Good Friday
Last year during Lent, I read a masterful sermon by Peter Leithart. In a few short pages, he spans all of history and human experience, from before time to the end of time, revealing this world’s cruciform shape with magnificent poetic force. This was the first sermon that inspired me to sing, not another relevant song but the very sermon itself. When Adam handed me these chops to work with, they too seemed to sweep through the soul and powerfully pronounce the center of all things. A week or so of word-work, and Good Friday was born.
Lyrics
On the Cross hangs everything
What height, what depth, what breadth, of Triune love
From the world’s first breath, it fills the firmament
Between the heavens and this dusty Earth it stands
The first tree to bear fruit that remains
Chorus 1:
The tree of knowledge and of life
(From the Cross rose sweet incense)
All reality is cruciform
(Where Jesus burned in His love)
Reaching out in between the silence
In the silence . . . .
You broke the silence
With Your Word
Your Final Word
On the Cross
On the Cross hangs everything
By a tree one man fell, all men died
On a tree one man saved, all men gained
By a tree a wife seduced and a bride redeemed
On a tree God broke the curse He blessed us all
Chorus 2:
The tree of knowledge and of life
(From the Cross rose sweet incense)
All reality is cruciform
(Where Jesus burned in His love)
Reaching out in between the silence
In the silence . . . .
You broke the silence
Stretched as a man
Between heaven and earth
Future and past
Inside and out, inside and out
Wooden Ark, holds Jesus and all His house
Through the flood and Baptism to a new creation
The wooden ark of the new covenant
The exalted Savior’s throne
Sealed treasure chest now opened wide
To show the gifts of God
Chorus 1