Holy

The Christmas season is now officially upon us.  Christmas is my favorite time of the year.  I love the lights, the music, the movies, the food but most of all the intentionality of time with family and friends.  

I fully recognize that for so many of us Christmas time can also be tinged with (or even defined by) pain as we remember those who are no longer with us or relationships that have become strained in ways we never wanted.

Whether the season is marked by joy, pain or most likely a combination of both, the root of all those feelings is relationship.  Ultimately all these earthly relationships point us towards a much more important and consequential relationship.  The relationship with our Heavenly Father.  

At Christmas, we are reminded that we have a God who chooses to be in relationship with us.  He chose to be Emmanuel - a God who is with us.  Christmas is an invitation to relationship and to be in community with God Himself.  It was an invitation extended to us through a God who was holy and perfect but chose to enter into our brokenness by allowing His body to be broken and His blood to be spilled.   

This gift is one we were told to remember and celebrate through a practice we know as communion.  As we partake of the elements and remember the body broken and blood spilled, we are also reminded of God’s holiness as well as the sin in our lives that would seek to separate us from Him.  It amazes me that through His sacrifice His holiness is bestowed upon us. 

This song is simply a confession of the need and desire to be made holy. 

While this is a new recording, the song itself was written in its original form years ago.  While this version is a bit different from the version I’ve played over the years, it hasn’t changed all that much from that initial expression when I played it at so many different churches, camps and coffeehouses. 

My friend Mark and I may look to add additional musical voicing into this song at some point, but for now this version is just the song in its most basic possible expression - a voice and a guitar.   

For those of you that might remember my album “The Life and Times of Jesus the Christ”, you might be interested to know that the instrumental “Communion” was written in the same key as this song so they could be played together.  Since the “Life & Times…” songs were written in third person perspectives, this song felt like too much of a first-person perspective to fit in that project, but I did end up weaving this song into “Life & Times…” concerts.

Thanks again to my friend Mark for lending his time and talent to record this song. 

​If you enjoy this song, please feel free to share it with others you think might like it as well.