Sometimes I am wrong.

I’ll give you a moment to recover.

I only recently became aware of Plan B (aka Ben Drew) with his single ‘She Said‘, and I think  my words at that time were most unfavourable. However, it is ‘a grower’ and I’ve come to appreciate his vocal stylings much more.

The other morning whilst listening to the radio on my short journey to work I heard Plan B’s latest effort and was blown away. The sound seems to be heavily inspired by Motown – a trend that appears to be growing – and this alone earns massive bonus points with me (and that, after all, is what musicians and artists should be most concerned with…).

Motown aside, Drew’s lyrics are what really captured my attention and the video only helps to add to the effect (with the exception of some  inexplicable and awkward-looking West Side Story moves around the 3:42 mark).

The song tells the story of a young lad in prison who finds himself cornered by two would-be attackers. He strikes one and kills him, and a stranger strikes the other to protect him. As fear grips the protagonist, the stranger tells him to run away and let him take the blame for both deaths.

So he does.

However, finding himself wracked with guilt he prays to God for forgiveness, for a removal of guilt and blame.

The whole song is impressive in spiritual concern, yet the line that struck me most is delivered as the young lad realises that what he has done needs to be squared with God before he meets his end:

“We got some dealings to do before the day I’m dead”

I’ve never murdered anyone. Not even a bit of manslaughter. Yet I still feel the weight of the things that I’ve done wrong – my sin. I think most people do. The fear that we may actually be called to account for all that we have done – even the things that no one else knows about – pervades all humanity.

Our response can be much like Plan B’s prisoner; we think that we will be able to cut a deal with God. Perhaps we could buy him off with all the good things we have done, or maybe we could convince him that we’re not really to blame.

It won’t work! Jesus said that the world stands condemned. Every last one of us (John 3:18). That sounds depressing (and in truth, it should concern you), but the good news is that Jesus offers rescue to the condemned.

In the song, a random prisoner takes the protagonist’s place. He takes the blame. For those of you familiar with church language, that might sound a bit like what Jesus did. Well, almost, but not quite. I’d like to offer three differences:

1. The stranger in the song takes the blame because he already has a long life sentence hanging over him anyway and was, in part, to blame for the deaths. Jesus, on the other hand, was guilty of no sin or wrongdoing (Hebrews 4:15). This is possible only because Jesus is fully God as well as fully man.

2. The stranger takes the punishment for the lad’s attack on a third party. All sin is actually sin against God (as David proclaims in Psalm 51:4), and at the cross we see God, the offended party, taking the punishment for sin.

3. The stranger’s kindness is not effective. The man still feels his shame, despite being urged by the stranger to “Go right now, don’t feel ashamed”. In contrast, Jesus acts as both judge and justifier when speaks to a woman caught in adultery, telling her “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” (John 8:11).

Whatever we attempt in order to ease our guilt, there is only one solution: Jesus.

Jesus death and resurrection is effective. For those who believe, he offers forgiveness and freedom from sin, guilt, and condemnation.

So begins ‘Truth in Sound’, a new series of semi-regular blog posts, resulting as a continuation of my original Top 10 God-bothering songs posted here. In that post, I said that:

So often I find myself listening to songs on the radio and hearing within them lines of solid gold, expressing perfectly something of the nature of God and the truth He has revealed in scripture. Undoubtedly, most of these incidences were not the Artist’s desired expression and the rest of the song may travel some distance wide of that mark, but in that one moment, in that one lyric, the truth is there nonetheless.

In this new series of posts, I hope to pick up on and point to the truths about God, faith and the life He calls us to, that are frequently found nestled in the heart of the songs we hear on the radio.

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Jason Mraz – I’m Yours

This year at Glastonbury, Jason Mraz performed his international breakthrough single ‘I’m Yours’ to a crowd that loved to sing along. He caught them out however, by changing some of the words. I was already a fan of the song before hearing it on Radio One’s coverage of the festival, but it was this performance that really caught my ear, so to speak. The video posted here is taken from Mraz’s performance at Glastonbury. To hear the original, click here.

So what was it about this performance that drew my attention, and gave Mr Mraz the much privileged position of first song in this series? It all stems from this lyric change. In the original, Mraz sings the line:

And it’s our God forsaken right to be loved

To be honest, that line has always irked me. Firstly, the Bible uses the word ‘forsaken’ relatively frequently throughout the Old Testament, however it is almost always used to refer to people forsaking (forgetting/abandoning/renouncing) God. There are a few occasions where we hear of God forsaking men. One such time is preceded by men forsaking God. Consider, for example, the princes of Judah:

Now after the death of Jehoiada the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king. Then the king listened to them. And they abandoned the house of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs. Yet he sent prophets among them to bring them back to the LORD. These testified against them, but they would not pay attention.

Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, and he stood above the people, and said to them, “Thus says God, ‘Why do you break the commandments of the LORD, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, he has forsaken you.’”

2 Chronicles 24:17-20

In light of this, the second part of my irkedness stems from the slightly arrogant assumption that we have any ‘right’ to anything, especially as God forsakers, enemies of God as we either were or are (Colossians 1:21). Who are we to rise up against our Creator, spit in His face and demand anything?

This is where Mraz’s new words really bring new meaning. In his Glastonbury performance, he sung:

And it’s our God-intended right to be loved

Why he made this change I do not know. What I do know is that it steps closer to a glorious truth of the Gospel. You were created to love God and be loved by Him. Unconditionally. The other use of ‘forsaken’ in Scripture highlights this point brilliantly. On the cross, dying in our place, Jesus, echoing the  prophecy of Psalm 22, cries out to God:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Matthew 27:46

And in this moment, we see the Son of God forsaken by His Father, bearing the wrath of God, so that we who have rebelled and forsaken God can be forgiven and brought into relationship with the God who is love (1 John 4:16).

Whilst Christians can no more call it our right to be loved, by the grace of God we are loved and are purposed to experience and share that love for the rest of eternity.

God is good.