Send for the bard!

An earlier thought scribbled before 'Write the songs':

We need bards, in every generation. Singer-songwriters, poets, those who write novels for children: those who give voice to history so give the present identity. We need the kind of ballads a whole family can rip through on a long car journey, and the anthems a rugby crowd can bawl during a match. We need the stories which can be myths of identity: those which give a deeper, older, more communal sense of being than that of an individual composition of organic matter.

We don't have to see these stories as fact. But it seems a sad loss to me, that while I grew up with Odin, Zeus, Prosperine, Hercules, Mount Olympus, Valhalla, Sigfried, Odydius, the Minotaur, Icarus, Helen, Midas, and all of C.S.Lewis' more recent explorations of gods, myth and mediaeval cosmology, most children now will have lost those. I don't think they were true; they did represent that we live in a meaning-drenched universe.

[Inspired by: Bob Dylan, Martyn Joseph, a rawkous and fast family rendition of 'The Rattlin' Bog' en route to Aberdeen, the strength of The Fields o Athenry during the Eng-Ire game in Dublin, Chronicles of Narnia, the Cosmic Trilogy, & 'Til We Have Faces.]

Developed more in 'Write the songs'.

Quote of the day: write the songs

I knew a very wise man [who] believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation. And we find that most of the ancient legislators thought they could not well reform the manners of any city without the help of a lyric, and sometimes of a dramatic poet. But in this city the dramatic poet no less than the ballad-maker has been almost wholly employed to corrupt the people, in which they have had most unspeakable and deplorable success.

Andrew Fletcher, in 'An account of a conversation concerning a right regulation of governments for the common good of mankind'.*

After all, a song-writer doesn't merely reflect society, but forms its thoughts. Its not just the catchy phrase that gets stuck in your head. 

Lady Gaga saddens me - she seems so insubstantial, so ever-changing, that I wonder if even she knows who she is. Singing female-affirming lyrics, but gyrating undressed enough to ruin any man's imagination. Announcing herself as an obscenely-birthed goddess, 'mother monster', but reducing herself to a piece of meat on stage. But 31,124,368 people 'like' her on facebook, and she attracts such comments from young girls as,  

'mother monster, I wouldn't have made it this far in my life without you, if it weren't for you coming along in the spotlight, i would have commited suicide. YOU saved my life! I always keep you in my heart.' 

So when Lady Gaga confusedly denies anything wrong in her life 'cos God makes no mistakes, I'm on the right track, baby: I was born this way', wanting acceptance without repentance or atonement, that'll be what people hear. When Lady Gaga insinuates that it's God's job to accept her, 'cos she was born this way, that's what people will feel. When Lady Gaga sings of justification by self-love 'just love yourself and you're set', poor homo curvatus in se will turn in on ourselves with little encouragement needed, and be justified as little as the Pharisee in Jesus' story. 

We need songs which call us out of ourselves! [Amusing '80s example - with some truth!] Even better, songs which impress truth into us from outside, so we can then express it. What goes in will come out! 

[* HT: Christian Persuaders podcast - Susan Boyle & the MP expenses scandal]

'You will love this.' (Classical music and preaching.)

Conductor Ben Zander is convinced that everyone likes classical music - they just don't know it yet. And he's looking for shining eyes. I recognised it as soon as he said: I get the shining eyes thing in a good CBSO concert. 

The video presents some challenges and inspiration to preachers of the Word of God, too, who have not only all Zander mentions, but also the promises of God! A comment on Thabiti's blog when he posted this, from Timothy Reynalds: 

(1) Do I preach the gospel in confident belief that in God’s hands this message is able to awaken any soul to its truth and beauty? Don’t preach to move from 3-4%, but for 100%! What difference will that make to the way I preach to unbelievers?
(2) Do I preach to believers in full confidence that this word and this message should grip them all? What difference will that make to the way I preach?
(3) Do I have too many “impulses”: too much emphasis on lesser points or details, to the detriment of the overarching flow of God’s truth?
Now those are things I need to pray about – and pray for more shining eyes!

 Watch the video: I assure you, it's worth 20 minutes. 

[And yes, I've been around here before, as has Leithart.

[HT: Justin Taylor]

Music as text (or vice versa)

A while ago I considered music as preaching (or vice versa). Peter Leithart has a clear, succinct post considering written or spoken text musically: Hermeneutics: Melody of the Text.

Each word must die for the sentence to live, yet each word must live in memory for the sake of the whole. For a melody, each note must die for the melody to live, yet each remain in memory for a melodic line to form. And so with a whole text, or book: hear the text, and don't miss out the bass drone, repeated rythms, or recurring motifs! 
But read it here in Dr Leithart's own words.

Music as preaching (or vice versa)

As I listened to Christian Tetzlaff's playful and lyrical account of Brahms' violin concerto in the Symphony Hall this evening, I reminisced on the first time I remember hearing it live - Tasmin Little, with the Ulster Orchestra, in the Ulster Hall, Belfast. I recall drifting off in young sleepiness in the over-warm hall during the second movement, and being thrown awake, embarassed, by the launch into the third. I was sitting with my Dad in the balcony stage left, for a good view of the soloist. I enjoyed it then; I enjoyed the performance this evening. Then, in awe of Tasmin Little and the virtuosic beauty of the music, particularly the double-stopping; now, amused by Tetzlaff's youthful quirky treatment of some of the piece, and struck by the musical similarity between the soloist and the conductor, the electrifying Andris Nelsons.

Music, it seems to me, is like a sermon in some respects. I wouldn't say that my recording of the Brahms (Anne Sophie Mutter, I think) is not the Brahms, but it is certainly less than the live performance. There's something about music, and a sermon, which should be embodied. The recording may be perfect - perfect balance, no distance through a concert hall, no coughs or dropped programmes at inappropriate moments, no distraction of an overactively bobbing soprano clarinetist. But it is precisely all those things which are cut out which make it so touchingly human. The music enacted in a different context every time, unique despite being written. So it is with a sermon: the word addressed to a particular time and people, in a context. (και ο λογος σαρξ εγενετο, one might ponder.)

So, also, I appreciated Shostakovich's earthy, jarring and tense search for resolution and hope, post-Nazi invasion of St Petersburg, more than the ethereal disembodied floating of souls through layers of supposed paradise, in part II of Mahler's 8th on Saturday. (Not that this fully characterises either piece - just some parts of each.)

Perhaps a feel for music gives some theological insight - the truth bubbling up to the surface, however hard repressed. The conductor turned before the Shostokovich and gave us a little exposition: the original author's meaning, its application to our day, the eternal truth behind both. 'There is always hope!' he concluded, as we were launched into Shostokovich's Eighth Symphony.

To all music-lovers

To all lovers of the liberal art of music Dr.Martin Luther wishes grace and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

With all my heart I would extol the precious gift of God in the noble art of music, but I scarcely know where to begin or end. There is nothing on earth which has not its tone. Even the air invisible sings when smitten with a staff. Among the beasts and the birds, song is still more marvelous. David, himself a musician, testified with amazement and joy to the song of the birds. What then shall I say of the voice of man, to which nothing else may be compared? The heathen philosophers have strived in vain to explain how the tongue of man can express the thoughts of the heart in speech and song, through laughter and lamentation. 

Music is to be praised as second only to the Word of God because by her are all the emotions swayed. Nothing on earth is more mighty to make the sad happy and the happy sad, to hearten the downcast, mellow the overweening, temper the exuberant, or mollify the vengeful. The Holy Spirit himself pays tribute to music when he records that the evil spirit of Saul was exorcised as David played upon his harp. 

The fathers desired that music should always abide in the Church. That is why there are so many songs and psalms. This precious gift has been bestowed on mankind alone to remind them that they are created to praise and magnify the Lord. 

But when natural music is sharpened and polished  by art, then one begins to see with amazement the great and perfect wisdom of God in his wonderful work of music, where one voice takes a simple part and around it sing three, four, or five other voices, leaping, springing round about, marvelously gracing the simple part, like a square dance in heaven with friendly bows, embracings and hearty swinging of the partners. He who does not find this an inexpressible miracle of the Lord is truly a clod and is not worthy to be considered a man.

Martin Luther, 1538, trans. in 'Here I stand', Bainton, paragraphs mine.

[Listening to: J.S.Bach, of course - Itzhak Perlman playing the unaccompanied partitas & sonatas (Here if you have Spotify). 'A German historian has said that in the course of 300 years, only one German ever really understood Luther, and that one was Johann Sebastian Bach.']

Quote of the Day: A new kind of ending

Dr Jeremy Begbie:

Death, of course, is the reality hovering over everything I've been saying. The ending of all endings. The reality which threatens every hope in a rich ending. The reality which makes us hesitant about hoping for anything too strongly. But this is how God gets our attention. He meets us here, where human false hopes meet their abyss, where all purely human hopes have died.

But from here also, a fresh kind of hope emerges. Three days pass, and the followers of Jesus find themselves with a new kind of hope, in a new kind of ending. Rumours of an empty tomb, and then the man himself, nailmarks in his side & hands, alive, newly alive, more alive than before. What kind of ending can they now look forward to?

Here is an ending we don't create but God gives.

Dr Begbie continues about the ending which breaks in in the middle and transforms. If you care anything for music or theology, watch The Sense of An Ending, below, and hear how the Christian life should be something like playing second violin in the middle of an improvising orchestra. Powerful and informative.

A note of thankfulness

I could watch Andris Nelsons conduct the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in a nursery rhyme tune, and still be on the edge of my seat. Even at the top of the extremely large Symphony Hall. Their combination is electric. The Symphony Hall acoustics are such that I have enjoyed every nuance and harmonic line of the two symphony orchestra, two choir, four bands & one megaphone piece Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution (Prokofiev), yet when the pianist this evening gave us a delicate solo encore, up in the gods we could hear each note crystal clear, its touch and tone intimate.

A slight aside: Lars Vogt gave the most beautifully sensitive performance of Beethoven's 4th piano concerto I've heard in a long time. The most beautiful live piano performance I've heard in a long time, actually. (Which also reaffirmed my belief in Beethoven as genius supreme.)

I'm so grateful for music, the CBSO & Nelsons and living in Birmingham at the moment. Just needed to express it. The singing in my soul from this evening's concert would have had me walzing through Centenary Square, leading Chamberlain Place in a group musical number down the steps and around the fountain, and tap dancing through New Street station. As it was (this being England), I limited myself to a few skips along the way, and scared other pedestrians by smiling too much.

Awe-inspiring irony

Tonight I had the privilege of hearing the CBSO, CBSO Chorus and soloists, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, perform Bach's St Matthew Passion. I'd been reading Carson's Scandalous on the way - here follow a few selections from the libretto, and then some verse by Carson.

The Saviour falls prostrate before his Father,
And so he raises me and all men from our fall
Up again to God's grace
He is ready
To drink the cup of bitter death
In which the sins of the world were infused, stinking;
Because it pleased God.

How awe-inspiring is this sentence:
The good shepherd suffers for the sheep.
The debt he pays: the Master;
he the righteous, for his servants.

Why, what evil has this man done?

He has so richly blessed us all:
To the blind he has given sight,
The lame he made to walk,
He told us his Father's word,
He drives the devil forth,
The humble he has lifted up,
He took the sinners to himself.
Else, my Jesus has done nothing.

Out of love,
For love now will my Saviour die:
He does not know a single sin.
That eternal condemnation
And the sentence of the court
Will not fall upon my soul.

Ah Golgotha, unhappy Golgotha!
The Lord of majesty must perish here, scorned,
The saving blessing of the world
Is placed as a curse upon the cross.
Creator of both earth and heaven
From earth and air must now be taken.
The guiltless must die guilty here.

See - Jesus has outstretched his hand
To capture us
Come! Where to? To Jesus' arms.
Seek redemption: take his mercy.
Where? In Jesus' arms.
Living, dying: rest here,
You forsaken little chicks:
Stay. Where? In Jesus' arms.

And, behold: the curtain of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom. And the earth was filled with quaking, and the cliffs split asunder, and the graves themselves opened up, and there rose up the bodies of many saints who were sleeping, and they came out of the graves after his resurrection and came into the holy city and appeared to many. But the centurion and those who were with him and were watching over Jesus, when they witnessed the earthquake and all that there occurred, were terrified and said: Truly, this was the Son of God.

And Carson's verse, from Scandalous

On that wretched day the soldiers mocked him,
Raucous laughter in a barracks room,
'Hail the king!' they sneered, while spitting on him,
Brutal beatings on this day of gloom.
Though his crown was thorn, he was born a king -
Holy brilliance bathed in bleeding loss -
All the soldeiers blind to this stunning theme:
Jesus reigning from a cursed cross.

Awful weakness mars the battered God-man,
Far too broken now to hoist the beam.
Soldiers strip him bare and pound the nails in,
Watch him hanging on the cruel tree.
God's own temple's down! He has been destroyed!
Death's remains are laid in rock and sod.
But the temple rises in God's wise ploy:
Our great temple is the Son of God.

'Here's the One who says he cares for others.
One who says he came to save the lost.
How can we believe that he saves others
When he can't get off that bloody cross?
Let him save himself! Let him come down now!' -
Savage jeering at the King's disgrace.
But by hanging there is precisely how
Christ saves others as the King of grace.

Draped in darkness, utterly rejected,
Crying, 'Why have you forsake me?'
Jesus bears God's wrath alone, dejected -
Weeps the bitt'rest tears instead of me.
All the mockers cry, 'He has lost his trust!
Here's defeated by hypocrisy!'
But with faith's resolve, Jesus knows he must
Do God's will and swallow death for me.

Insurance salesmen are good

...for something, anyhow. Heading my work email as a sponsored link, came the following quotation.

"I detest life-insurance agents; they always argue that I shall some day die, which is not so."

Stephen Leacock, Canadian economist & humourist (1869 - 1944)

On radio 3 the other day, the presenter asked an interviewee (paraphrased), 'This composer died so young: do you think that he was aware of his own mortality?' It was asked as if mortality was something which only afflicted those who die young. My answer would be, 'Pity the fool who is not aware of their own mortality.'

We should be aware of more than mortality, however:

More joy than midnight snow

Have you ever been out before anyone else, and alone in the still air, crunched across newly-laid snow as flakes fall thickly around you? It's a thing of beauty and joy in the early morning, when the snowy sky is red with dawn, but this time, it was beauty and joy at midnight, with not a sound on the street.

It was for a very practical reason - I was coming home from BUECU's FREE week acoustic night, and need to get back to campus for an 8am prayer meeting in the morning, so as it was snowing heavily, I parked my car in a nearby street which is on a bus route, in the hope that it will be safer to drive from there tomorrow morning. But it's a lovely touch of grace that I have a car to drive in and give lifts - when late at night, cold and snowy - and that I got to enjoy the snow for a few minutes, until I shook myself like a wet Spaniel in my porch, and my coat shed its candyfloss and returned to charcoal grey.

On a not-completely unrelated note, in an excellent acoustic night, Matt Churchouse spoke in the vein of C.S.Lewis and Augustine, with a note of personal testimony, on finding satisfaction. It resonated with me as he shared of his teenage search for satisfaction in the jazz, until he realised that it was an god that didn't deliver - and by considering that all the good things we pursue are temporary, pushed us in the direction of finding Jesus to be our satisfaction and joy. Some non-Christians who came were struck by it, one girl telling me she totally agreed but found herself still living in pursuit of those temporary things anyway (pray for her & her Christian flatmate as they continue this conversation), and another saying Churchy should've said more: pray they'd come back for more about Jesus! Satisfied in Christ, we're free to have such joy in beauty as above. It doesn't have to be spoiled by the fact that it's temporary. It can be received with thanksgiving to the Creator, and enjoyed in hope of Eternity.

The Gospel Music Revolution

Some have been amused by the Reformation Polka on YouTube (ok, so it is amusing). But much better, is Luther & the Reformation to the tune of Bach - a fascinating & melodious documentary in the BBC's Sacred Music series - Bach and the Lutheran Legacy. I remember when I first heard the St John's Passion live, in Warwick, back when I was a relay worker. Despite not buying a programme, with some small knowledge of German and more knowledge of John's gospel, it was a spine-tingling, heart-warming experience, lifting my eyes to Christ. And what struck me most was the brilliant protestantism of the libretto! Granted, Bach didn't write the words - but since then, it's been my personal opinion that Bach's St John's Passion is possibly the best worship music yet written. Have an listen / watch: the Reformation celebrated to the music of Bach (more Luther in the first part of the programme).

[Alto]
It is finished,
O rest for all afflicted souls!
This night of woe
makes me ponder my own my last hour.
Judah's hero triumphs now,
and ends the fight,
It is finished!

[Evangelist]
And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

[Bass]
Beloved Saviour, wilt Thou answer,
as Thou has now the cross endured,
and Thyself hast said: It is finished!
Am I from death delivered?
Can I, through Thy pain and death,
the heavenly realm inherit?
Shall all the world redemption see?
Thou canst for anguish now saw nothing,
yet Thou dost bow Thy head
and say, in silence: yes!

[Chorale]
Jesus, Thou who knowest death,
art alive for ever;
when I yield my dying breath,
I turn to no other
but to Thee, who hast redeemed me,
O Thou dearest master!
Give me what Thou hast won,
For more I cannot ask.

[Evangelist]
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

[Tenor]
My heart, behold how all the world
at Jesus' sufferings likewise suffers;
the sun his beams in sorrow shrouds,
the veil divides, rocks are rent,
the earth quakes, graves are opened,
while they behold the Creator die;
and for thy part, what wilt thou do?

...

[Chorale]
O Lord, send Thy dear angels
at mine end, to gather my soul
to Abraham's bosom,
my body in his chamber
softly laid, without pain or sorrow,
until the last day.
Then wake me from death
that mine eyes may see Thee
in fullest joy, O Son of God,
my Saviour and my Throne of Grace!
Lord Jesus Christ, hear Thou me,
I will praise Thee eternally.

(Translation of selection of the St John's Passion libretto, my emphasis.)

Quote of the day: deafened by the love of music

As music keeps courting my heart, Richard Simpkin in EN reports on using music well to reach the musical with the gospel. This he commends, but notes from experience how some of those non-Christians who attend such things will not hear the good news as they're blinded by love of music. I think my Nigerian colleague might suggest music is more likely to deafen than blind, as my team went to a friend's gig last night (I rather enjoy the excellent musicianship of Mr Bones and the Dreamers; but admittedly in some PA set-ups it's harder to hear than others). Anyway, Richard quotes a composer J.A.C.Radford:

While music is a wonderful gift, it makes a very poor god. It can sing of redemption, but it can't provide it.

True.

Quote of the day: eternal life

‘...to indicate in one word what only music has the power to express in full: the elemental Will of Life. Music is Life, and, like it, inextinguishable.’

So said the composer Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) of his fourth symphony, The Inextinguishable. How he could write that of a symphony written in 1914-1916 I'm not sure - life inextinguishable? But perhaps this is recognition of the eternity that God has placed in the hearts of men, yet so that we cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. So again, Music is made a poor idol, when she should witness to the Eternal One.

'And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.' - Jesus of Nazareth

Music and Light

Somewhere in the "enlightenment" we lost the light. We lost the numinous. We lost beauty and have only the media used, we lost the music and have only notes and rhythms, our poetry the words and structure. Nothing more. We lost joy, and glory, and are left with only apetite. We fall short of the glory of God, and now we don't even bother to make an idol: we just celebrate the short-fall.

Yet there is something in us, some testimony that rebels. Eternity in our hearts. Denying the numinous doesn't remove its existence. Andris Nelsons, CBSO conductor, said, "All of us need music and culture - it's food to the soul." Some great composers, he said, address civilisations, but Tchaikovsky (of this evening's concert) speaks to each of us personally, to our hearts.

I believe we have a physical body and a soul. It doesn’t matter what religion you are, whether or not you believe in God, I think people believe that there is a soul and a body. You need food for your body, you need to eat and exercise to satisfy your physical body, but there is a soul that needs to be satisfied too, and it can be satisfied of course through love, but for me music is the most beautiful form of satisfaction. Even going to a rock concert can do this, I wish I had time to go, but classical music fills me up and makes me happy. [Nelsons in a BBC interview.]

Thus music could so easily become an idol for me - for joy, glory, beauty, harmony; it stirs the soul. But music is not the highest goal or satisfaction. It is but a pale whisper on the outer edges of the reflection of the outskirts of the glory of God's creation. And music is a punishing idol. Nelsons remarked that never very far from a musician is the question, "To be or not to be?" It is an unending, unquenchable search for joy if limited to music. Is this it?

So how do I avoid idolatry when I feel the pull of the numinous in God's creation? Perspective. Looking through the created to glory in the Creator, for one thing. For another, just as I went into this evening's concert, I heard news from one of my CUs who ran a lunchtime event today for non-Christians - far beyond anyone's expectations, two dozen non-Christians came, and engaged with good questions, and asked for more such events. As I left the concert hall, I heard further that several non-Christian friends then also came to the CU meeting later, and one of these students may yet read Mark's gospel with a CU member. Beauty, joy, and truth? The numinous? Light? "This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." [John 17.3]

Ascending and descending

The orchestra in which I play, South Birmingham Sinfonia, recently gave our usual pair of July concerts. This programme was all Vaughan Williams, as many orchestras are doing in this 50th anniversary of his death: Folk Dances, The Lark Ascending, and Job: a masque for dancing. For our second concert, our soloist, a conservatoire student, was taken ill, and Michael Bochmann agreed to play with us instead. Now in youth orchestras I've played many concerti, and I've heard the Lark many times: but this was something else. Breathtaking, and so very beautiful. The depth of tone and the soul of the piece made me want to cry. At various points in the piece, strings have sustained pianissimo on one paused note while the solo climbs and circles ever upwards. I was so captivated by Michael's solo, that at one such time I glanced down at my violin, to see that the bow I was drawing so lightly across the string to sustain the note, wasn't actually touching the string at all, which is stretching pianissimo slightly! Pure joy.

As for the Job, Blake had got hold of the Biblical book and made some engravings with Biblical texts as commentary. As he stated in another work, "I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's/ I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create," so it's not surprising that his work on Job was rather a reinterpretation. Blake's beefs with the church were much about self-righteousness and hypocrisy, so we have Job at the start as self-righteous, not (as God declares him), righteous; his friends as hypocrites, and in the end he is humbled. So when Vaughan Williams was commissioned to take Blake's engravings and compose a ballet, the ballet directions are strikingly different at several key points to the book of Job. We performed the piece in its orchestral format, without ballet, so added a narration based on these directions and Blake's supply of texts, and I don't think that the orchestra member who worked on the composition of the narrative was quite sympathetic with the original book either!

So we had a stunning musical score, but a plot in which God hands Job over completely to Satan, deserts His throne, Satan sits on it instead, Job's friends are sent by Satan and are entirely hypocritical in their sympathy, and Job does in fact curse God. God gives him a second chance, completely unjustly casts Satan to hell, and rewards Job - for having been humbled. It was disturbing to have this completely distorted retelling of Job performed, with narration announced from the pulpit of the church building in which we played, as if it were what the Bible says. It led to some good discussions with fellow orchestra members who were intrigued or disturbed by the picture presented, but it bothers me that so many will have the impression that the Bible reveals God in this way. I wanted to give everyone the text of the book of Job. But strangely, it's not produced as a separate evangelistic booklet as are the gospels.

Keep reading; oh keep reading!

I won't have this construed as a betrayal of my Midlands posse (impressive dancing); but why this man is thematic, he’s charismatic, he’s systematic,... he's Wayne Grudem, and I suspect he's never been celebrated quite like this: [HT: Bish]

Jiving the psalms

I'm currently enjoying playing Stuart Townend's recent album Monument to Mercy. I like the song Kyrie, mostly because anything even verging on psalmic lament should be welcomed.

FOR EVERY CHILD who lies
Still beneath his mother’s eyes
She’s asking why a God of love
Would give then take away

For every self-made man
Doing everything he can
To fill the void that’s deep within
Eating at his soul

Oh have mercy...
Have mercy on us all

For every wife who cries
When her husband’s lying eyes
Give the sordid game away
And something dies within

For those who walk the street
Destitute and desperate
We shake our heads and wash our hands
And hurry on our way

Oh have mercy...
Have mercy on us all

Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy
Have mercy on us all

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy
Have mercy on us all

O God forgive us for the wrong that we have done
The night is filled with weeping and we’re aching for the dawn
O God of love this world has suffered for so long
Have mercy on us all

We want to see the light we want to see the day
When hope is realised and hatred washed away
When justice rules the heart compassion leads the way
Have mercy on us all

Forgive our driven need
To make a virtue out of greed
We’ve set our hearts on worldly things
That cannot satisfy

We’ve used tomorrow’s gold today
While nature chokes long the way
How many years before we pay?
Perhaps we’re paying now...

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy
Have mercy on us all

Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2006 Thankyou Music

But why, why, oh why, is this done upbeat and major? Stuart has done a few good songs like this which are ruined by the style. I don't really want to bop along to a Kyrie. In fact, I'm quite sure that psalms of lament, of petition, and impecatory psalms were not designed to be danced to or musically celebrated. I'm not exactly a traditionalist, but perhaps the old minor Welsh hymn tunes have a good place (when not dragged flat and dirge-like anyway :)) Sample here. Still, do check out the rest of the album. 'I'm grateful' is a nice opening track, and 'My God' is a great gospel style piece.

nihil habeo

Nihil. Nil. Nothing.

I come into Your presence
With nothing in my hands
I only bring thanksgiving
For Jesus, God and Man
I cast myself on mercy
I cast myself on love
I trust Your gracious promise
To wash me with Your blood

I will not fear Your judgment
For me, no wrath I dread
For it was spent on Jesus
Poured out upon His head
When Satan’s accusations
Make my poor heart afraid
I hear my King declaring,
“Father, that debt is paid”

Jesus my only hope, my only plea
My righteousness, my Great High Priest
Who intercedes for me before the throne
Jesus, I trust in You alone

Mark Altrogge
© 2002 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI).

Listen to a snippet.

Fulness of joy

1. 1 John 5 with BUECU small group leaders.

"I write these things to you who believe in the name
of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life."

2. Students in Starbucks. Many coffees & meals with students as they prepare to flee university for the summer, and Starbucks now do Fairtrade coffee (finally... but not tea - still working on that one) - x2 in Brum & one in Leicester with an interesting basement layout. Also patronised were the good ol' Selly Sausage with its marvellous blueberry pancakes, Pizza Express (Aston CU grub crawl!), student houses, my house, and the Bennetts' (which has admitted tea other than Earl Grey). The encouragement of students testifying to growing throughout the year - and a friend of some Aston CU members putting her trust in the Lord for the first time a week ago :D

3. A sunny Saturday afternoon cycling along canal towpaths, followed by an evening listening to Bach's St Matthew's Passion.

4. Heartily piano-ing in worship with church, with everyone praising our Father and our Saviour Jesus Christ. We've been enjoying learning Keith & Stuart's Speak O Lord - a brilliant prayer before hearing God's word preached, which, in new songs I'm teaching, has followed The Power of the Cross which we're deepening appreciation of when celebrating Communion.

5. Hosea with Midlands staff and Tim Rudge. God as the wounded lover & our adulterous hearts which make desires inordinate and thus fashion idols. Our sin is not only judicial but deeply personal. Deeply hurtful, shameful, gut-wrenching. Chs.9-12 pictures of God's people in the past, like a deserted husband mourning over pictures from the wedding album. In punishment also God is being faithful! Yet the question raised: how will this adulterous whore of a people (and us included, in these heart adulteries) become faithful (1.8-11) when divorce would be just? Christ's fulfilment - the faithful people, the true vine (Hos.10), the obedient life - removed the sting of sin & death (Hos.13), so in him we are faithful.

6. The joy of Brahm's violin concerto and Tchaik.4 with Weller conducting the CBSO. Best seats in the house on standby tickets. I wondered if one could have a heart attack from joy. If it could actually burst. The Brahms (Steinbacher) is the first violin concerto I remember hearing in concert, and still thrills me. The Tchaikovsky just makes me want to burst. And reminded me of when we played it on tour in Italy: with the oboe solo rising in the Symphony Hall, I could feel the air of an open air evening concert in Florence in July. The third movement pizzicato is a wonderful playfulness in the violins, respite from the rest of the symphony while still flying the tune with energy. With the wonderful brilliance of the start of the 4th movement I felt the launch of joy of throwing bow, fingers and violin into the music when too épuisée from the previous three movements in late evening heat to feel anything any more. But this was Tchaik 4 as we never played it - Weller's brilliance drew the CBSO into the work as I can't describe. It made me think, 'joy unspeakable and full of glory', which challenged me as my housemate said afterwards - we should be even more engaged with God, as he is so much more than wonderful music. As David said in Psalm 4, in persecutions and troubling times, "You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound." I am challenged - do I have more joy in my heart from God than when my Brahms and Tchaikovsky abound? It makes me feel alive. But is an idol not something to which we turn for life, not recognising that it is God who makes us live? (See Hosea 2.2-8.) Oh that I truly and joyfully acknowledge the giver, and may my heart see the glory of the gift reflect to his praise, as it does. Yet I think I need a resurrection body before this following can be fulfilled:

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. [Ps. 16]

Fullness of joy in God's presence? Entering into the joy of our Master? I think my heart would break from joy, if it can barely cope now with the dim, shadow-joys of his creation, and knowing him in part. Yet we'll be transformed to be a joy (Isa 65.18)! So the challenge of

7. Psalm 27 -

You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,“Your face, Lord, do I seek.”

is a challenge for joy. That he would be my highest joy.