Absent From Flesh

Note: Still adding content for this oft-neglected blog. This is from September 2019.

"Absent from flesh, O blissful thought/What joy this moment brings/Freed from the blame my sin has brought/From pain and death and its sting."

"This failing body I now resign."

These songs we sing can include many emotions and thoughts, often all together in one song. We can both lament AND hope.

I've been leading the people of Redemption in singing for a few years shy of two decades (honestly, about as long as this band's new fiddle player has been alive). The reality of my "failing body" is a real thing when we sing those words together. I can feel it in my bones, in my voice, in my eyes. Some of us are singing them in the very moment of failing, some are singing with no signs of failing on the horizon, and some are at the end of the line with their failing bodies. It's the reality of our lives in this world. One day, we will ALL finish our run on this mortal coil.

So, we lament that our sin has broken the world and our bodies will most certainly fail us. What do we do with this knowledge? Do we despair, do we live as nihilists, do we live only for fleeting moments of pleasure? Or, do we look outside of our failing self? If so, to Who or What do we look?

When the people of God gather together to sing, it's not just a warm-up act for the preacher, background noise as we chat with friends, or the musical entertainment for the day. It's a way we remind ourselves and one another — those around us — that life will end, but we believe in the One who frees us from the blame of our sin, and defeats pain, death, and death's corresponding sting. These are words of hope we can carry to our deathbeds.

That's why believers can sing with hope and joy about death while lamenting it at the same time. We acknowledge the sting (because death hurts in the most profound of ways), but in the depths of that sting, we know we have an advocate who takes that eternal sting for us, so that the sting we feel is momentary.

"I go where God and glory shine, to one eternal day."