Friday, March 21, 2008

Good Friday, songs with questionable theology and random stuff

Tonight my church, like many is holding a Good Friday service. This past Wednesday, our student ministry spent the whole evening reflecting on the events of Jesus' last week through a worship service. It got me thinking, it's hard sometimes to come back to the cross and reflect. It's not a great feeling to be honest with yourself and admit that you're part of the problem, part of the reason why Jesus had to be brutally crucified. Sometimes worshiping in spirit and in truth is merely choosing to worship when you don't feel like it.

Speaking of worship, we did a song Wednesday that I always am a bit "ify" about: "Above All." This song has a great melody, and some spectacular lyrics about the cross...but one word seems to always throw me off. The line is "you thought of me above all." At first glance, it's a great sentimental statement - that Jesus would think of us when he was sacrificing himself on the cross. However, if we take this lyric at face value, we run into the problem of making God out to be some warm-fuzzy person who puts us at the center of his universe. This isn't scriptural. I've come to the conclusion (after reading the songwriters comments on the song), that the intention wasn't to make the lyric "me" centered, but to highlight God's tender love for us and show that if we were the only ones on earth, Jesus would have still died for us - God loves us that much, he cares about us above all creation. So yeah, it's a bit of a metaphorical stretch, but hey- if you have too many problems with it, don't sing it ;)

Finally, if you visit this blog directly (instead through a feed reader), you might have noticed I moved my "Recent Favorite Blog Posts I'm Reading" section to the top of the page. I don't post everyday, but I do share my favorite Google Reader items just about every day. So if it's new stuff to read you're looking for, it makes it easier to find on my blog. Do you like it up at the top like that, or should I move it back to the side? Or do you not care?

No comments:

Post a Comment