Friday, January 28, 2011

"Oh How He Loves Us"

This song by David Crowder has been balm.
I thought it was a cover of a 16th or 18th Century hymn.
The theology is piercing, succinct and too great to consider with just a once-through.
In fact, the theology is clearer with free-flowing tears.

So I was surprised that it was written recently, real recently, by John Mark McMillan.

And then, his original lyrics have a story behind them, born out of something that involves grief. I don't know the story yet. The original lyrics state: "Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss..." I liked these but didn't know why until I read this from McMillan's blog:

The idea behind the lyric is that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth converge in a way that is both beautiful and awkwardly messy. Think about the birth of a child, or even the death of Jesus himself. These miracles are both incredibly beautiful and incredibly sloppy ("gory" may be more realistic, but “Heaven meets earth like a gory mess” didn’t seem to have the same ring). Why does the church have such a problem with things being sloppy?

1 comment:

John Bryson said...

wow...its kinda weird cause my middle name is mark??? hahaha....love david crowders beard!!!
--John