I Reviewed All the Lyrics Our Church Has Sung This Year and Noticed a Troubling Pattern

Recently, I wrote about the music that most churches sing on Sundays and how it has changed over the years. And I don’t mean that music has changed in obvious stylistic ways. I mean in terms of the content of our songs, specifically that today we do not often sing about the return of Christ.

Matthew Westerholm, a professor of worship, did his doctoral research comparing extensive collections of worship songs from our era and previous eras. “Among many similarities,” he notes, “one difference was striking: Our churches no longer sing about Christ’s second coming as much as we used to.”

While reading D. A. Carson’s book about prayer, I noticed he made a similar point back in the early 90s (Praying with Paul, 27–29). He asks rhetorically how many congregations sing with fervor and with anticipation about Christ’s second coming? The implied answer is not many. Then, to prove his point, he quotes at length two old hymns explicitly about the second coming. Not only had I never sung the hymns that he highlights as well-known examples, but I had never even heard of them.

This got me thinking not so much about the broader church in America and beyond, but about our own church here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. How much do we sing about the return of Christ?

I asked our worship pastor for the list of all the songs we’ve sung together this year. The number stands at fifty-eight different songs. Some songs we sang frequently, such as “His Glory and Our Good” by CityAlight, which became somewhat of an anthem for us as we preached through 1 Corinthians last year. Several others we only sang once.

When I looked at the list, about two-thirds of the songs we sang were written in the last fifteen years. I thought fifteen years would serve well enough as an arbitrary time marker for what constitutes a “new” song. The rest of our songs were older. The modern classic “In Christ Alone” is more than twenty years old. Other songs, like “Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy,” are almost two hundred years old.

When I think about the indictment made by Professor Westerholm that most churches do not sing about the return of Christ as much as they used to, I checked to see if our modern songs followed that trend. Upon reviewing all the lyrics, I found out he is right. Our church hardly sings about the return of Christ, at least explicitly.

If you broaden the criteria to include songs that generally speak about a Christian’s death and resurrection, as well as our bright future with God and his people, then we actually sing a number of those. Consider the song, “Abide,” which goes,

When I pass through death as I enter rest,
I depend on You, I depend on You
For eternal life to be raised with Christ,
I depend on You, I depend on You.
(written by Aaron Williams, Aaron Keyes, and Jake Fauber)

These lines clearly lift our eyes toward eternity. Also consider “Behold the Lamb.”

When the age of death is done
We’ll see Your face, bright as the sun
We’ll bow before the King of Kings
Oh God, forever we will sing
(written by Kristian Stanfill, Melodie Malone, and Phil Wickham)

The modern hymn “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death” by Keith and Kristyn Getty and Matt Papa is filled with lyrics centered on eternity and celebrates the well-known first question of the Heidelberg Catechism. Sandra McCracken’s song “We Will Feast in the House of Zion” certainly looks toward our eternal feasting. Additionally, the songs “On That Day” and “Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me,” both by CityAlight, emphasize the theme of eternity. We sang all of these multiple times.

Also worth mentioning is “The Lord Is My Salvation” by Keith & Kristyn Getty, which has clear lines about the hope of resurrection.

And when I reach my final day
He will not leave me in the grave
But I will rise, He will call me home
The Lord is my salvation
(written by Nathan Nockels, Jonas Myrin, Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty)

However, when I examined the lyrics, I noticed that very few of the modern songs we sing on Sunday at our church have the explicitness about the return of Christ found in “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” by Edward Mote from the 1800s. “When he shall come with trumpet sound,” the hymn goes, “O may I then in him be found.” Or consider the lines, “Lord, haste the day” from the hymn “It Is Well with My Soul.”

Indeed, out of the thirty-six modern songs we have sung this year, I found only three that include lines about the return of Christ. The hymn “Christus Victor (Amen)” by the Gettys, Bryan Fowler, and Matt Boswell contains some wonderful lines, such as,

O Most High, King of the nations
Robed in praise, crowned with splendor
On that day who will not tremble?
When You stand, Christ the Victor
Who was, and is, and is forever

The language of “on that day” is biblical shorthand for the return of Christ (see 1 Cor. 3:13; Heb. 10:25).

The song “O Praise the Name (Anástasis)” by Hillsong also has overt lyrics about the second coming. Anástasis, by the way, is the Greek word for resurrection.

He shall return in robes of white,
The blazing Son shall pierce the night.
And I will rise among the saints,
My gaze transfixed on Jesus’ face
O praise the name of the Lord our God
O praise His name forever more
For endless days we will sing Your praise
(written by Benjamin Hastings, Dean Ussher, and Marty Sampson)

Our church has also enjoyed singing “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery,” which speaks explicitly of the second advent.

What a foretaste of deliverance
How unwavering our hope
Christ in power resurrected
As we will be when He comes
(written by Matt Boswell, Michael Bleecker, and Matt Papa)

If the Bible had little to say about the return of Christ, then it would make sense for churches to sing little about it. However, the Bible has much to say about the return of Christ; I would guess that we could find over one hundred references to it in the New Testament. Part of what it means for a Christian to grow in maturity must involve consuming a well-rounded theological diet, not only through personal Bible reading and preaching but also in our Sunday singing.

Let me come back to D. A. Carson again as he writes about a passage in 2 Thessalonians 1. “We are losing our anticipation of the Lord’s return, the anticipation that Paul shows is basic to his thought.” Then he adds, “Even though we do not disavow central truths, for many of us their power has been eviscerated. The prospect of the Lord’s return in glory, the anticipation of the wrap-up of the universe as we know it, the confidence that there will be a final and irrevocable division between the just and the unjust—these have become merely creedal points for us, instead of ultimate realities that even now are life-transforming” (Praying with Paul, 27).

I do not expect my blog post to have much effect on those singers and songwriters who will shape the next generation of the church because I don’t know many of them. However, I encourage anyone reading this who possesses these skills and aspirations to serve the Lord and the church by providing us with more songs and hymns that celebrate Christ’s return.

We cannot completely blame the worship leaders and pastors of our church for not singing much about the return of Christ. Our leaders thoughtfully select the best theological songs that can also be sung congregationally. Unfortunately, there simply are not that many new songs available that cover this territory.

But as much as the worship leaders and pastors of our church (and other churches) have influence over the theological diet in our preaching and singing within our local contexts, let us approach this with a focus on preaching and singing about all that God has said in his Word. May it never be that the promise of the return of Christ becomes for us, as Carson puts it, a mere creedal point, something we might acknowledge , yet also something that causes us to yawn.

* Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash

Visions of God – A Hymn I Wrote

John Calvin famously wrote, “Man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.1.2).

In other words, there is a feedback loop at work: We can’t (truly) know ourselves until we know God.

In the Bible, when men and women come face to face with God—that is, when the volume of this feedback loop is turned up loud—the response is always the same, and it’s always twofold: a heightened sense of one’s own sinfulness and a heightened sense of the holiness of God.

Several years ago, I wrote a hymn about this experience of coming face to face with God. It’s called “Visions of God.” I included the lyrics and the audio below. I hope you enjoy it.

I based the hymn on the passages where Job, Isaiah, and Peter have dramatic encounters with God (Job 42:1–9, Isaiah 6:1–7, Luke 5:1–11). While these encounters (and the others like them in the Bible) have always been interesting to me, I found it difficult to capture their experiences in a song. People often complain about the music in church, but I don’t think most of them realize how difficult it is to write a good song until they have tried it themselves. This humbling experience is a lesson I’ve had the privilege of learning several times.

I didn’t set the hymn to music. That would have been far more than humbling; it would have been impossible! I’m very thankful that one of my brothers (Brian) is very gifted musically and was able to do this. Brian’s wife (Molly), who is also very gifted, was gracious enough to help him. Though the audio recording below is only a rough demo, I think it turned out very well.

The only other comment that I would like to make on the hymn is that I know it is not the whole story. I realize there is much more to Job, Isaiah, and Peter’s encounter with God than what was felt on the front side of their experience. That is to say, there is more to their experience (and our experience for that matter) than an overwhelming sense of our smallness and sinfulness.  

If I had written another hymn, I would have attempted a sequel to “Visions of God.” In it I would have attempted to write about the great mercy of God in forgiving Job’s self-righteousness and God’s blessing the latter part of his life more than the first; the mercy of the atoning coal that touched Isaiah’s lips and his commissioning as a missionary; and the mercy of the instructions to Peter, “Do not be afraid” and his new employment as a “fisher of men.”

Maybe someday I will write that hymn.

*     *     *

Visions of God

Verse 1
I knew by the hearing of the ear
But thunder, storm, and lightning roared
Now in dust and ashes I repent in holy fear
For my eyes have seen, seen the sovereign Lord

Chorus
To know me as I am
And see You as you are
Sovereign and Wise
Holy and True (x 2)

Verse 2

Woe is me, I am undone
I am a man with lips unclean
Now all my former ways I shun
For my eyes have seen, they have seen the King

Chorus

Verse 3
Faced with the greatness of the haul
I know I am a man with sin
Now to the Saviors knees I fall
For my eyes have seen, the Fisher of Men

Chorus

[Picture by Sam Ferrara / Unsplash]