The Word Is Alive -- Mark Hall and Steven Curtis Chapman

 

When the Creator-God speaks, there is no compromising. With that in mind, you either live what’s inside of you or you don’t. Perhaps that’s what Mark Hall and his song collaborator Steven Curtis Chapman were essentially saying as they provided a musical reminder for themselves and some young people that “The Word Is Alive”. Mark and his group, Casting Crowns, could have been in Daytona Beach (see its seal here) when they cut an album called The Altar and the Door, which was released in August 2007; its focus was inspired by some troubling information that Mark read about how people were trying to ‘ride the fence’, so to speak, and were not taking the right way of living beyond the traditional Sunday worship space. Did the focus of The Altar and the Door provide some echoes in what Mark and Casting Crowns sang about Him being the Word, about how He cannot be disregarded or diminished?     

 

Mark Hall was one of the youth pastors at the church when he found to his dismay some entries in MySpace (a social networking forum that began in August 2003) from some of the teens he knew that sharply contrasted with the Christian lifestyle. These young people were really trying to live in two separate worlds – a phenomenon that Mark pointed out was not unique to youths. It’s easy to feel guilty and share at the Sunday altar what’s going on and how God should motivate a person’s daily life, but what happens between the altar and the door is the crux of the matter. Some of the lyrics that Mark and Steven wrote sound as if they were recalling some scriptures that make God-in-the-flesh too real to overlook, even for a moment, so perhaps the theme of the album provided the subtext for ‘The Word is Alive’, though neither composer explicitly says this. Take for example the title words of the song they wrote – ‘the Word is alive’ sounds so very much like what John wrote on multiple occasions, that He really lived, and really was/is God (John 1:1, 14; and 1 John 1:1). Lest anyone forget how profound was this Word, try on what John saw on Patmos: He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God (Revelation 19:13). If that one verse isn’t enough, try reading the entire 19^th chapter – and especially verses 11-21 -- to capture more of just who He is, and how terrifying and breathtaking He can be, especially to those who oppose Him. Perhaps this and what the Hebrews writer said (Hebrews 4:12) was what drove home the point for Mark and Steven – that the Word’s living and active, and mortally dangerous for those who don’t accept who He is. Did Mark’s youth group hear that when he sang ‘And it cuts like a sword through the darkness’ (chorus). Did they understand also that the ‘world and its glories (including that stuff on MySpace) will fade’. Make very certain you are on God’s side, 24/7.  

 

Mark and Steven also included a spoken portion in the song – maybe it helps emphasize the word that God spoke? – that underscores the diversity of individuals and episodes that worked over centuries to produce the bible and its core message: that Jesus and how He points to the God of the universe is the focus. The bible…it’s hard to appreciate how rare it was once upon a time, in centuries past. But now, do you and I take it too much for granted? And, does that translate into some ho-hums about His presence now? Don’t look at the mere surfaces of what He’s done, but go a little deeper, and then go even deeper. This book that He’s preserved for me has unmined truths, ways to look at Jesus that can fascinate and inform me anew, if I’ll just spend time in it. That’s how one keeps renewing the vision of Him, by finding something new about Him every day. What Mark and Steven and Casting Crowns have done is but one more reminder that this Word is still watching and waiting for me to keep on coming. Get used to hearing His voice, and what He has to say to you.    

 

 

See information on the album on which the song appears here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Altar_and_the_Door

 

See information on the graphic-seal here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seal_of_Daytona_Beach,_Florida.png …This work was created by a government unit (including state, county, and municipal government agencies) of the U.S. state of Florida. 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. The graphic-seal can be found inside this document: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytona_Beach,_Florida

Give Us Clean Hands – David and Charlie Hall

 

He was looking for something personally, and then realized more people than himself could use what he’d discovered. Was that what the ancient songwriter-king David found also, a pretty intimate time with God that he cherished and then thought others should hear? “Give Us Clean Hands”, the worshippers of David’s time would have cried, as the ark of the covenant was carried into the Temple (as seen here in this 15^th Century work), or perhaps as they later commemorated that occasion. So, it was no accident when Charlie Hall opened his bible some 30 centuries later and found some insight into approaching God, since this God doesn’t change and asks those who want to draw near Him to do what the worshippers at the Temple did so long ago. Purity…such a hard thing to acquire. Charlie found the words of the psalm were convicting. Ready to practice some submission?

 

Charlie Hall was doing one day (sometime around the year 2000) what he’d done on numerous other occasions: bible study. He indicates in an interview that he was looking for God to speak, to provide something to spur a change in his heart. Why Charlie thought he needed a heart-check is not clear, but perhaps he wasn’t any different from others who come close to God just to find that undefinable something that seems to be missing. Psalm 24 jumped off the page (or off the screen) for Charlie, who says he wasn’t aiming to write a song. It was just a few moments in which he needed to be alone with Him, singing back to God what He was saying to him in scripture, a kind of prayer. And then he read what David wrote (v.6 of Psalm 24) about a ‘generation’ of would-be worshippers. Perhaps this was when Charlie realized that his personal moment could resonate with others. Everyone needs to ‘bow..hearts and bend..knees’, to be ‘humble’ before the Holy Creator. Consequently, all things ‘evil’, and especially ‘idols’, need to be cast aside. Not only ‘clean hands’, but ‘pure hearts’ are the decontamination that is a part of the separation from idols, of making God the one and only being toward whom worship is directed. David’s ‘generation’, and Charlie’s three millennia later, sought God’s ‘face’, the visage of this ‘God of Jacob’. That’s quite a thing to say to this Holy One…to be submissive to Him, and try in one’s own imperfect way to be pure before Him, and then say you want to see His face. Are you and I really ready for this?

 

That goal, to see God’s face, is really an aspiration that none of us will truly realize until Eternity dawns. Moses, too, asked to see Him and was denied by the merciful God (Ex. 33:18-23) – God wasn’t quite ready for Moses to die; He wanted him to do more. Those of David’s time did not yet have Jesus, and those of us in Charlie’s time have only an artist’s conception of what the God-Man might have resembled physically. But, I can sense what’s in my own heart, see whether my hands have engaged in wrongdoing, and admit when I am a bit too close to earthbound things. Those are the three things I can put on my daily agenda to try to rectify, if I am honest and really do want to meet Him face-to-face one day. Just weigh these things on your spiritual scales, including how long they will last…earthly habits and attitudes for something like 80-90 years (?), versus what He can give me in the afterlife that never will end. What’s your scale’s readout suggesting to you?

 

Watch the song story recounted here: https://www.worshiptogether.com/songs/give-us-clean-hands/ (New Song Café) …Based on Psalm 24 by David (story on video from beginning to 2:09 mark (appx)

 

See some information here also, including a brief recitation of the story: https://hymnary.org/hymn/LUYH2013/628

 

See here for the song’s copyright date: Give Us Clean Hands (arr. Joshua Chandra) Sheet Music | Chris Tomlin | Piano, Vocal & Guitar Chords (sheetmusicdirect.com)

 

NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1985, and accompanying notes re: Psalm 24’s background also provided details.

 

Find the image of ark here, along with public domain status of the picture: File:Folio 29r - The Ark of God Carried into the Temple.jpg - Wikimedia Commons This work (The Ark carried into the Temple from the early 15th century, Pol, Hermann and Jannequin de Limbourg (1370s–1416); Jean Colombe (c. 1440–93)) 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.