I Love Songs That Sing the Scriptures

I love songs that sing the scriptures. Reach out sometime and I can give you a list of some of the ones that speak to me. And, I’d appreciate your list on this topic too!
One of my favorites is Karla Adlophe’s song “You Are Mine,” where she’s beautifully echoing Isaiah 43:2:
“When you walk through the water, I will be with you,
When you pass through the river, those waves will not overtake you.
And when you walk on the fire, those flames will not touch you.
You are Mine. You are mine.”
And I have needed this refrain as a constant reminder of God’s promise in our lives. Have you needed it? Life this spring and summer has been scary, and unpredictable, and just when you might be feeling strong or safe enough from a virus, then the skies keep filling with smoke and we’re sent inside again. In all these times, we need the refrains of our faith, and her song has been one for me. Honest and faithful, all at once.
And so have our readings in Matthew through this season––they’ve shown us the promise of extravagant love.
Maybe that is hard to feel. I know it too. So … I encourage you… dig deep. Keep with these promises in your heart. In stillness and prayer, see if you indeed can connect to them. I have been happy we’ve gathered together on Tuesday nights in an effort to gather around God’s promises. And it has been encouraging.
In songs and stillness and proclamation, we are reminding each other that we have promises of God’s love, more generous than we can imagine.
And, we have promises that when that love is hard to feel, Christ is still present. Remember weeks ago in our readings from Matthew, it read: “From that time on … Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering.” This means that all these subsequent weeks of readings about the strong love of God, they are also enfolded in the story of how Jesus is going to suffer; but that doesn’t mean disconnection.
And this means when we are sick or worried; this means even when fire does surround or consume us—well, death took hold of Christ too.
Until it didn’t.
And God who knows suffering doesn’t leave us in ours.
As followers of Christ, we are now here for one another, and for our neighbor and for the world, in Christ’s way. We are called to suffer with those who suffer, and mourn with those who mourn. We are called to comfort the world with faith that these fears and insecurities are not, in fact, all there is now. There has been, and is, and will be … the love of our Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer.
So we keep loving our neighbor well and helping preserve life and health. We take precautions and strive for health and wholeness. And we keep worshipping and serving, because we are the church both in gathered worship and in our daily life.
And Christ is always with us. With him we are, forever, in God’s care.
-Pastor Shaun O’Reilly