Andrae Crouch took a page from a musical ancestor’s book of praise one day in the early 1970s, perhaps as he was thinking of himself in a very basic way. Who was he, fundamentally? Andrae must have decided that a centuries-old songwriter (the boy harpist, and later king David -- see the painting King David Playing the Harp [1622] by Gerard van Honthorst here) had approached this question best when he began one of his songs with the poetic words “Bless the Lord”, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! (Psalm 103:1) If a person has not found himself and cannot decide why he’s been put here on earth, Andrae had found an answer. It’s not about you when you are trying to find your purpose, but instead it’s about the One who made you. If you want to really deal with that quandary, to solve that mystery of what’s my life about, begin with Him. That’s the way a poet and king dealt with this long ago, and Andrae echoed that with a few more words added to heighten what it meant to him. Would you like to join him, this songmeister who followed in another’s steps, in order to answer the question that even a committed disciple asks and answers himself by writing songs?
Andrae was so taken with his song mission in life pointing to God and His Son Jesus Christ that he formed a group and named it The Disciples in 1965, a crucial undertaking that would spawn many of his best-known songs, including ‘Bless…Name’ some years later. Although we can be certain of little specifically, other than that Andrae was reading Psalm 103 and was reading it in the King James Version (since the opening line of David’s psalm and Andrae’s song match exactly), Andrae’s purpose was as clear as David’s was. This 31-year-old 20th Century songwriter in 1973 was doing what David had done on so many occasions, and no matter what the circumstances were. Offer Him a praise. David’s psalm begins the same way it ends (vv. 1 and 21-22) – lauding Him. Just tell about Him, which is what David did in 22 verses, and what Andrae followed suit doing in his version. When Andrae launched The Disciples, he was enrolled at Valley Junior College in the San Fernando Valley, and was intending to become a teacher, an objective he chose not to realize to completion. But, when he wrote ‘Bless…Name’, he was nevertheless kind of behaving like a teacher, pointing others to a method employed by a faith practitioner that still worked. If David had lived on for another millennia, he too could have extolled God in the way that Andrae did, by telling of His sacrifice for sin and the lordship of Jesus as the Christ. Surely, David thought of God the Father as Lord and Savior, since He had protected and extended mercy and grace to David on so many occasions. So, when Andrae borrowed David’s opening exaltation of God, and married it to verses telling of the God-Son’s death for sin’s payment, and of His triumph as Lord, he must have felt certain that David would have joined in to sing with gusto this update to his poem. Songwriters from different eras can still be of one heart, as long as it’s the heart of God.
There’s really not much more that could be said of Andrae’s adaptation of David’s psalm. The verses he added on to the opening have us offering broad acclamations to God – that ‘He’s done great things (v.1); that ‘He died for my sin’ (v.2); and that ‘Jesus is Lord’(v.3). Those are three short but potent things to remember about Him. That He has accomplished those without the assent or help of you and me is of course true. And yet, He did these things and will continue to do so because of you and me. Andrae and David and the rest of us have Him, something that can never change, as long as we remember all those facets of God that Andrae’s song spells out for us. Want some more words to go deeper, in a closer look into God’s work in David’s life? Andrae’s partnership with David’s psalm gives you and me a reminder that Psalm 103 is still there in its entirety. He’s still there for me as much as he has always been there, ever since He made the first one of us. Similarly, David and Andrae’s song goes on and on and on, because He still does.
See more information on the author and song story in this source: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.
Read about the author-composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andra%C3%A9_Crouch
See information on the image of David here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:King_David,_the_King_of_Israel.jpg … The author died in 1656, so 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, 1931. …found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David
No comments:
Post a Comment