5x5 Songs that Focus Me on Jesus Christ

These songs opened my eyes to many points of view, and even helped ask questions and through them I found answers.

At age 7 I was baptized into the Southern Baptist denomination. In 1972 my parents divorced, and in 1973 we moved from Ohio to Kentucky. My mom took us to Baptist churches, and my dad returned to the Lutheran church he grew up in. It was on during a visitation that Dad played for us the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar. Ted Neely played the part of Jesus. When the movie was broadcast on television, my mom and I watched it.

After I became a Seventh-day Adventist, I watched the movie on A&E. I accepted the fact that the humanity of Christ was presented in the presentation, but the divinity question wasn't presented. I understand this, I accept this, and from this I have a better understanding of His humanity. "Simon Zealotes/Poor Jerusalem" is about as hard-hitting as it can be, and I see a lot of the contemporary Christian church standing in the place of the downtrodden Jews under Rome. In the recent version of the stage production that was released on DVD, the crowd lead by Simon the Zealot pushes Christ to become a military leader and to lead the fight to crush Rome. Jesus has feed large crowds of people. He has raised people from the dead. In the eyes of this rebel army, there is power and glory and victory over their oppressors. People encourage Christ to take up arms against Rome. One person tries to give Him an M-16. Another tries to give Him and MP-5 submachine gun. At every turn, the crowd shouts "power and glory forever and ever..... Amen!" In their hands are weapons of destruction. These people are willing to die for Christ, for if they die, they know He has the power to bring them back to life and fight again against their oppressors. The road before them is long and hard, but Christ can make bread for them to eat on the way. They are ready to follow Him into hell because they know it will lead to victory over the despised Romans.

Christ tells the crowd that they don't know what power is, they don't know what glory is. They have heard of the miracles, but they missed out on the lessons of love and compassion He was trying to teach them. Jesus was not interested in building an earthy kingdom. I look at what Rome became when the Bishop of Rome took on the mantle of both secular and religious powers. The earthly kingdom that Christ rejected was born, and the atrocities committed in the name of Christ as a result show how far the human race has fallen from true power and glory. Jesus wept over poor Jerusalem, foreseeing the destruction that Rome would bring upon that ancient city. He mourned for the dead, knowing that because the people had rejected the prophets, and now they rejected Him, the fullness of their sin would be paid for in blood. Those who heeded Jesus' warning from that day left Jerusalem before the final onslaught by Rome was unleashed. It is no wonder Jesus wept that day.

I see the Christian church today making the same mistake the Jews made during that time. It saddens me to hear someone on the radio addressing a Christian audience to stockpile weapons, ammunition, and food, and to prepare for whatever happens next as the Luciferians prepare for the day of Satan's personation of Jesus Christ. I see too much blood being shed in the months ahead when something finally snaps. I think on that day in Jerusalem, Jesus wept for us, as well. We don't know what power is. We don't know what glory is.

The album The Trumpet of Jesus was the last record Russ Taff recorded with The Imperials. The title cut, "The Trumpet of Jesus," impacted me with a lyric that I have never forgotten, and I would say it comes to mind at least once a day. "Hate only hears what it can, but love can hear it all." There is a lot of hate in this world. People don't want to hear other people's problems because they got too much they are dealing with in their own lives. People are watching out for "number one," and a lot of hurt and heartache boil over into some pretty tense situations. Hate hears what it can. "What did you say about me?" Love hears it all, and offers a shoulder for people to cry on. Love can handle the drama that hate pushes aside. No one wants to listen. No one wants to love. No wonder there is so much hatred and drama in our lives. We don't want to hear anything more about it. That is the difference between a Christian who walks the walk and talks the talk, and the rest of the world. A Christian will listen. Everyone else turns up the volume of their iPods and walk on by.

Larry Norman, often credited as the father of Christian rock, wrote a song that is simple enough. He looked at Christ through some very interesting lenses, and gave us the song, "Outlaw." He paints Jesus as an outlaw, a poet, a politician, a sorcerer, and yet his conclusion is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came to be a servant and to free us from sin. It is a very poignant song that, when I close my eyes, allows me to see in Christ His humanity and His divinity. The images that come to mind will take me to the point of tears.

I think that is one of the problems with contemporary music today, Christian or otherwise. Nothing touches us anymore. We don't think, we don't feel, we are just lost in the beat and the drone of meaningless drivel. I think we lost our minds back in the '90s, and by the end of 2010 I think we will have lost our hearts. We are losing ourselves, but we aren't losing ourselves in love.

Rich Mullins had this talent for painting pictures with his lyrics. "Calling out Your Name" and "The Color Green" both explode in colorful images of a creation that can only lead a receptive heart to praise God. Driving around Odessa, Texas in a breaking down Pinto, I listened to Mullins on the tape deck and sang along with him these wonderful gifts he shared in the years before his death in 1997. He understood nature, and from nature he learned much about the Savior's love for us. How could he not sing praises to his King?

I went through a phase at the end of the 1980s where I explored Christian metal. The band Messiah Prophet spent a lot of time in my audiocassette player. There were two songs by MP that I couldn't get enough of. One song began with this simple acoustic guitar intro, then blows up in your face like a Claymore mine. "Battlescars." It isn't about combat in the world. It is about the war we fight with self, the internal battle between doing what we know is right and resisting the evil that dwells in our hearts. It is about putting on the nature of Christ, and it ain't easy. It is a war, and we do get scarred by it.

I can't speak about the effects music has on people. I only know how music affects me. There is some music that drives me nuts. There is some music I can relax to. It is hard to find good, solid Christian music that helps me relax. I've listened to "Adventist-approved" music and all I hear in my head is a ticking time bomb. It pushes all the wrong buttons in me. Thing is, I'm into the lyrics of a song. What is the message of the lyrics? Turning my back on contemporary pop music is easy. They got nothing to say. However, they got a lot to hide behind the drum machine.

Before I discovered Messiah Prophet, there was Styper. Say what you will about those guys, they knew how to turn their guitars inside out and make them sound good in the process. Michael Sweet recorded one of my favorite songs titled "Real" after the band broke up. It is a song of encouragement, strength, and a reminder of just how real Jesus Christ was, is and always will be.

My song of confession is “Worlds Apart” by Jars of Clay. The two-fold meaning shows how far from the truth of God we live our lives, as well as serves as a plea to God to take apart the worlds of our own creation so that we can experience the world God is preparing for us. The life I live on earth is not the life I want to live, and the world in which I live is not the world I want to live in. The Bible is not for people who want to continue living in this world, but is for people who desire to live forever in the atmosphere of heaven. In order for me to live in the atmosphere of heaven, then my world must be taken apart. I am worlds apart from my God, and it is my prayer that I might be closer to Him. Jesus Christ takes my world apart, and He brings me closer to the world I want to live in.

The first Christian music video I saw that touched me was “Most of All” by Glenn Kaiser. I emailed him and asked him about this song. He told me it was based on his personal conversion experience. I listen to a lot of music. Some of it is just entertainment, lacking depth, lacking meaning, lacking anything that connects with me. This song is personal. It connects with me. Kaiser sings it like he believes it because it happened to him. It is his story. This song is about me, too.

I’ve been an SDA for nearly 19 years. I refer to it as my “long, strange journey.” I’ve been places I never thought I would go, and seen things that only appeared to me in dreams or in movies. I never thought that I would preach a sermon in Korea one day, and then two weeks later preach a sermon in Thailand. I don’t belong here, and I say that based on the poverty in which I grew up. God brought me here. I could never have gotten here myself. When I look back on my long, strange journey, I see my mistakes, my errors, my sins, the lessons God wanted to teach me and haven’t quite sunk in yet. I wish I could go back to the day I was baptized and could walk again this path and apply the lessons I learned, or was on the verge of learning. I wish I could start all over again this walk with Jesus.

I hear Peter and Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar watching from a distance as Christ carries the cross to the place of the skull where He will be crucified. Peter has denied Christ three times, hurling curses at the people questioning him just before the cock crows at sunrise. Mary is still figuring things out about Jesus, the Man who spared her from a stoning and whom she anointed with her tears and her hair. They both are on the edge of a mystery, on the verge of understanding it, and yet, they miss it. They ask that question that I have asked a few times myself: “Can’t We Start All Over Again?” So close to the answer, and yet so far that it frustrates me.

No, we can’t go back to the beginning. But yes, we can start fresh from where we are now. There is still hope for us to get it right before the end. Jesus has faith in us. We will do greater things than He did, but only if we believe in Him.

ten songs:
Simon Zealotes/Poor Jerusalem
The Trumpet of Jesus
The Outlaw
Calling out Your Name
The Color Green
Battlescars
Real
Worlds Apart
Most of All
Can’t We Start All Over Again