Tag: Maverick City Music

Roundup: Restful Advent; preparing the way; walking with the Holy Family

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

ADVENT SERIES: Restful Advent by Tamara Hill Murphy: Tamara Hill Murphy [previously] is one of my favorite spiritual writers, her thoughtful words and curation of resources having served as a well of inspiration for me over the years. Each year, similar to Art & Theology but with the sensibilities and expertise of an Anglican spiritual director, she publishes a new daily Advent and Christmastide guide through her Substack, Restful, running this year from November 30 to January 5. Each post in the series includes lectionary readings, art, music, a prayer, and a simple practice to help us notice God’s presence during these waiting days. This time around, the Daybook will feature excerpts from Claude Atcho’s new book Rhythms of Faith along with ideas from The Liturgical Home by Ashley Tumlin Wallace and some of my own formerly published art commentaries.

“The Daybook is a way to pay attention to Christ’s three arrivals—then, now, and still to come—and to walk through December with a quieter heart and a stronger hope,” Murphy writes.

Murphy is offering Art & Theology readers a 50% discount to Restful using this link, which brings the subscription cost down to $4/month (let it run for two months if you want to receive the full Christmastide Daybook) or $32/year, which will give you access to her year-round content. The offer expires January 5, 2026.

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BLOG POST: “The Sacred Journey of Advent” by Ashley Tumlin Wallace, The Liturgical Home: “Advent,” writes Wallace, “is a season of preparation, for the coming of Christ at Christmas, and also for His return in glory at the end of time.” This is a great introduction to the season that kicks off the new church year.

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SONGS:

One of the scripture texts of Advent is Isaiah 40:3–5:

A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD;
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
    and all flesh shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

The Gospel-writers Matthew (3:3), Mark (1:3), and Luke (3:4) all see this exclamatory figure as John the Baptist, who told people to prepare for God’s coming by repenting of sin, since holding on tightly to ways of unlove erects barriers to God’s entry into one’s life. Here are two songs based on this Advent passage.

>> “Prepare the Way” by Maverick City Music and Tribl, feat. Chandler Moore and Siri Worku, on Tribl I (2021): This song repeats, again and again, the Advent mantra “Prepare the way,” embedding John the Baptist’s invitation deeply into hearts and minds. Its tag beseeches Christ to come with the fire of purging, the rain of refreshment, and the oil of blessing. To welcome this coming, this transformation and growth, we need to decenter ourselves, ceding to God the place of primacy, from which he works our good and his glory.

>> “Prepare the Way” by Christopher Walker, on Rise Up and Sing, 3rd ed., vol. 3 (2009): This 1991 song is by Christopher Walker, a church music composer, lecturer, and choral conductor originally from the UK but now living in Santa Monica, California. Published by OCP (Oregon Catholic Press), it would make a great song for a children’s Advent choir.

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2018 SERIES: Advent Caravan: Walking with the Holy Family by Sarah Quezada: I learned about Sarah Quezada’s work at the intersection of faith, justice, and culture through Tamara Hill Murphy (see first roundup item) in 2018, when Quezada published a five-part series reflecting on the likelihood that Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem for the census not alone but in a caravan. Interweaving personal story, biblical interpretation, and current events, Quezada considers how the holy couple’s experience in the final months of Mary’s pregnancy connects to the reality of people on the move seeking hope, peace, joy, and love today.

While the series is not hosted online, I received permission from Quezada to reproduce it here.

Advent Caravan by Sarah QuezadaDownload

On Instagram, Quezada also shared a photo of her friend’s Advent mantel, where she combined figurines from her various nativity sets to form a “caravan” of travelers.

Advent caravan
Photo via @sarahquezada

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YOUTUBE PLAYLIST: Jouluradion Hoosianna: Jouluradio is a Finnish radio station that broadcasts annually from November 1 to January 6, playing all Advent and Christmas music. Since 2012, every year they premiere a new arrangement and video performance of the popular Scandinavian Advent hymn “Hoosianna” (Hosanna, an Aramaic expression meaning “Save now!”), which Lutheran and Catholic churches in Finland sing on the first Sunday of the season. Based on Matthew 21:9, its lyrics greet the approaching Christ, affirming his identity and craving the deliverance only he can bring:

Hoosianna, Daavidin Poika,
kiitetty olkoon hän!
Kiitetty Daavidin Poika,
joka tulee Herran nimeen.
Hoosianna, hoosianna,
hoosianna, hoosianna!
Kiitetty Daavidin Poika,
joka tulee Herran nimeen.
Hosanna, Son of David,
Most blessed Holy One,
Hosanna, Son of David,
Who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna
In the highest!
Hosanna, Son of David,
Who comes in the name of the Lord!

This hymn was written by the German composer, educator, and piano and organ virtuoso Georg Joseph Vogler in 1795 while working in Sweden as court conductor as well as tutor to the crown prince Gustav IV Adolf.

The Jouluradio commissions, which the station has compiled in a YouTube playlist, encompass a range of genres, including jazz, hip-hop, choral, pop, and electronic. Below is a list of previous years’, of which I’ve embedded the two asterisked ones on this page. Jouluradio typically releases their annual “Hoosianna” the day before Advent, so 2025’s will likely be posted this Saturday. [HT: Gracia Grindal]

Playlist: Christ the King

Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

The final Sunday of the liturgical year—which this year is November 24—marks the Feast of Christ the King. This festival celebrates the reign of Jesus Christ over all of creation and every aspect of our lives.

“The belief in Christ as King finds its roots in the Christian understanding of Jesus as the Messiah, whose reign exists as both a present reality and a future hope,” writes Ashley Tumlin Wallace on her blog The Liturgical Home. “In the here and now, his reign manifests in the lives of believers who seek to live under his lordship. But the Feast of Christ the King also carries a sense of eschatological anticipation, signaling the ultimate culmination of time when the reign of Christ is fully realized.”

Unlike some who sit on earthly thrones, Christ is no tyrant; he’s a benevolent ruler who leads with love and perfect wisdom. He is high and lifted up, and yet he stoops down to us and attends to our cries. He’s so committed to our flourishing that he became one of us and sacrificed himself to save us from the Evil One and reconcile us to God. We owe him our praise, our deference, our all.

For Christ the King Sunday, I put together a Spotify playlist of songs that extol Christ as king of the cosmos and of our own hearts.

It includes traditional hymns like “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” (below, sung by Paul Zach), “Come, Christians, Join to Sing,” “All Creatures of Our God and King,” “All People That on Earth Do Dwell,” “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,” “O Worship the King,” “Crown Him with Many Crowns” . . .

In looking up hymns, I was delighted to find a new-to-me one from the nineteenth century by Josiah Conder called “The Lord Is King,” which Navy Jones set to a buoyant new tune:

There’s one song on the list whose text dates all the way back to the fifth century. Written in Latin by the Christian poet Sedulius, “Regnavit Dominus” (The Lord Is King) combines praises to the One who conquered death and feeds us with himself with the humble plea, “Kyrie eleison” (Lord, have mercy). Owen and Moley Ó Súilleabháin sing it to a twelfth-century melody:

The playlist also features several psalm settings, including two of Psalm 93, which opens,

The LORD is king; he is robed in majesty;
    the LORD is robed; he is girded with strength.
He has established the world; it shall never be moved;
    your throne is established from of old;
    you are from everlasting.

One is by Jacob Mwosuko, a member of the Abayudaya (People of Judah) Jewish community near Mbale in eastern Uganda. The text is in Luganda. Though Jews would read “LORD” as referring to God the Father, ever since the early church Christians have confessed Jesus not only as Lord (Master) but also as LORD (YHWH), consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, sharing with him all rule, authority, power, and dominion.

Also from Africa, there’s the Resurrection-rooted salsa song “Jesus Reigns” by Joe Mettle of Ghana, which I learned while attending worship at a Nigerian friend’s church plant for African Christians in Maryland:

On a softer note, there’s the piano ballad “Wondrous Things” by Sandra McCracken, Patsy Clairmont, and JJ Heller of FAITHFUL, a collective of female Christian authors and artists formed in 2019. It lauds Jesus as king to the poor, the oppressed, and the brokenhearted. Heller and McCracken perform it with Sarah Macintosh in the following video:

This next one is more of a nostalgic pick for me: “Make My Heart Your Throne”:

Over two decades ago, when I was a young high schooler, I attended a Christian retreat. The worship leader for the weekend was a man named Carl Cartee, and I remember being struck by this original song of his that we all sang one night. Its words and melody imprinted on me, and all these years later I still find myself sometimes singing them in private as a prayer that Christ would be foremost in my affections and that I would cede control to him.

One of the keenest depictions of Christ’s kingship in scripture is in the book of Revelation, where his glory and triumph are on full display and he’s surrounded by worshipping throngs. Chapter 19, where the exiled John describes “the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven,” is the source text of the song “He Is Wonderful,” sung by Lowana Wallace with Lana Winterhalt and Josh Richert:

These three overlaid, harmonized vocal lines are so enthralling!

Wallace’s song is a simplified arrangement of “Revelation 19:1” by A. Jeffrey LaValley, who wrote it in 1984 for the gospel choir of New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Flint, Michigan, where he served as music director. You can listen to a more recent performance of “Revelation 19:1” on the album Jesus Is King (2019) by the Sunday Service Choir under the direction of Jason White, or in this Mav City Gospel Choir video from 2021, which features soloist Naomi Raine. The choir is directed by Jason McGee:

The build to such fullness of sound . . . wow! It really is evocative of the ample rejoicing in heaven around God’s throne that John the Revelator narrates—“like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals” (Rev. 19:6).

For a multilingual (English-Korean-Spanish) arrangement performed by students and staff at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, see here.

This is just a sampling of the eighty-plus songs on Art & Theology’s “Christ the King” playlist, exalting the One who lives and reigns supreme in the heavens and who will one day bring his kingdom to full fruition on earth.

Christ the King playlist cover

Cover art: John Piper (British, 1903–1992), Christ in Majesty, 1984, East Window, Chapel of St John Baptist without the Barrs, St John’s Hospital, Lichfield, Staffordshire, England