For me, and for most of adult life, the closing verses of Romans 8 have formed the core of the Christian gospel. So the idea of setting these verses (Romans 8: 31-39) to music has always been an attractive yet seemingly unachievable goal. The text is too profound, too weighty, and honestly too rhetorically complex to be trivialized in a song… or so I thought. Imagine my shock, even horror, to watch ideas form that would wrap this text in the whimsical airs of a Broadway-style show tune! I resisted the ideas at first, but what won me over in the end, I think, was the abiding sense—from years of small group study and myriads of stories from pastors—of how hard it is for us to believe that God’s grace is a free gift, and how unworthy of it so many of us feel. So the ideas became a dialog between a solo seeker, wanting to believe but full of self-doubt, and a choir that was trying, and largely failing, to be helpful. (I was somewhat reminded of Job’s “helpful” friends.) In the end, it was the text itself, the Word, the core of the gospel, that won the day.
Here’s a livestream video from March 17, 2024. I hope you enjoy!