Breathing with Both Lungs
This song appears on our EP “In Wilderness and Glory.”
Download the entire EP for free here.
We wrote this song for a sermon series at our church where we were focusing on the call to be a church committed to both worship and mission (for an article we wrote for Relevant Magazine on worship and mission, click here).
Heard You Were A King (Come Thou Long Expected Jesus)
This song appears on our EP “In Wilderness and Glory.”
Download the entire EP for free here.
This is a re-imagining of the Hymn, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus that I wrote for Advent, 2007. The musical form uses a repetitive ground bass figure in the piano that gives a sense of stasis that is apt for a song and season of waiting for Christ to come. When it reaches the section with the lyrics, “heard you were a king” this pattern and the rhythm of the songs comes to an abrupt break.
In the midst of our waiting, we hear the news of a coming king whose presence will change the things in our life that we so desperately need changed—the violence outside of us in the streets and more profoundly, the violence within our own hearts.
In a culture that refuses to wait for anything, even Christmas as we feast on the season nearly before thanksgiving, and in a culture that substitutes the presence of things—like material gifts and presents—for the presents of people—our families, friends, and God—Jesus’ coming is a reminder that we need his advent in our hearts and lives every day of the year. God with us in the person of Jesus, our Immanuel, is the true gift that has the power to change.
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