JCK-at-large SITE

About the time the Coronavirus was starting to sweep the Globe in 2020, “The World’s Favourite Worship Songs” fell into my iTunes collection: “The Lion and the Lamb,” “Miracles,” “You in My Life,” “Let It Be Known.”  At first listen, I didn’t pick up much.  This was a far cry from “Rejoice, the Lord is King.” These songs seemed to be recorded with a Iive (and lively) audience most of the time.  They seemed a little loud to me, and maybe slightly distorted.  

Still, once I googled up the songs and transcribed the lyrics so I could follow along, this pulsating worship music with its loud raspy singers got to be a favourite start to the day — maybe accompanied with some calisthenics!  I found myself singing along with what sounded to me like hard-driving songs of defiance, a victory cry from the now-generation church — shouted out in the face of hard times! These songs had the feel of protest songs — or the raucous songs of the soccer fans at a Liverpool game.

Let it be known that our God reigns, our God reigns, 

We lift you up, up…

Come on let’s turn it up

We’re gonna sing it out

For all the world to hear

Oh oh oh whoa

How do you ‘beat’ that kind of song during down times?

There’s love for everyone

A new day has begun

Something to shout about…

Let it be known

That our God saves

Our God reigns

We lift You up up!

Let it be known

That love has come,

Love has won,

We lift You up up up oh…

Nothing can stop us now

No one can keep us down

We’ve found our voice again

Oh oh oh whoa….

Fabulous!  But when you caught your breath, and as the Virus spread, a question kept popping up: how do you sing such songs of invincibility, such defiant, triumphal songs in a world like ours?  The question got louder as the music did. 

As the tentacles of the Virus spread, reaching around the globe, choking out life, young and old with its lethal reach, the question seemed even more pressing:  How do you sing such songs in times like these?  Maybe my collection was for another era.

“By November 2021 the U.S. had recorded 771,000 deaths to COVID-19 and the very contagious Delta variant, twice as many as all the previous year.  Around the world, 2021 turned out to be such a deadly year as the Virus gained momentum:  as of Jun 10, some 1,884,146 people had died of it, compared with 1,880,510 in all of 2020.”  

And yet on many a morning, during those fearful days of 2021, my collection of the latest worship songs kept pounding out sounds of triumph:

Every high thing must come down!

Every stronghold shall be broken!

You wear the Victor’s crown,

You have overcome, You have overcome!

I loved their tone — or, let’s say, their theme!  Yet my songs seemed like such a stretch.  The virus was striking very close to home.  Most everyone I met was “if not infected, definitely affected.” When some dear friends and spiritual leaders, people like Catherine Bwalya Chachi and Elizabeth Sakala succumbed, we had to ask again:  How do you sing such songs at times like these?

Your promise still stands

Great is Your faithfulness, faithfulness

I’m still in Your hands

This is my confidence

You’ve never failed me yet

Never failed me yet;

I’ve seen You move, You move the mountains

And I believe I’ll see You do it again

You made a way, where there was no way

And I believe I’ll see You do it again.

Still worse times were to follow.  2022 turned out to be a year for various mutations of the virus and by the end of the year it was estimated that “the outbreak of the coronavirus disease had spread to almost every country in the world: 6.7 million people had died after contracting the virus.”  We were in the grips of a worldwide plague!  And yet, on many a morning in 2022, I was hearing the sounds of Soul Survivor and Tom Smith!  

‘Cause You can make my soul sing, You can make my world breathe

Nothing is impossible with You in my life!

With You I’ll cross the river, walking on the water,

Nothing is impossible with You in my life!

With You in my life! With You in my life!

Nothing is impossible with You in my life!

Then, as though the virus were not enough for our battered world,  Russia opted to launch its horrific war on Ukraine in February, 2022 — a barbarian invasion for modern times!  All our lovely sanguine expectations of a “better Y2K world,” of a century in which our “better angels” were coming to the fore — all lay in the shambles of Bucha and Dnipro as the Russian hordes poured into vulnerable cities.  War crimes which left the world stunned in disbelief, innocent civilians massacred in the streets, atrocities without number,  infrastructure reduced to rubble, bombed-out theatres, schools and hospitals, mass graves, horror upon horror, tragedy upon tragedy — how do you sing loud songs of triumph during the ‘Barbarian Invasion of 2022?’

The God who was and is to come

The power of the Risen One

The God who brings the dead to life,

You’re the God of miracles!

You’re the God of miracles!

I believe in You, I believe in You

You’re the God of miracles!

I believe in You, I believe in You

You’re the God of miracles!

Not only were they declaring faith in our sovereign God, these triumphal songs of the contemporary church: they were doing it loud!  These were songs of a defiant faith!  And songwriters like Jonathan David and Melissa Helser promised still more volume! 

I raise a hallelujah

In the presence of my enemies,

I raise a hallelujah

Louder than the unbelief;

I raise a hallelujah

My weapon is a melody,

I raise a hallelujah

Heaven comes to fight for me!

I’m gonna sing in the middle of the storm

Louder and louder, you’re gonna hear my praises roar!

Up from the ashes hope will arise,

Death is defeated, the King is alive!

It was as though such songs of triumph would not be muted — unless of course the hearer chose to turn the volume down!  

Isn’t it amazing, I thought.  At the very time when the world was reeling from calamity to calamity, and perhaps questioning the providence of God as the missiles flew, and doubting the calm assurance of the Desiderata that “the universe is unfolding as it should” — this young, now-generation church was shouting out its longstanding faith in the unshakeable sovereignty of God!  This was against all odds!  And the music had gone viral in “everyone’s favourite songs of the year!”  At the very season which seemed to call for something more nuanced, a more muted statement of faith, perhaps a toned down view of divine determinism, these youthful songs were dinning out strong Calvinistic conviction that God is in control of all things, no matter what!  

I was picking up unqualified faith in Divine Preservation here, that God keeps all created things existing and “upholds all things by his word of power” (Heb 1:3).  I was hearing the doctrine of Divine Concurrence, that God cooperates with created things in every action, “accomplishing all things according to the counsel of his will,” that while “the lot is cast into the lap… the decision is wholly from the Lord” (Prov 16:33).  There was the traditional doctrine of God’s Government here, that God directs all things in order that they accomplish his purposes, in that “His kingdom rules over all” (Ps 103:19).  My songs were all about the providence of God.

I decided that these loud songs must be exactly the right sounds for our viral days.  At the very time when the “new atheism” would demand empirical “evidence” for God’s existence; at the very time when a toned down arminianism might say that “God responds to human choices and actions in such a way that his ultimate purposes are served” — at such times my music drowned out all such denials and modulations with loud songs of triumph!  

This music wants nothing to do with even a hint of demurrings.  Somehow this now-generation church keeps shouting out its victory songs louder and louder — in the most unqualified terms!  Yes, the problems of the world seem overwhelming.  Yes, we’re still “walking around these walls, hoping that they will fall.”   No, we do not have the solutions to our mounting challenges.  Indeed, the old problems of sin and evil are as persistent and prevalent as ever.  Yet still!  This irrepressible faith of today’s church keeps finding new expression in it’s noisy songs: hard-hitting, defiant and, most definitely, loud.

I decided to leave the volume alone.  Loud, it seems, is what these songs must be.  Earplugs will again be needed at the doors — once concerts resume.  But these are days of adversity.  The mystery of evil, if not the horsemen of the apocalypse, is stalking the world.  This is our time to “Shout it out!”  — the historically rooted, recomposed and remastered song of a defiant church!  Are these songs pure escapism?  Does the contemporary church have its corporate head buried in the sand?  Are we not facing the problems of our day honestly?    No doubt there is something to all that.   

But what if our modern songwriters are impelled by the same Spirit which gripped the ancient prophet as he faced his own invading armies and composed his reeling, upbeat Shigonooth? No doubt we’ll be putting Habakkuk to new, loud music as well!

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.  GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places”(3:17-18).

(To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments).