Our Primary Muse
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
A few posts ago I mentioned that I expected men like Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman and Lincoln Brewster to soon create more cross centred songs. WhatI meant was that these men write beautiful poetry to describe God our creator and Jesus our friend but less frequently write songs about our salvation or where Jesus ransomed us. I wanted to quickly outline what I meant and I want to give three reasons why the Cross should always be sung.
People (songwriters and cruisos) seem to find the creating majesty of God the primary muse for their reflection. What that means is that above all other things, people love to sing about the creator-ness of God. Another pillar of modern Christian song is an emphasis on vague statements about God's God-ness. eg (I'm trying to make one up without bagging out any particular song) "You are High and wonderful, my God".This statement is true and so is the fact that God is creator, and we should keep singing songs about these things - but... should they be our primary muse?
I believe Christian song should be primarily reflecting on the cross. Heres why.1) God is on about the Cross. All of his revealed word points to the cross. The Cross is where we see God's nature and mercy and grace. Hebrews 1:1 says that while in the past God told us about himself in heaps of different ways, now he speaks through Jesus. Jesus who died. We meet God in the cross. Yes, he is the God who created all things, but all things find their fulfillment in the cross.
2) We can only worship God because of the cross. Heb 13:15 says that our sacrifice of praise can only come through Jesus. It is only through his blood that any of us dare approach God. We should be consumed for presuming to come before God and praise him, but we are not because Jesus death has made us holy in his sight.
3) Thirdly, the singing in heaven will all be the cross. Read Rev 5. What get's the angels going? Jesus, the sacrificial lamb. We want to sing now about what we will be singing about then.
Keep writing and singing songs about the cross! There are so many more reasons why but these three were the first I could think of. We should be cross people. We should be cross singers. May we keep being cross centered and may Jesus work there be our primary muse to his glory!!
P.S - The photo is of the band 'muse'. Check them out, they rock.
Posted byDan at 4:05 PM
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Spot on Dan.
This is one reason I'm really liking the Sovereign Grace stuff so much - their songs truly are songs for the cross-centred life!