That was the foundation of how Andrew saw this new song contributing. The worship leader asks the questions, and we respond with our answers that lead us to Jesus each time. In heaven, it will be simple and yet powerful in His presence – He’ll be the only focus.

 

While we’re still here on earth, Andrew and Ben have asked so many other questions that we earthbound beings, for now, must answer. It’s all about seeing this world that He made, and acknowledging that it is broken, for the time being. He can – and will -- remake it. It might be rather dark and grim at times, but we can trust that He cares for those He has made. Like a worn-out piece of equipment, this planet we call home groans and creaks, people go down to their graves, and evil seems to pervade the space. But the way Andrew has crafted this call-and-response song, we don’t have to avoid the truth in these questions. Things are not as we wish they would be, but we know God. Andrew and Ben remind us that He’s ‘light’, the ‘Lion of Judah’ and ‘David’s root’, the ‘Lamb’, the ‘grave-conqueror’, the ‘ransom-payer’, and He is ‘love’. All those things, and so many more, declare that He is worthy. For every ‘people and tribe’, every ‘tongue and nation’, He has all of us covered with His great wings, a metaphor that many songwriters have used to remind us that everyone of us is under His protection. He wants you and me in ‘the kingdom’, wants to ‘hold (us) forever’, wants us ‘to reign with the Son’, and has ‘His Spirit mov(ing) among us’. I might feel weak in my faith at times, but all He needs is my mustard seed (Matthew 17:20; Luke 17:6). OK? He’s the one who has to be Almighty. Just let Him. John saw and trusted that He’s the only one worthy. That’s still true.           

 

Read the story here: Story Behind Chris Tomlin's New Song "Is He Worthy?" : News : JubileeCast and here: Andrew Peterson’s New Song for the People

 

See information on the map-image of Davidson County (where Nashville is) here, including the public domain status of the graphic: File:Map of Tennessee highlighting Davidson County.svg - Wikimedia Commons . The following statement is associated with the graphic re: its public domain status: I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

I Will Lift My Eyes -- Bebo Norman and Jason Ingram

 

Bebo Norman was a struggler, something he did not try to hide, and probably something that his collaborator Jason Ingram could also say. These guys didn’t feel abandoned, because they did cry out for help in this 2006 song “I Will Lift My Eyes”, much as an ancient songwriter did when he felt like he needed ‘help’ from the ‘Maker of heaven and earth’. Depression and loneliness can manifest itself in a bowed head, but that wasn’t Bebo’s nor Jason’s posture. This fellow named Bebo from Columbus, Georgia (see here the seal of Columbus, Georgia, where Bebo [formally known as Jeffrey] was likely living when the song was composed) did what his ancestor-songwriter brethren did long ago. Trust and authenticity are two things that contemporary songwriters and the psalmists have both practiced, knowing that it is useless to try masking one’s feelings, but understanding that wallowing in despair is also a hollow exercise. So, make music instead, and make your heart meet His for healing. It’s called therapy.

 

Bebo suddenly retired from the public spotlight of musical touring in 2013, explaining in an interview some four years later (2017) that a lot of what he’d written, especially during his 20-something years had arisen from challenging circumstances he’d faced personally. Desolation, loneliness, and tension (not further detailed) had dominated his life, Bebo confessed. So, when ‘I Will Lift…’ was released in 2006, when Bebo was 33 years old, we can deduce from what he wrote that Bebo was still managing some of those same feelings that had been present when he launched his musical endeavors over a decade earlier. In the first line that he and Jason penned, Bebo was ‘cry(ing) out’, and then in many other words he asked God to be near. Bebo and Jason echo what the ancient and anonymous songwriter said in Psalm 121 – this song’s title – so that it seems as if these 21^st Century musicians were taking a page from that text, one that was much more uplifting than what Bebo and Jason had to say. The psalmist expresses little desolation in his four couplets (two-verse sections, in Psalm 121’s eight verses), but consistently tells the Creator that he trusts him, that he knows He ‘watches over’ His people. That particular phrase is in Psalm 121 five times (vv. 3,4,5,7,8), something that Bebo and Jason must have implicitly understood and that coaxed their apparent use of the psalm’s opening words for this 21^st Century song. They could also have been reading Psalm 123 (a song of ascent, like Psalm 121), which begins as Psalm 121 does, with their own chosen song title; likewise, Isaiah’s prophecy (40:26 and 51:6) also urges God-followers to ‘lift…eyes’ to see the heavens He made. So, one can imagine, though Bebo and Jason do not explicitly confirm this, that these psalms and prophetic scriptures moved their own hands when they wrote in 2006. Especially Psalm 121, since it has the worshipper gazing at ‘mountains’, was most likely their particular focus when they see ‘the mountains’ in their own lyrics. It draws attention to God as Creator, a facet of Him that Bebo and Jason further acknowledged with ‘the oceans raging wild’, lauding the One who ‘fashioned the earth’. They were evidently desperate, with many repetitions of ‘fear’, ‘hurt’, ‘doubt’, and of ‘need(ing) you now’ spread throughout his own poetry. But, there’s also God there, in His ‘love’, ‘kindness’, and ‘mercy’, acting as the eternal ‘calmer’ and ‘healer’.  

 

Perhaps Bebo and Jason articulate this trust of God most succinctly when they address Him as ‘God My God’, an expression that is used three times. Four other times they call out to ‘God’. Is there any other name that says it better, especially when you feel beaten and desperate, and yet feel you can turn to the Eternal Resolver? There are many names for this Eternal Being, the One who made it all ‘in the beginning’, as your bible and mine say. That is at the very heart of why Bebo, Jason, and others like them – that’s all of us, really – call out to Him, ultimately. He’s the one who initiated life and everything that revolves around us, literally. When something feels out of my control, it only makes sense to go talk to the One who knows all about it. The mountains are there to majestically suggest He’s still there for you and me.    

 

 

 

Read about the primary composer here:  Bebo Norman - Wikipedia

 

Read about the 2^nd composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Ingram

 

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Holy Forever -- Chris Tomlin, Phil Wickham, Brian Johnson, Jenn Johnson, Jason Ingram

 

A thousand generations, and the angels – those are phrases that really persuade the reader to use one’s imagination, because there’s just no way that any mortal has seen both of these, or anything approaching what these phrases challenge you and me to exclaim. (See the 19^th Century artwork -- Rosa Celeste: Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean -- by Gustave Dore here, showing lots and lots of angels.) That is the impression that Chris Tomlin and his four collaborators -- Phil Wickham, Brian Johnson, Jenn Johnson, Jason Ingram – want us to consider in “Holy Forever”. A ‘piece of Heaven’ is what Chris says he was trying to portray with the lyrics in 2020, something he and the others must have been inspired to pursue as they read John’s Revelation or what the great prophet Isaiah (chapter 6) saw. It means taking one’s own ego and motivations out of the picture, and letting the awesome scenery drive you prostrate. Chris points out what John has already told us: this worship John foresaw will be forever. Hard to picture, right? Chris and company invite us to try, as a warmup for what’s to come.

 

God declares six times through various authors in the Old Testament that He will lavish His ‘unfailing love’ or stand by ‘His covenant’ to a thousand generations. And, how many other times do His angels make their presence known in the same writings? Over 100 times (precisely 111 times, according to the New Living Translation) -- including 24 times in Revelation alone, the most of any of the bible’s 66 books – do the writers mention these awesome beings who are God’s servants. And, the sight of these breathtaking groups is surpassed only by the vision of God Himself. Thus, that brief synopsis really sums up what these five 21^st Century songwriters would have us to see – God supreme, and those two groups of beings worshipping Him. Chris describes how he thinks of songs in two different categories – some that ask God to help us, to ‘rescue me’ with His grace; and then others that are more about ‘transcendence’, like Holy Forever’, that compel the believer ‘…to get on my face’. That’s what’s happening in Revelation. Just consider Revelation 5:11 -- Then I looked again, and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and of the living beings and the elders. Or, Revelation 7:11 -- And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living beings. And they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and worshiped God. Revelation 14:6 helps us see it all another way -- And I saw another angel flying through the sky, carrying the eternal Good News to proclaim to the people who belong to this world—to every nation, tribe, language, and people.

 

Do you think John had goosebumps while on Patmos? Reading those passages should help each of us get just a little of that sensation. Think what’ll it be like when you and I see it close-up, no imagination necessary. Jenn Johnson says the song she and the four others penned is about being part of ‘…our ultimate victory’. We won’t just be watching. We’re among His people, the ones with whom He wants to be forever. Imagine for a moment that it’s like you have a ticket to the most important sporting event in history, and you didn’t pay for it. Someone else dipped into His treasury and paid for your entry into that venue. His is the ‘highest’, the ‘greatest’, ‘above all’, so isn’t that enough reason to sing this ‘song of ages’, the one that Chris, Phil, Brian, Jenn, and Jason expect to be shouting? You don’t have the right voice, you say? I don’t either, yet! He’ll give us that too!

 

See comments by the primary composer on the song here: Faith Behind The Song: "Holy Forever" Chris Tomlin | Air1 Worship Music

 

Also see some comments here by another co-composer: Holy Forever by Chris Tomlin - Songfacts

 

 

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