Just As I Am, I Come Broken -- Sue Smith, David Moffit, Travis Cottrell

 

It’s a good thing that I’m not judged on my appearance or my behavior, because I would not come out clean, as is suggested in this ancient scene of justice. (The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead depicts how a deceased person's heart is weighed against the feather of truth….notice that feather’s truth on the right scale appears to be heavier than the heart on the left scale.) ‘We’re all dead on such a scale, unless there is mercy and grace’ – a statement that could have been made by all the authors of a hymn they renewed in 2009. Sue Smith, David Moffit, and Travis Cottrell were moved by the classic 19^th Century hymn first offered by Charlotte Elliott, and so they took Charlotte’s “Just As I Am” and added some words that build on her original confession – “I Come Broken” (as well as other conditions). They evidently were stirred by Charlotte’s words ‘I Come’, which conclude each of her poem’s original seven verses. Charlotte also had weighed herself on the ancient scales of justice, prompting Sue, David, and Travis to summarize and recap the brokenness Charlotte and the rest of us feel. Like Charlotte, they don’t just confess, but come boldly in search of God’s renewal. How do you come?

 

Though we know not exactly the specific episode that caused the thoughts of Sue Smith, David Moffitt, and Travis Cottrell to coalesce in the first decade of the 21^st Century, what they fashioned from Charlotte Elliott’s hymn is in black-and-white. Did our three contemporary writers have experiences in worship when people responded to the singing of Charlotte’s ‘Just As I Am’, perhaps even during a Billy Graham crusade, which helped spur their poetry? Do we come differently, we who are two to three centuries beyond Charlotte’s poem? Sue, David, and Travis answered that several maladies afflict us, even as they surely did in Charlotte’s time. Not only are we all ‘broken’, but each of us is ‘wounded’, ‘desperate’, ‘empty’, and ‘guilty’ (song’s refrain). Yet, these composers weren’t content to just whip themselves with cords in remorse; each of the woes they mention has an opposite that closely follows the diagnosis of the trouble. The statements ring out like proverbs: I’m ‘broken’ but know I need to be ‘mended’; I don’t want to remain ‘wounded’ but ‘healed’; my ‘desperate’ state can be abolished when I’m ‘rescued’; that ‘empty’ feeling is transformed when I am ‘filled’; and, though the scales say I’m ‘guilty’, somehow I am ‘pardoned’. Could Solomon have said it any more pithily?

 

These ‘proverbs’ make the worshipper want to shout out, with a hallelujah-like energy that testifies to how radical and miraculous God’s work is on the human transgressor’s condition. I might have been on my death-bed, but now I can run a marathon. God’s ‘welcome(ed) with open arms’ tells me that He’s just as thrilled as I am at the change. This ‘blood of Christ’ is the remedy, unique and divine, with a potency that works wonders on my condition. He alone possesses the correct formula, that’s all I need to know. Just be who I am, and admit I’ve failed. Could it be that His willing provision for me is because I’m His image-bearer? And so, when I connect with Him, I connect also with other humans I’ve never met like Charlotte, who’ve sought and swallowed the same antidote that Sue, David, and Travis recommend. Perhaps only when I meet all these other centuries-old image-bearers will I completely appreciate the scope of His magnanimous nature. He reaches anyone who comes to Him, just as they are. Just bring yourself and see what happens.   

 

This video indicates the song was written around 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwlUGuzisBw

 

One author-collaborator’s biography is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Cottrell

 

See here for description of the ancient Egyptian justice scene: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Justice#/media/File:El_pesado_del_coraz%C3%B3n_en_el_Papiro_de_Hunefer.jpg

Just As I Am-O Holy Lamb -- Jeff Nelson

 

Do you think that this author was reading, perhaps something from a vision that some guy named John had some 20 centuries earlier, when he wrote some poetry for a song? Take a look at what Jeff Nelson penned in 1993 (when he was most likely somewhere in his native Texas), evidently as he admired a classic old hymn, and how he merged his thoughts with an ancient apostle’s words and this classic 19^th Century hymn to create “Just As I Am-O Holy Lamb”. How do you and I compare to what the Holy Lamb represents in Eternity? That just might be a question to ask oneself after reading the three verses that Jeff crafted, in juxtaposition to a single verse that he borrows for the conclusion of his composition. Is it OK to be ‘just’ yourself when meeting the ‘just’ God?

 

Jeff Nelson has been involved in music in a Christian context for some time, including in the early 1990s when he was writing some verses to match the tune in the Charlotte Elliot hymn “Just As I Am”. I’ll allow Jeff to share in his own words here:

I love to plan a journey of worship around a specific theme or book from the Bible where songs and text readings are woven together.  I was working on a worship experience using the book of Revelation. I first read the whole book of the Revelation and pulled the scriptures together that were full of descriptive worship. I found slides of images that depicted much of what is described in the book. I found songs that brought much of the text to life already written, but I could find little on one of my favorite passages, Revelation 4&5. I also wanted to stay with familiar songs so the worship experience would have everyone involved as participants. My idea was to take those great worship passages that became the verses you now see, and find a familiar tune to match, so they would be easily singable. I was driving on a trip at the time and was working on the feel and the flow of the Revelation worship experience. I just kept humming familiar hymn tunes, trying to match the basic content of these verses. When I started humming Just As I Am, the words very easily fell into place.  That was a holy moment for me because I felt like the Lord honored my quest to match some of His most beautiful worship words in scripture to a beautiful, familiar hymn. I sang those verses over and over the rest of the way home. I have led that Revelation worship experience many times. It is a powerful experience and people, including myself, are very moved when we sing those verses. I believe that God created the marriage of the Word with music to be one of the most powerful ways we experience his living presence.     

 

Amen, Jeff! Thanks for sharing from your heart and experience, and letting the rest of us join in. Someday, it won’t be just a mountaintop experience that we occasionally enjoy. It’ll fill us forevermore. Imagine that, and aim – even right now -- to be there with Him and the rest of us!  

 

 

The story of the song was acquired via e:mail contact with the author on September 19, 2020.

 

See here for a picture of the author: http://highlandchurch.org/staff/member-detail/1528227/