Today’s song: The Victor by Jamie Owens-Collins, from her 1973 album, Laughter In Your Soul, re-released on Legacy in 2008.
On this Easter Sunday 2011, we again remember and celebrate the empty cross, the empty tomb, and the promise of a new life. All of this accomplished by the sacrifice and death of Jesus on that cross, and His resurrection from the dead on the third day.
He is risen indeed!
Swallowed into earth’s dark womb
Death has triumphed
That’s what they say
But try to hold him in the tomb
The Son of Life
Rose on the third day
Look! The gates of hell are falling
Crumbling from the inside out
He’s bursting through the walls with laughter
Listen to the angels shout
It is finished
He has done it
Life conquered death
Jesus Christ
Has won it!
His plan of battle fooled them all
They led him off to prison to die
But as he entered Hades hall
He broke those hellish chains with a cry
Listen to the demons screaming
See him bruise the serpent’s head
The prisoners of hell redeeming
All the power of death is dead
It is finished
He has done it
Life conquered death
Jesus Christ
Has won it!
Look! The gates of hell are falling
Crumbling from the inside out
He’s bursting through the walls with laughter
Listen to the angels shout
It is finished
He has done it
Life conquered death
Jesus Christ
Has won it!
Featured song: Room Noise, by the 2nd Chapter Of Acts, from their 1983 album, Singer Sower.
If you have been reading this blog for very long, it has probably become apparent to you that I am a person who is nostalgic, who enjoys looking back at his past. I treasure my memories, and believe that being aware of where I have been gives me an grounding to help steer me to where I am going. One of the things that I enjoy looking back on is the music that I grew up hearing — not only pop music of the 1960s and 1970s, but also the music on the records in my parent’s collection, music that was the background of my earlier years. In my goal of adding things to my digital library, I am also digitizing some old record albums that I fondly remember hearing so long ago. The music was the background of that part of my life, and hearing the music can take me back to those days.
As a part of this immersion in music that I grew up with, I also have this mental connection with music that causes me to have lyrics of songs pop up when I hear things said in conversation around me. Someone says, “I’m leaving,” and my mental music machine may switch on to Peter, Paul & Mary, and I hear, “I’m leavin’ on a jet plane / I don’t know when I’ll be back again” will start playing in my head.
The other thing that my inner iPod would do to me when I was in high school was to have a stuck replay button for the last song off the radio that I heard before I left home that morning. I had to try to make sure that the last thing I heard as I walked out the door was a song that I liked; if not, I might have infinite plays of a song that was definitely not on my top ten list.
So, background music for me can be enjoyable or agonizing, depending on what I have playing currently. Even now, nearly 40 years later, I find that a song that starts in my head will likely be here for quite a while, until I purposely “change tracks”, and get another song going. And, as in high school, this may be good or bad.
When Jesus music first started, the people who played and sang these songs took the music of their lives, and put words to that music that spoke of their new love for the Lord, or about His Word, the Bible, or about many other topics of the Christian life. They did it out of an earnest desire to make Him known, and to do so to as many people as possible. But as time passed, and some of their listeners changed their musical focus from secular music to this Jesus music, the intensity of the original impact sometimes faded. Instead of listening to and being influenced by the words of those songs, letting themselves be brought closer to their Lord, the music became just another style of background music for their lives.
I know that this was (and is) a danger that I face today in the music to which I listen. There is really nothing bad about having God-focused music flowing into my ears, even when I’m not actively listening to what is being said; it still can have an effect on me. But when I just live my life the way I want to, and I do not try to daily change into His image, the music itself may become a kind of an idol that I worship, rather than being something that functions to bring me closer to Jesus.
The song on which I am focusing today, Room Noise by the 2nd Chapter Of Acts, points out this danger. It’s not that I have to put all of my mind and soul into each song I listen to. But I have to make sure that the music is more than just another form of entertainment, just another song I like, running through my head during my day. I am sure that in many cases, these songs were written out of a desire by the performer to get a message across, to help bring me closer to Jesus, encourage me to grow, and pray, and reach out to others. The music of my life should not just be there to “make me happy”, but to serve as a springboard to the person God is urging me to become. No more “room noise”! Listen to what it says!
No more conversation
No more idle words
Pitter, pitter, patter
Words fall from your ladder
Pseudo gospel music
Music everywhere
But not a single drop
to drink anywhere
I don’t want to be room noise,
generically speaking,
I don’t want to be room noise,
no one will stop and hear me,
Hear me… hear me, hear me!
Down on bended knees,
doing what you please,
as you say…
Gospel, gospel music’s
an alternative,
Then you never have to
change the way you live…
Idle idol lyrics
floating through the air
Invisible netting
Emotional snare…
I don’t want to be room noise
generically speaking
I don’t want to be room noise
no one will stop and hear me
Hear me… hear me, hear me!
Down on bended knees,
doing what you please:
Pharisee!
I don’t want to be room noise,
I don’t want to be room noise, Elevator music
I don’t want to be room noise, Elevator music
I don’t want to be room noise, Elevator music
I live in the heartland of the United States, in eastern Nebraska. I suspect that people living in other parts of the country say the same thing to each other, but we often find the weather here to be somewhat unpredictable. Certainly, the broad sweeps of the seasons do cause some certain changes; the middle of the summer is usually hot and dry; the middle of the winter is usually cold, and possibly snowy. Fall and spring are somewhere between those extremes. But to expect a particular type of weather on a particular day? Unlikely to happen. I’ve seen a warm 70 degree day in January, and a chilly 40 degree day in June.
The local weather forecasters do their best to tell us what is going to happen tomorrow, or next week or next month. But all they have to go by are what the current conditions are, and where things seem to be moving. We recently had a “winter weather watch”, that anticipated the “first winter storm of the season”. Two to four inches of snow was expected, with blowing and drifing possible. Within twelve hours of the expected event, it appeared that the winds had shifted things more to the north, so it totally missed my part of the country. We got the cold temperatures, but not the snow.
What this tells me is that even when an experienced meteorologist attempts to make a prediction based on current conditions, he might be right; but a million variables can combine to make a forecast totally wrong.
In Matthew 16:2-3, Jesus criticizes the spiritual leadership of his day, the Parisees and Sadducees, for being intelligent enough to make predictions about the weather, but blind enough to be unable to see clearly the times in which they lived. And even today, with our twenty-four hour news networks, instant reports from around the world, and even instant messaging between each other, we still find ourselves getting lost in the details, and unable to see the broad sweeps of the times in which we live.
The thing with the future is that it is totally unpredictable. I live every day with the expectation that I will be around tomorrow, but I have no guarantee of that. The only certainty that I have about tomorrow is that Jesus will be there to take care of me and my life, regardless of the events of the day. A sunny day with warm temperatures? A cold windy day with snow? The best day of my life? The worst day of my life? He has it all covered, and He will be there to help me through it. The old quote is true: “I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know Who holds tomorrow.”
The 2nd Chapter Of Acts sang about this on their 1974 debut album, With Footnotes, in their opening song, Which Way The Wind Blows.
Feel a feeling
Say a saying
But you’ll still
Be lonely
If you think life is only
For this moment
Do a doing
Mourn a mourning
Still won’t get you off your sorrow
So go ahead and cry, but you
Can’t pry a look at tommorrow
You don’t know which way the wind blows
So how can you plan tommorow?
You don’t know which way the wind blows
So how can you plan tommorow?
Run a running
Hide a hiding
Whenever you hear the truth
And when you ask for the proof,
You won’t listen
Listen
Praise a praising
Build a building
Trying to get peace into your life
And you don’t even know wrong from right
Oh, where’s your wisdom?
You don’t know which way the wind blows
So how can you plan tommorow?
You don’t know which way the wind blows
So how can you plan tommorow?
Die a dying
Ressurecting
By believing and receiving
Forgiveness from Jesus
Who took the sin from sinning
You don’t know which way the wind blows
So how can you plan tommorow?
Jesus knows which way the wind blows
So how give Him your tommorow!
Believe and recieve
Believe and recieve
You don’t know which way the wind blows
So how can you plan tommorow?
You don’t know which way the wind blows
So how can you plan tommorow?
I’ve talked about heaven in several other posts on this blog. One of the major occupations in heaven is a continuous praise and worship service directly in the presence of the King of kings, Jesus. But I also know that I do not have to wait for heaven to start the practice of living a life of praise.
Praise and thanks to the Lord is important firstly because God is absolutely deserving of my praises. He is the Creator; I am the creation, and I owe Him all of my allegiance and love. Amazingly enough, when I learn to focus my life on praise to the Lord, I find that He gives back to me. Focusing myself on praising God takes the spotlight off of myself and my problems and concerns, and directs it to the One who is totally able to manage them. God will take the praise I offer Him, and cause joy and peace to well up within me, regardless of what circumstances I am in. Learning to praise the Lord in the bad times as well as in the good not only fulfills my mandate to love the Lord my God with all of my heart, soul and strength, but it also gives me the ability to stand up under any pressure.
The importance of praise is mentioned in many places in the Bible (Psalm 103:1-5, Psalm 111:1-4, Psalm 146:1-2, just to name a few). It is a command that sometimes makes no sense; why should I praise Him when I’ve just had a rotten day? When I’ve just had a car accident? When I’ve been told that my job has been terminated? That seems just crazy, to praise God when those bad things happen! And yet, when I take the time to “praise the Lord anyway”, it results in giving me the ability to take that trek in the desert and to make it out the other side.
Jesus music took many forms in its early days, and the concept of praise was not lost on those who performed it. One of the things they did at times was to take an old church favorite and do it in a new way. In 1979, Maranatha! Music released a sampler album called Maranatha! Current, which featured a version of the song Fairest Lord Jesus that was performed by Erick Nelson. And in 1986, the 2nd Chapter of Acts did the same on their Hymns album. I’ve included both versions here because they are different, and are both in their own way beautiful. ((Why are they different? Because the original song was written by German Jesuits and published in 1677, and later translated into English. And as with all translations, they are sometimes updated as the language changes. For more information about this song, see this entry in the Cyberhymnal.)) So here enjoy two different interpretations of a song that focuses praise on the person of Jesus Christ.
(Erick Nelson’s version)
Beautiful Savior, King of creation
Son of God, and Son of man
Truly I love Thee, truly I’ll serve Thee
Light of my soul, my Joy, my Crown
Fair is the sunshine, fair is the moonlight
Bright the sparkling stars on high
But Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer
Than all the angels in the sky.
And Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer
Than all the angels in the sky.
Than all the angels in the sky.
(2nd Chapter Of Acts version)
Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature
O Thou of God and man the Son
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor
Thou my soul’s glory, joy and crown
Fair are the meadows, fairer still the moon lands
Robed in the blooming garb of spring
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer
Who makes the woeful heart to sing
Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight
And all the twinkling starry host
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels heaven can boast
Beautiful Savior! Lord of the nations!
Son of God and Son of man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration
Now and forever more be Thine
On this Easter Sunday 2011, we again remember and celebrate the empty cross, the empty tomb, and the promise of a new life. All of this accomplished by the sacrifice and death of Jesus on that cross, and His resurrection from the dead on the third day.
If you have been reading this blog for very long, it has probably become apparent to you that I am a person who is nostalgic, who enjoys looking back at his past. I treasure my memories, and believe that being aware of where I have been gives me an grounding to help steer me to where I am going. One of the things that I enjoy looking back on is the music that I grew up hearing — not only pop music of the 1960s and 1970s, but also the music on the records in my parent’s collection, music that was the background of my earlier years. In my goal of adding things to my digital library, I am also digitizing some old record albums that I fondly remember hearing so long ago. The music was the background of that part of my life, and hearing the music can take me back to those days. 
