Here’s one thing that I’ve observed about songwriting: when we listen to songs, it all seems to flow naturally as if the songs just rolled right off the lyricist’s fingers like water down a waterfall… or perhaps maybe like lava out of a volcano. At the same time, songwriters often put quite a lot of effort into what they say, fine-tuning word variations and phrasing to get the best (though not always ideal) combination of rhythm, rhyme, impact, and deep truth. There’s often so much more there than meets the eye, and if the songwriter is a bit of a music nerd (like me), you might even find some things “hidden” in the song in plain sight.
I wanted to take the opportunity to share bits about the songs I write, since they often have a story behind them. So, let’s start with my recent Christmas song, “You Bring Joy”.
I wrote this song in 2020, while on a personal retreat up in the mountains. I felt a desire to write a song then, but I had wanted to write about the journey through brokenness and healing. I even worked through a brainstorming exercise on the topic. I felt convicted, though, that I shouldn’t write about that particular topic until I had walked through it more deeply (I was, and still am, in that type of process), and so I decided to write a Christmas song. 🙂
I love the traditional Christmas song, “Joy to the World”, and so that theme stuck, but I wanted to sing to God rather than just about God. So, even the title directly addresses God Himself.
You may wonder about my word choice in saying “You have come down to conquer hell”, and with reason: it’s not very literal, is it? Hell is a place of absolutely terrifying separation from God, and that place didn’t disappear with the coming of Jesus, right? No, the use of “hell” here is figurative, representing the power of evil to keep us separate from God. That, my friends, got conquered, amen?
Probably the most difficult part of the song for me to write was the first verse, “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace to all Who know the depths of His pleasure, poured out on the great and the small”. It’s based on Luke 2:14, a part of the Christmas story in the Bible. As some of you may know, Luke 2:14 presents a translation and manuscript challenge, which you can read more about here. Now, my wording is not Scripture and it isn’t intended to be, but I wanted my wording to be based on the oldest, most reliable, Biblical manuscripts, as rendered by translations such as the NASB and the ESV. Christ came to bring peace to our relationship with God, but it isn’t a forced universal peace; instead, it’s a kind offer of peace with God for whosoever will receive it and believe in Jesus – for God’s elect. At the same time, I wanted to convey the truth that God’s offer of salvation does not play favorites in the way that we as humans might sinfully try to do.
And, of course, you’d know that I, as a missionary, would sneak in a good missions reference. Verse two picks up where the first verse left off, continuing “great and the small” with “shepherds and kings” coming to worship Jesus. But I also want to remind us all of our responsibility to bring the Good News of Jesus to all the nations of the earth: “The night that began in meekness Sent light to the ends of the earth!”. And then comes the key change from F to G and the accompanying energy, putting the musical exclamation point on the end of verse two. (“musical exclamation point?” – yeah, it’s important for music to support and enhance the lyrics. Ask me sometime about the popular worship song that contains a musical ellipsis!)
Christmas is not just a cute, romantic season. It’s certainly not just a time to be ridiculously busy. Instead, it is a time to remember the initiation of an overwhelmingly majestic chain of events, flowing from God’s incomparable wisdom and love, that has brought peace with God to the very doorsteps of our hearts – should we choose to accept it.
This Christmas, choose Jesus, whether for the first time, or in greater depth and commitment.
Resources: