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I am so excited to share this guest post by my sister and brother-in-law. Be sure to check out Grant's music and Beccy's blog. Links are included below... Text: James Montgomery, 1825 Tune & Arrangement: Grant Adams, 2015 Click to listen:
The best way to learn something is to watch a master do it. This song follows Jesus in his final hours on earth and it invites us to watch how a master handles it when everything goes catastrophically wrong. This song commands us: To go there. To watch Him. To not to turn away…even when it gets ugly. So that we might learn to do what He did: to pray with our whole being, to suffer for a cause, to lay down our lives and to rise. It’s tempting to skip over the less palatable parts of the story. “The wormwood and the gall and the pangs of his soul sustained” just doesn’t quite have the luster of pink plastic Easter eggs filled with Starburst Jelly Beans. But this song reminds us that if we watch and follow Jesus as He is“beaten, bound, reviled [and] arraigned,” we will watch and follow Him as he rises.
The song in this post was performed and recorded by my brother-in-law Grant. In addition to managing a wind farm and keeping up with his almost 4 year old and almost 2 year old, Grant plays bass in a Minneapolis "rhythm and blues grass" band, Good Diction. He's a songwriter known for crafting intricate and clever lyrics, which you can sample at his own music website (here).
Grant's wife, my sister, Beccy, wrote a little about what this song is all about. Beccy blogs at beccyjoy.wordpress.com about mental and relational health, social justice, realistic motherhood, and whatever else strikes at a moment when she has a moment to write about it.