This week was the fourth Sunday of Easter, and our songs were gathered around the theme of....Easter. 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:
Chariot by Page France
Pulse by Jameson McGregor
Pain 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.
Chariot: The chorus of this song captures a central theme of the Easter season: we will become a happy ending. In this simple phrase, we find the core implication of the Resurrection. The Love of God is unhindered on a fundamental level, even by death. God's Yes overwhelms any No that might come before it.
Pulse: This song speaks to the effect of the Resurrection on life in the world. The Resurrection is driven by the transformative power that spreads through the entire cosmos, the Spirit of God. And this same transformative power is working to raise what is dead in us.
How Great Thou Art: We sang this song to look over our shoulder at last week's songs. This is what we said about How Great Thou Art then: This song gives us language to situate the death and resurrection of Jesus within a broader observation of God's grandeur. The song begins with an observation of the wonders God has made throughout the cosmos, and goes on to observe the trajectory of God's making all things new. In the chorus, it offers us a chance to practice channeling this wonder into praise of God.
Pain: In the death and Resurrection of Jesus, we find that God is able to bear the weight of our suffering and somehow paint life on the other side. This Event offers us a picture of what God can make of our own pain, and it stands as an image of Hope. The chorus of this song,
but the God of the Lighter Load
can take the weight of the pain we hold
until the sting becomes about much more than the pain
it's the place
that we dwell in a Living Hope
the architecture of the ones who know
that, in the end, healing comes like the day:
from the night
is not suggesting that God takes our pain away, but instead enters into our pain and is carrying out the work of transformational healing. This Hope hinges on the image of the Resurrection, on the fact that Jesus's suffering was not miraculously alleviated or cut short, but rather was the first part of a broader story that transcended the suffering itself.
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