The way is low

I think this song was written for a Uniting Church Youth Convention. In 1980.
But it’s widely used especially in the Lutheran Church in Australia. Not surprising that it finds a ready home with us Lutherans. Traditionally at least & maybe still, we see & feel the Christian path as a lowly journey, not a grand & victorious highway.
‘Low, the way is low with the man the angels praise.
He who spoke the sky was a baby dressed in hay’.
When I was asked to put tune names to songs for the Australian Lutheran hymnbook supplement, this song got ‘Long Flat’. It’s the name of the small dairying community just across the river from Murray Bridge where I grew up. It was a good place for a childhood, ordinary, & the prevailing smell of cow manure was in the air.
We are companions of the one whose name is Love,
we share his life as we grow.
We carry Jesus' death with each and every breath,
our hope is high, the way is low.
I find the idea of ‘we carry Jesus’ death’ a very strong one. 2 Corinthians (ch 4-5?). For me it connects with being ‘in Christ’.
2. See the glory road, he was tempted by it too.
But he set his course with Jerusalem in view.
The temptations after Jesus was baptised are certainly part of this song (‘If you are the Son of God ….’) & Luke 9 has Jesus heading to Jerusalem
3. When our time is gone, we will see the great new day.
Till that day appears, all we know is Jesus' way.
Some of us can get too down on ourselves, but we all need reminding all the time of the ‘narrow way’, the way that is walked by those who are ‘poor in spirit’.

Long the hunters have prepared

‘Long the hunters have prepared their steel,
the priests and elders gather for the kill’
On the new CD collection, this song’s included. It’s one of those that sits half-way between a community song & a performance piece. Both because of the tune & the lyrics. The melody is over an octave, the words are more left-of-field than most of mine. But the chorus is a community confession time:
‘And we’re no different than they were then
always try to save our own skin.
Lord, have mercy on us – like you had mercy on them’
The verses tell the story, reflect on it. The chorus is a prayer.
Verse 1 & 2 set the scene: ‘still they must delay’ picks up the long lead time of those who want Jesus disposed of, because, as v.2 says: ‘Jesus wasn’t right, didn’t want to fight – offered love, they didn’t want that!’Verse 3 thinks about the trial with ‘crooked witnesses’ & the fact that ‘Jesus, you had no defenders’ (going into prayer again). Verse 4 is about Peter’s denial – ‘suddenly the cock was crowing’.
After another chorus, Verse 5 summarises: ‘He is sentenced … his crime “compassion” … here’s the lamb & here’s the slaughter’.
Written back in 1987, I still like to sing it. It still feels relevant, & the story has echoes in many current events,

How the world was won - new CD now available

‘Let’s remind each other how the world was won,
not with mighty army nor with soldier’s gun,
his unlikely palace – Mother Mary’s womb.
Operation Jesus, from a borrowed room.’

As these words from the title song suggest, this is not a ‘religious’ CD, if religion is about nice things, holy words & pious scenes.
That’s not how God changes the world’s history.
It happens when Jesus takes the ‘low way’ to Jerusalem, when the ‘sightless Pharisees condemned as heresies the wide-eyed working of the Lord.’
When ‘the hunters … gather for the kill’, the ‘palms lay where they fell’, Jesus was taken prisoner by the religious authorities & ‘condemned to carry a cross’.
‘Death cannot hold you, death is not that clever,
God lives forever!’
This new CD is not for entertainment = amusement, distraction, excitement.
The intention of these songs is to tell in various ways how God chooses to fix things. Hopefully, some of that intention is realised.

‘Lose your life & save it,
give it up and get it back.’