Jesus Messiah -- Daniel Carson, Chris Tomlin, Ed Cash, Jesse Reeves

 

Chris Tomlin had been searching for a while, without success. And then around the year 2008, he found it – a way to say “Jesus Messiah”, through a combination of very old and contemporary voices to whom he listened. (See this Messiah depicted in Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement, here.) This special name for the Son was one that only He could wear, and so that distinction stuck with Chris, as a soul-stirring idea that he evidently shared with three others in his circle – Daniel Carson, Ed Cash, and Jesse Reeves – so that their collective thoughts could compose something special, something reflecting this name’s exceptional meaning. Find something so unique, and what do you do with it? You might hide it away to protect it from thieves, those who might have ulterior motives toward you and what you’ve found. But that’s human philosophy speaking, and not from the God who gave His Beloved this unique title, a name not to be hidden away, but shared even at the risk of His own human life.

 

It is a perilous name, one that Jesus surely knew would make him a target of anger and even murder. And yet, He boldly embraced that destiny, and perhaps that was part of what drew Chris Tomlin and his friends to seek a song speaking of this name. Some might even say it was a heartrending name, because of its import of danger for Jesus, and yet Chris says in one interview that it’s a beautiful name too. Messiah can be thought of as anointed or chosen in Isaiah’s prophecy (Is. 42:1; 61:1), and Chris evidently had read some of Isaiah’s book as a stepping stone for his search for a Messiah song. His hunt for the right combination of lyrics and music wandered a bit, he admits, until one day when he heard Daniel playing a melody that struck a chord, providing the beautiful tune that Chris felt corresponded with the nature of this matchless name. It was the platform that Chris says allowed various other descriptions of Jesus -- in the lyrics telling of His various names and the import of His life’s purpose – to ‘amplify’ the Messiah idea he wanted to describe, but had been inadequate to express previously. He’s the ‘Blessed Redeemer’, ‘Emmanuel’, the ‘Lord of all’, but also the one to become ‘sin’, even though ‘he knew no sin’. The ‘name above all names’ did what others could not, becoming ‘the rescue’, and ‘the ransom’. So, in their lyrics, what Chris and the others did was to convey a juxtaposition of a divine beauty mingled with tragedy, from a human standpoint. He’s a person impossible to ignore. You get that same sense of fascination among those watching and listening to Jesus recapture and apply to Himself (in Luke 4: 14-30) what Isaiah had said centuries earlier (Is. 61:1-2). Initially, His neighbors ‘spoke well of Him’ (v. 22), perhaps many glowing with hope regarding the ‘good news’ and healing from physical afflictions and Roman oppression that Isaiah’s words seemed to indicate. And yet, in very short order, they became ‘furious’ and tried to ‘throw Him off the cliff’ (v.28-29). Blessedly for all of us, Jesus understood all things, and was willing to be ‘humbled’, to let ‘His body (be) the ‘bread’, ‘His blood the wine’, the ultimate sacrifice that was ‘broken and poured out’, as Chris and company remind us.

 

Jesus as Messiah, especially in His death, might be compared to an accident scene – something horrible that we dread observing, yet He draws our attention; that’s why we call ourselves ‘rubber-neckers’ when we pass a car crash site. Jesus might also be like the loved one we see dying in a hospital bed; we’re torn with grief to see someone we cherish leave us, and yet we cannot make ourselves absent and miss those last few moments with them. Jesus understands all of that, how my mortality can create such an angst about precious life versus its ultimate demise. ‘Love so amazing’ is what Chris and his friends write about Jesus in His Messiah role; this love is really defiant in description, this great thing He passes on to us, rather than keeping it just for Himself. It needed to be amazing to overcome the dread of death that even Jesus experienced in the garden (Luke 22:42-44), a separation he fervently wanted to avoid. That really says so much about the character of this love, which He passes along to you and me, if we accept it. Even the Messiah – the ultimate Chosen One, the All-Powerful – did his duty because of love. He’s the possessor of both a unique character and role – love and Messiah.              

 

See a brief explanation of the story behind the song here (see it under FAQs 1): The Meaning Behind The Song: Jesus Messiah by Chris Tomlin - Old Time Music

 

Hear one of the songwriters talk about the song’s background (at 1:20 – 1:30, and 4:20 – 4:30) Chris Tomlin // Jesus Messiah // New Song Cafe (youtube.com)

 

Read a brief background for the song here:  Jesus Messiah by Chris Tomlin - Songfacts

 

See here for information on the image of The Last Judgement: Michelangelo Buonarroti - Jugement dernier - Last Judgment - Wikipedia. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Arnaud 25. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: Arnaud 25 grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law. 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. {{PD-1996}} – public domain in its source country on January 1, 1996 and in the United States.

Never Gonna Let Me Go -- Jason Ingram and Kristian Stanfill

‘Take it all.’ That seemed like a key phrase that two songwriters settled upon when they thought about what they wanted to say for a song on this album that they and others helped put together in 2014. In order for someone to really mean what he says with those three short words, he would have to offer himself totally – an act of unreserved and complete sacrifice. That would be Passion – unlike what anyone else has ever lived, or died, to demonstrate. And so, when Jason Ingram and Kristian Stanfill were reflecting on Jesus’ passion – His great sacrifice for everyone – they must have thought about how he did that because of His unswerving devotion to those He created, that He was “Never Gonna Let (You and) Me Go”. (See the 16^th Century painting Christ Carrying the Cross here by El Greco.) We didn’t hear Him say so, but can you imagine what it was like when Jesus spoke to our enemy, with utter conviction--‘You cannot have them, Satan. They are mine!’? This day is passion’s culmination – Friday – when Jesus gave it all. Do you feel His grip?

 

The album’s name is Passion: Take It All, and that was the foundation upon which the Atlanta-Houston Passion Conference in 2014 built its message to young Christians that year. Jason and Kristian wrote, either individually or collaboratively with others or each other, four songs for the album, including ‘Never Gonna…’, with a very upbeat, celebratory kind of tune that testifies to how the saved can feel when they appreciate how much He’s done to complete our victory. And, that His hold on you and me is certain, results in an outpouring of thanks in its lyrics. Love is the engine, according to Jason and Kristian. His ‘love break(s) through..stone’…’breathes (into) my bones’…’reach(es) out to my soul’. This love also is‘calling…’, ‘making me new’, and ‘lifting me’. Is it any surprise that the Almighty God says He is love, through one of His apostles (1 John 4:8,16), and that this love can do so much? Just listen to what Jason and Kristian say this love overcomes: a ‘lost’ and ‘blind’ condition, ‘darkness wandering’, where ‘no life’ and ‘no hope’ permeate the environment (v.1). Medical doctors have no cure for a blind person, and have only limited abilities to revive the dead; and psychiatrists and psychologists can do only so much for the person who’s lost emotionally, someone without hope. But the Great Physician has the answer! That exclamation point is what Jason and Kristian might add if a musical note to express this existed. But, what they do instead is underscore with their lyrics the pivotal nature of love, by singing this four-letter word repeatedly in its various roles. Thirty times – is that enough to tell just how important this God-infused condition is? And, it’s so crucial to us understanding Him, that the word is not a passive noun in the song’s language. It is a verb, with potent action. Indeed, it’s so potent and alive, that it defied the death march that Jesus walked, and the cross upon which He hung, that passion Friday.

 

Jesus’ passion needs no more exposition from this blogger. What He’s done stands firmly all on its own. The only thing left for you and me is how to respond. He wants to give me an abundant life, one ‘to the full’ (John 10:10), and so it was no mere execution, no tragic accident that Jesus gave it all. Jesus Himself was preparing to execute the capital criminal that was menacing and killing the human soul. He’s knocked him out cold, condemning him to the Abyss, and finally to the fiery lake (Revelation 17 and 20). The match is over in this spiritual battle. The Bible’s last book says we win, if we join the love-natured, and Almighty Lamb. You can sing about never being let go, with the rest of us. Do you wanna be on the winning side?       

 

  

 

See here for information about one of the songwriters: Kristian Stanfill - Wikipedia

 

See here for biographic information on the other songwriter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Ingram

 

See here for information about the album on which the song appears: Passion: Take It All - Wikipedia

 

See here for information on the painting shown here, and its public domain status: File:Christ Carrying the Cross 1580.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, 1929.

 

I Want to Know Christ – Paul, and Gerald Moore

 

Was he thinking of making his words into a song? Paul, the apostle of the Bible’s New Testament, certainly would have endorsed any system – like music – that aids memory retention of important things that one wants to implement as life strategies, like the declaration he made when he told a group of believers “I Want to Know Christ” (Philippians 3:10). This was an especially noteworthy assertion because Paul was under house arrest at the time, possibly in Rome (perhaps 61 A.D.), or maybe in either Ephesus (53-55 A.D.) or Caesarea (57-59 A.D.) (The picture, Saint Paul Arrested, was painted in the early 1900s [author Publisher of Bible Cards]). Would Paul have thought that the Greeks like Plato and Aristotle (who lived four or five centuries before himself) practiced something really useful for the Christian disciple to adopt, a memorization technique called Mnemonics? It might more certainly be said that Gerald Moore, a believer who helped popularize Paul’s words to the Philippian church, must have believed that this ancient Greek method was really valuable, since he borrowed it to create in 1991 his version of Paul’s prison-inspired words. Song-making is indeed one of His best gifts to us.

     

What would provoke a person to say something like what Paul voiced here – ‘bring it on, give it your best shot and make me suffer, just go ahead and kill me!’ Has the individual gone mad, beset by dementia, or else decided that suicide is his best option? One might say so, if Paul had not also included the part about ‘know(ing) Christ’, and more deeply ‘shar(ing)…’, and ‘conform(ing)’, and ‘ris(ing)’ in power like Him. One could look at this one-time enemy of Christ and say that he got what he had coming to himself; in fact, Jesus told Ananias, the first believer to encounter Paul (when he was still known as Saul), that this threat-breathing persecutor would be shown how much he needed to suffer for God’s name (Acts 9:16). In Paul’s many letters (Gal. 1:13-14; Eph. 3:8; 1 Tim. 1:15-16, and 1 Cor. 15:9), he comes across vividly as one who remembered his previous ways and still felt dogged with regret. He owed a lot, more than he could ever pay. And, the only way out was for him to offer the rest of himself in the service of Jesus’ cause. He saw his own life – hearkening to his Jewish roots – as a kind of drink offering that should be ‘poured out’ for his many sins (Philippians 2:17). Near the end of his life, Paul repeats this metaphor (2 Timothy 4:6), anticipating that his own demise and resurrection in the image of his Master was close at hand. Impossible, you say? Saul-Paul might have echoed this, had he not received the ‘fill(ing) with His Spirit’ through the ministering hands of Ananias (Acts 9:17). He never forgot how much damage he’d done, but he also never forgot how much he had received in his conversion, a story that he told at least two times, many years later in his life (Acts 22 and 26). Jesus’ words still rang like new in his ears. It was a life he couldn’t keep to himself, praying that others would likewise be filled in a powerful way with this same Spirit (Colossians 1:9), transforming the impossible into reality.

 

Gerald Moore enters the picture, some nineteen centuries later, with a tune that musically sums up Paul’s greatest purpose following his Damascus Road conversion. Nothing more than his name is known of Gerald. Is that intentional, so that the focus is on how to follow my ancient brother’s model, to be sculpted as a follower of the Holy Sacrifice, even as Paul was? Gerald was merely the conduit, as any believer is, of a Spirit who’s at work, doing something that takes years, even decades – as it did in Paul’s life – to be fully realized. Gerald may have been the arranger, the tune-writer, for what someone else already was singing – we just don’t know much about that part. If it was first sung around a campfire, as perhaps many folk melodies like this one were, an as yet anonymous soul must have also wanted what Paul had the insight and courage to say. Look deep inside his words…they’re more than a campfire song. Want to know Christ? Gerald helps remind us what Paul knew comes with this life goal.

 

See here for publication information about the song and its full text: Praise for the Lord (Expanded Edition) 864. I want to know Christ and the pow'r of His rising | Hymnary.org

 

See here for description of memory system called Mnemonics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic

 

Information on Paul gleaned from the NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1985.

 

See here for information on the picture showing Paul being arrested: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_arrested.jpg. 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 70 years or fewer. {{PD-US}} – US work that is in the public domain in the US for an unspecified reason, but presumably because it was published in the US before 1929.