Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Be Lifted Higher than all You've Overcome

Sometimes listening to songs, one line jumps out at me and my brain chews on it for a while.

Chris Tomlin’s “Jesus Son of God” is one of those songs.

“Be lifted higher than all You’ve overcome / Your Name be louder than any other song / There is no power that can come against Your love / The Cross was enough / The Cross was enough.”

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First of all, this song is special to me because my Boaz and I have sang along to it multiple times and any reminders of him make me smile.

But beyond geeking about yet another song my boyfriend (man-friend) and I have in common, there is the EPIC TRUTH expressed by the song!!!!!!!!

Think about it.

Jesus was subject to all evil: The corruption of a government (the Roman criminal justice system), the betrayal of friends (Judas), public humiliation, poverty, pain, physical and mental pain, marginalization by society (the Roman government as well as the Jewish political leaders), intense physical pain, a slow agonizing death, and death itself.

Yet what did He do on Easter?

HE ROSE AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He OVERCAME all that listed above, and that’s just the short abridged large-scale list.

I think about the arena where Passion: White Flag was recorded as I’m guessing it was at a large scale venue (my Boaz would then dork around on the internets and find it to please his music-nerd self, but I wanna get this blog post out). But anyway, there were probably thousands of stories in that room. There were probably thousands of struggles: Unemployment or underemployment (coming out of the Great Recession), loss of family / friends, chronic illnesses, broken relationships, hurts from childhood, individuals living lives adapting to one or more disabilities, victims of crime, victims of civil wrongs, people recovering from substance abuse, and the list could go on and on. All these people were at Passion to praise God and to see Chris Tomlin and his posse.

I imagine that moment of singing those words: Be lifted higher than all You’ve overcome / Your name be louder than any other song / there is no power that can come against Your love /The Cross was enough brought many people to tears, brought many people to their knees as the struggles they faced came to their minds and hearts. And then I bet their worship grew even deeper as they realized the Truth expressed in the song: For every injustice and moment(s) of pain represented in that room, Christ has overcome. Christ is lifted higher than all of it. As the people in the room and as I reflect on this truth, I can run to God for comfort and hope in the midst of struggle.


The Cross was enough. The Cross was Enough