Living Hope – Phil Wickham
Happy Easter Sunday! And this morning there really are so many songs we could talk about; Alive, Glorious Day, Oh praise the name, we could go old school with Happy Day, or find new songs like Saviour of the World or You’re the Light (hopefully songs we can talk about in the coming weeks)!
But let’s talk about Living Hope.
This song basically encapsulates the Easter story, and in fact the whole of the story of salvation. What starts with an explanation of the problem leans on a hail mary play;
How great the chasm that lay between us
How high the mountain I could not climb
In desperation, I turned to heaven
And spoke Your name into the night
The beauty of the Easter story is God hears it and responds;
Then through the darkness, Your loving-kindness
Tore through the shadows of my soul
The work is finished, the end is written
Jesus Christ, my living hope
The images of God tearing through the darkness, the reference to Jesus’ words on the cross and the declaration that Jesus is not just our hope, but he is our living hope is fantastic.
The next verse and the chorus is full of lyrics we show our response to the amazing grace that we’ve received;
“Beautiful Savior, I’m Yours forever” and
“Hallelujah, praise the One who set me free
Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me”
But for me it’s the third verse that makes this songs excellent
Then came the morning that sealed the promise
Your buried body began to breathe
Out of the silence, the Roaring Lion
Declared the grave has no claim on me
The picture it creates through it’s words is so uplifting. I love how it refers to the resurrected Jesus as the Roaring Lion. It’s such an excellent image, Jesus standing victorious over death; roaring like a Lion, the King over everything.This though, is matched with a fantastic build vocally and musically which always leaves me inspired. It pushes itself up an octave which makes the declaration that much more passionate as you sing louder! I love to sing the whole song but especially this part. I also just love to lead people in this song and I believe that this is one of the songs in our church that we do love to sing!
So I pray this morning you find this song a blessing to you, and that you have a wonderful Easter remembering all that Jesus has done for us!
You can listen to the song here or on our Spotify Playlist!
Disney