Sensitive Listening: Humble Jesus in Gungor Music

Picture courtesy of http://mudpreacher.org

Every now and then I ride down beltway 8 here in Houston, and I surrender my thoughts to every lyric of every song that plays on my iPhone or radio. I don't make it through every song, but music does something to me. I listen to music in almost the same passion as I have in reading a book: with reckless abandon, allowing my thoughts to be captured and taken hostage to another world for a fraction of a moment. I sort of commune with music. Certain songs speak lyrically of my heart, and others defy and transgress it; at which point I carelessly hit skip, switch the station, or simply resign to silence.

With some music, there just isn't any other way to describe it: It is sacred.

So I practice a little "sensitive listening."


Particularly, there is one song I've listened to repeatedly that has so resonated with me, one that I have been itching to sit and write about for weeks. It is one of those deliciously sacred songs. I'm hoping someone out there is already in dialogue about this song, because I think it does way more than is realized. The song is titled "The Best Part" by my favorite band, Gungor. This song captures the beauty of Christ in His incarnation, His joy, and His suffering, which I guess is sort of appropriate for the season of advent.  I think it melts together the joy of Christ's humanity and the ache of the  deadly Cross quite beautifully. In a simple way, I intend to share my love for this song, and talk about how it helps me identify with my Savior Jesus, and reminds me how to face suffering, longing, and lonliness.

I don't think death by crucifixion would be the most painful way to die. Far be it from Human beings to stop at crucifixion. I think that by now, we have come up with countless ways to abuse, maim, torture, kill, and murder, (in that order) and I think as of now, there are perhaps other more grisly ways to meet ones maker than crucifixion. Who am I to say it, but that's how I see it for now. I don't think God's big plan was in Jesus having the most physically painful or excruciating death. That wasn't the best part.

Gungors song attempts to capture the very best part. The song very subtly captures the Saviors voice, which is sung by Michael Gungor's wife. As the song opens, she lilts:

'I have seen it all, all...
I have seen it all, I've felt it all...'

When I first heard these words,  in one of my trance like personal listening parties on my ride to work one morning, I almost hit the breaks. How the Lord Himself saw and felt every bit of humanity...He allowed time to run its course in and in 33 years experienced human breath, heart beat, and emotion. He exercised in speech, in physicality, and in intellect. And then, to hear the echos in the song, the woman's soft voice...added a depth to His humanity which I had never fathomed. Complete unity in his humanness. Having seen it all, and felt everything too...

"life is running swift now,
like a raging river, how it runs out..."

It didn't take long for me to backtrack and listen to just these four lines over and over again. Meditating on this moment. Its like a second frozen in time. The Messiah, hung on a cross to die, remembering every moment, as His very lifeblood runs out of him.  At this point, I fully entered the world of the narrative...

"Please don't go...
Please don't go...

I thought to myself, oh now this is agonizing. Not only are you dying Lord, but you are begging ME to stay! You are begging me to enter into this moment with you, and realize as fully as I can! I don't want to look upon your broken body, or your blood shed, but yet, you have asked me to stay, and remember! And I must. At The Lord's bequest, I must not go. This also reminds me of who was actually present there that very day at Golgotha's tree. His own mother, his own family. He would want them to stay. Want them to behold, and know. Loneliness creeps in with death, the unknown, the deafening solitude...of course He would want them to stay. It makes perfect sense. When we suffer, we want those around us who know and love us best.

'Cause this is the best part,
lying awake in the dark.
This is the best part.
here in the beat of a heart.'

The Song goes on in a lovely emphasis of this narrative.

But that's where I fall into it. Utter realization that the best part was that He got to do this with Us, For Us, In Us. This is the Lament of the Suffering Savior. A Holy Rejoicing...There is such peace in knowing that to suffer with Christ, is to suffer well, to fully experience the best part. The pain is there, but it is not there in a vacuum of having never been experienced. We are reminded that He saw it all, felt it all, wept, walked, wanted, reached out,  His arms limited in their humanity, yet fully capable in the Fullness of His deity. How is this even possible? Its the best part that God became a man, who suffered for the revival of humanity.

 Another favorite artist Audrey Assad captures this beautifully in her incarnation song "Humble":  "Not too proud to wear our skin, to know this weary world we're in...Humble, Humble Jesus. Not too proud, to dwell with us, to live in us, to die for us. Humble, Humble, Jesus."

Wow. So that Gungor song does something serious to my worship. Elevates it? Breaks it down? Am I communing with the Lord more fully? I don't exactly get it. That's ok. For now I will keep listening deeply for those sacred songs of the heart, and know that  lI've learned something about how to have joy in the moments of my utter humanness, to be patient in afflictions, to suffer well.

Thanks, Humble Jesus.


"We bow our knees. We must decrease, You must increase." - Audrey Assad, Humble

Gungor's "The Best Part"