As a professional musician, I spend a lot of time working through the problems of my occupation / vocation overlap (‘occupation’ being my paycheck, and ‘vocation’ being my Eric Liddell, “When I [insert task] I feel [God’s] pleasure” calling). That overlap is different for different people. There’s a joy in getting paid to do what you love and are called to, and also a danger that goes hand-in-hand. Namely, to step away from ‘work’ is to feel like you are stepping away from your calling. The past several years, I have made a habit of saving up my weeks off and taking a mini-sabbatical with the family. It’s an opportunity to be refreshed away from always being on call, always being invested in people, and always learning and/or teaching new music (all of which are things that I love). Inevitably, the first week or so will be spent battling depression, and I’ve just come to expect that (prayers appreciated – especially for my wife who puts up with me). But on the other side of it, I’ve found a solace. I find that, about midway through the second week, I begin listening to music just for the sake of enjoying it. I’m not listening for the sake of learning it or looking for new ideas for the choir or ensemble. I’m just being present and going back to the source – loving music for the sake of music, not because it’s my job.
While the previous paragraph is definitely part tangent (and thank you for enduring it), there is a reason I mention it. You see, during my first sabbatical a few years ago (that time where I was getting back to the pure joy of just enjoying music for music’s sake) I stumbled across the music of Wendell Kimbrough. I have had folks recommend his music off-and-on for a couple years, and while I had dutifully purchased an album, I hadn’t really listened to it. As I said, given my job, I am basically vomiting out music that I have to learn and/or teach. Right at the start of my sabbatical, I noticed that Wendell Kimbrough had released a new EP, so I purchased it and pressed play as I sat in my back yard. I can still type out the opening lines of the song by memory,
‘It’s good to wake up and sing the Lord’s praise,
It’s good to lie down and count all the ways
That God has been faithful and worthy of song,
O God, You make my heart sing!’
I was undone. It was a pivotal moment in that ‘first week or so of depression’ into the ‘feeling human again’ process. I still go back to the well of that song and the way the Lord used it to minister to me. Folks at GCC may also note that I have never had us sing it in church, and there’s a reason – and it’s purely selfish. I don’t want to sully that memory, because I love how the Lord used that song. Instead, when I got back from that sabbatical, I began going through Kimbrough’s catalogue of music, much of which involves Psalm settings. I found a number of pieces to introduce as anthems, but one stood out to me as a simple, yet profound congregational hymn, which the church will be singing as the Hymn of Response on July 27th, Eternal Weight of Glory.
There’s frightfully little about Wendell Kimbrough online (which, to be honest, is almost refreshing). He seems like the sort of person I would enjoy visiting with over a coffee. As the story (what little I could find of it) goes, his pastor in 2020 asked him to set the Psalms with more modern lyrics, and the rest is history. Originally, he began releasing one song per month to supporters on Patreon. This led to the eventual release of several albums, including the one that the hymn in question is from (check out the album, ‘Psalms We Sing Together’). Over the years he has led music for churches in DC, Alabama, Dallas, and is currently (as I type) studying Counseling at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan.
‘For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison’ (II Corinthians 4:17). Paul writes to the Corinthian church, encouraging them to endure their suffering by focusing on eternal realities. And so, Kimbrough’s song begins,
‘Now the days and hours and moments of our suffering seem so long,
And the toilsome wait and wond’ring threaten silence to our song,
Now our pain is real and pressing where our faith is thin and weak,
But our hope is set on Jesus, and we cling to Him, our strength.’
That third line really strikes at a core distinction that can get lost in our desire to promote setting our mind on ‘things above’. We can get to a point where we feel guilty that we let the ‘hurt’ in our lives hurt so much. But God is the ‘God of all comfort’. He invites us to take it to Him, to be able to say “This hurts! I don’t understand.” The psalms again and again provide us with a blueprint for casting our cares ‘upon the Lord’. And for the Christian, the last line of that first verse is the bedrock of our hope – Christ. There is no other Rock.
‘Oh, eternal weight of glory! Oh, inheritance divine!
We will see our Lord redeeming every past and future time,
All our pains will be transfigured like the scars of Christ, our Lord,
We will see the weight of glory and our broken years restored.’
Christ took the symbol of horror and painful death – the cross – and turned it into a symbol of His power over death and the hope of the resurrection. His scars – the ones Thomas demanded to be able to touch before he would dare believe in the resurrection - are His receipt that the judgement of God has been assuaged, that we may approach the Throne with confidence of those redeemed by the blood that poured from those very wounds.
‘We will see our wounded Savior, we’ll behold Him face to face,
And we’ll hear our anguished stories sung as vict’ry songs of grace,’
Those two lines still bring tears to my eyes. I’m only thirty-seven, but I have seen brokenness. Not as much as many others, but far more than some. The idea of God somehow being at work in the midst of such overwhelming brokenness can be just as comforting as it is frustrating – as my brother once said on a car ride home from rehearsal, “I’m glad God is sovereign, because otherwise there’d be no hope that He could redeem all this.” When we pass from seeing ‘through a mirror dimly’, to the point of clarity when even the worst, most broken moments of our story, are not only made right but seen within the context of our sovereign Lord’s plan to complete His good work in us, to use all things for our good and His glory; to be able to not only be done with our sin and brokenness – but have those ‘anguished stories’ turned by His grace and mighty power into a victory song of grace as the redeemed … Hasten that day, brothers and sisters. May our hearts long for the day when we sing that song around His Throne.
‘For behold! I tell a mystery, at the trumpet sound we’ll wake,
Death is swallowed up in vict’ry when we meet our King of Grace,
Every year we thought was wasted, every night we cried “How long?”
All will be a passing moment in our Savior’s vict’ry song.’
Amen
