Isaiah 51 (I, Even I Am He Who Comforts You)
In May of 2008, John Fawcett, the longtime worship leader and one of the key shapers of the worship culture of Resurrection passed from this life into God’s presence after a several year battle with cancer. John was the worship leader when Bonnie and I first began attending and then leading worship at Resurrection. He was a colleague of Robert Webber’s at Wheaton College and actually practiced on a weekly basis the blended worship and ancient future worship that Webber wrote about. John was a charismatic (in every sense of the word) leader who’s larger than life personality always faded into the background as he led in worship that ushered the congregation into the very presence of God.
John was also a leader in the healing prayer movement and was particularly adept at leading worship in the free flowing, Spirit led context of healing services. John also wrote many of the settings for liturgical songs that we use in our worship service. Bonnie and I learned a lot about worship leading directly from John in the few years we knew him and we’ve continued to learn and be blessed by the legacy he has left at Resurrection in the worship culture he helped form and in the people who knew him and were touched by him.
When Bonnie and I were asked to lead worship at our first healing conference last fall, we immediately asked ourselves, “what would John do?” I remember sitting with John in between sessions at the last PCM healing conference he did in the summer of 2007 as John flipped through four large, red binders with hundreds of worship songs in them as he said out loud, “well Lord, what do you want us to sing?” So Bonnie and I loaded up all of our music into large binders and tried the same approach!
After John passed, his widow Margie passed along an old manuscript book to our worship pastor, Steve, who showed it to me. On one page there was a set list of songs for a healing service, one of which was an original song, and on the next page was John’s sketches of that unfinished song in somewhat messy shorthand. It was a verse and a chorus of music, and a chorus and about three quarters of the lyrics for one verse. I studied the score and did my best to interpret it. Along the way I discovered that he was setting a portion of Isaiah 51. The chorus was from verses 12-13a, and the verse was from verse 13b. Using his framework, I finished the first verse and wrote two more verses based on the scripture verses following to the end of the section.
Below is the final piece. I post it as a thank you to John and his ministry and as a celebration that John’s gift of worship leading lives on in the many young worship leaders who have learned so much from him.
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Lamb of God
In our liturgy, we add the Lamb of God during the two penitential seasons of Advent and Lent just after the acclamation, “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast!” It is found in the Gospel of John 1:29, when John the Baptist sees Jesus and is the first to name him as the anointed one. He also predicts Jesus’ death as the sacrificial lamb, the one who was born to die.
This setting repeats the phrase the traditional three times. It does differ in that it ends with another statement of the text “Lamb of God.” As I wrote this, I was so filled with gratitude for what Jesus has done for us, that I just wanted the last thing to be sung to be this beautiful name of Jesus, “Lamb of God.”
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Humble Thyself in the Sight of the Lord
This is a SATB arrangement of Bob Hudson’s 1978 chorus Humble Thyself in the Sight of the Lord (copyright Maranatha! Music). I remember learning this song in youth group as a junior high student and it has stuck with me ever since. When Micah 6:8 showed up in the lectionary for a service I was planning music for, I added a cantor line setting of that passage to this arrangement to give it a Taize community style.
Obeying the Lord requires the humility to submit ourselves to his will and his ethic. Doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God is no easy, one time decision. Like the repetition of this piece, it requires the daily breathing of humility and submission to the Lord’s way.
Blessed is She (Song of Elizabeth)
During Advent, 2007, we had Wednesday night worship services focusing on the experience of Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother. While there are many settings of Mary’s song, the Magnificat, we had trouble finding a setting of Elizabeth’s song from Luke 1:41-45. As is often the case, I wrote this song because it seems that no one else had written one on the topic.
This arrangement is for SATB with a Soprano cantor and a piano accompaniment. Other instruments can easily be added—I think we used a djembe, guitar, and a cello when we did it.
SATB Refrain
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