Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and our songs were gathered with the death and Resurrection of Jesus in mind. Below, you’ll find the list of the songs and artists. Clicking the song titles will take you to the lyrics. Below the songs, you can find recordings from Sunday morning of a few of them, and below the recordings, there is an example of one way you might think of these songs in light of this week's theme. If you want to talk about any of these, feel free to comment at the bottom of this page or email me at jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Songs:
In the Night by Andrew Peterson
Death In His Grave by John Mark McMillan
Mystery by Jameson McGregor (adapted from Charlie Hall)
Hope by Jameson McGregor
Wayward Ones by The Gladsome Light
How They Fit In:
There are many ways to think about the significance of songs and the way they fit together–-this is simply one way you can look at these songs in light of this week’s theme.
In the Night: We will be adding a piece to this song every week of Lent. It traces a thread of struggle through the biblical narrative, ultimately building a case to hold hope in the midst of immense darkness. We recorded a live version of this song last year, which you can download for free here.
Death In His Grave: This song narrates the death and Resurrection of Jesus, and underscores the outcome of this Event: the death of death. It also captures the reality-altering implications of this event for humans that Paul likens to Jesus being a second Adam. We sang this song to step into this narrative in a more deliberate way and experience it anew.
Mystery: This is a protest song. And Easter is a protest day. In the Resurrection of Jesus, we have the defeat of death, yes, but we also have an empire and religious institution put to shame as their supposedly final assertion of power over the trouble-maker Jesus doesn't work. If the power that corrupt systems of oppression carry is falsified, these systems cannot hope to stand for long. So, the formula Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again is multi-valent, and one of those valences is of the raised-fist variety. This was true then, and it is true now.
Hope: This song uses the image from John of God setting a light in the darkness that the darkness did not overcome as a reference point for present hope (and interprets this image to refer to the Resurrection). In the Resurrection, we see in action what we have hoped to be true: that God is present and active in brokenness, and is in the habit of making all things new. And when we look back on our own lives in the moments most marred by pain, we find that they too evolved into something like broken pieces coming back together. So when those pain-marred moments are our present moments, we can look back on the Resurrection and the resurrections we have experienced for the hope that God will raise us up again.
Wayward Ones: We sing this song every time we take communion to remind ourselves of a couple of things. First, we are a broken people--though we are seeking to become more like Jesus, we often fail at this. Second, Christ has given Himself for us despite our brokenness. We take communion to remember the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, even though we did not, and do not, deserve it.
Doxology: We close our time together each week with this proclamation that God is worthy of praise from every inch of the cosmos.
-JM