Hear Now, You House of David!

This song was written in 2005 in a basement on the Eastside of Vancouver, in a house that has long since been torn down for development.

That basement was cold and I was taken by the warning nature of the Advent message…the aspect of the Advent proclamation that should scare those who hear it. The proclamation of Advent that caused shepherds to quake and that should cause contemporary Christians to tremble.  The aspect of the Advent—God invading time—that when fully appreciated leads me to agree with Annie Dillard’s estimation that “we should all be wearing crash helmets” when we engage this God.

 This tone is what I hear in this passage in Isaiah where we hear God, the master of the universe, questioning this people of the house of David:

Will you try the patience of God also? Isa. 7:13 

One of my favourite Christmas Albums is by the band Low, a band that could make you feel in their music that you were in a place where fear of the Lord was a visceral feeling and not a historical notion.  I think I was trying to do my best to capture some of what they do in this song.

There is something refreshing in this booming voice of God holding his people to account.  It feels like an emotional pallet cleanser, an antidote to some of the shmaltz of the Christmas Season™.  In that stage of life I wanted to remind myself in a song that this incarnation is as true as ever, and that this Christ is someone who came incarnate then and is still “He whom Angels worship in glory.”  In that season of life because of the neighbourhood and world I lived in, I was acutely aware that we still need to learn the lesson of how to love. 

All of this remains true today.

As we enter into this Advent, when the world needs to learn how to love more than ever, we hope that this song serves as a reminder and an invitation into this season of holy waiting.

 Peter, for Ordinary Time

26 November, 2022