Like maybe 100 million others … perhaps more by now … I tuned in to the Charlie Kirk Memorial on Sunday. To say that it was moving is a vast understatement. Just the day before, I was struggling with the enormity of his loss. And, while I still struggle and grieve, something clicked inside of me by the conclusion.

I was overwhelmed by Hope.

Not just with but by. (There is a distinction.)

Overwhelmed to the point of tears.

For any of you who might be reading this, you probably know something about my abrupt and wholesale transformation just over twenty years ago. Perhaps some of you have read my thematic autobiography that chronicles everything up to and following that unique moment.

For whatever reason, God has given me glimpses into his realm, via the audible, the visual, the head and heart. Given all of this, I can’t help but commit to Holy Forever.

Which is the close to the title of one of the worship songs, the entirety of which covered about two hours before the speakers took over on Sunday. And, listening to it again, last night, I was drawn to write on a piece of the song because it resonated so beautifully in my experience.

Now, rewind the tape of my life some fifty-eight years. I was thirteen at the time (I recounted this in great detail in my book), when the earth first shifted for me.

Growing up in a home without any religion to speak of … no prayers … no talk about God … no church … just a lot of mind and intellectualization … I was wholly unprepared for a watershed moment to arrive unbidden while in the seventh grade. By that point, I was a fairly accomplished young violinist, ensconced in my junior high school orchestra, serving as a third chair first violinist, when my teacher suggested I might be able to transfer my instrumental music skills to the voice. So, shortly thereafter, I found myself standing on the risers with other students who participated after school in the junior high school choir. 

I have related what happened hundreds of times, I suspect.

But to cut to the chase, while scratching out my voice, while sight-reading the score, I was no longer there.

I was, instead, suspended in a vast space, dark, but punctuated with millions of points of light, all surrounding me. And from each point of light, there was sound. It was singing. No discernible lyrics but pure transcendent sound.

I was surrounded by unimaginable beauty and realized my voice had joined theirs. And, yes, it actually happened.

I had no context for this except thinking these were probably angels, something I’d never thought much about except to see them on Christmas cards or on top of Christmas trees.

But that only came from later reflection because the sound permeated every fiber of my being. The only way to truly describe it was that I was the sound … I belonged there and was filled with joy, never having heard or experienced anything close to it before.

I only told one person at the time, my mother (who was not particularly loving but very particularly judgmental), of what happened. After I “returned” to the risers and raced home from school because I was bursting with the news, I burst through the front door and cried, “Mother, I just sang with all of the angels!” To which she immediately replied, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

I didn’t sing again for thirty-eight more years.

But I never let the memory fade because it was overwhelmingly powerful … completely out of place but achingly authentic. I knew there was an Other.

Fast forward to Sunday and the song that shares the title with this post.

Holy Forever.

I will provide a link to the song at the end of this post but here are the lyrics:

A thousand generations falling down in worship
To sing the song of ages to the Lamb
And all who’ve gone before us and all who will believe
Will sing the song of ages to the Lamb

Your name is the highest
Your name is the greatest
Your name stands above them all
All thrones and dominions
All powers and positions
Your name stands above them all

And the angels cry holy
All creation cries holy
You are lifted high, holy
Holy forever

If you’ve been forgiven and if you’ve been redeemed
Sing the song forever to the Lamb
If you walk in freedom and if you bear His name
Sing the song forever to the Lamb
We’ll sing the song forever and amen

And the angels cry holy
All creation cries holy
You are lifted high, holy
Holy forever

Hear Your people sing holy
To the King of kings, holy
You will always be holy
Holy forever

Your name is the highest
Your name is the greatest
Your name stands above them all
All thrones and dominions
All powers and positions
Your name stands above them all

Jesus
Your name is the highest
Your name is the greatest
Your name stands above them all (oh, stands above)
All thrones and dominions
All powers and positions
Your name stands above them all

And the angels cry holy
All creation cries holy
You are lifted high, holy
Holy forever (we cry holy, holy, holy)

Hear Your people sing (we will sing) holy
To the King of kings (holy), holy (holy is the Lord)
You will always be holy
Holy forever

You will always be holy
Holy forever

Yes, the lyrics speak volumes but it’s the music that cuts straight to the heart. And to my first direct interaction with the Holy forty-eight years ago.

And the Angels cry Holy. All creation cries Holy. You are lifted high, holy, holy forever.

And I cry Holy along with all creation. And I will keep crying it forever.

Because that’s where God and mankind are designed to meet and interact. To interact with something called Holy.

To risk a play on words … Holy is wholly Perfect, wholly Beautiful, wholly Loving, wholly magnificent, wholly Powerful, wholly Good, wholly Just, wholly forgiving, wholly overflowing with Grace.

And Jesus is at that exact point of connection, something I dismissed as mythological for decades, even though I “knew” there was something just on the other side of the veil. Something beyond human comprehension. Something where Love and Beauty reigned. Something with what and whom I could connect and in a place where I belonged.

Yes, I unabashedly and unapologetically claim that Jesus is the Lord. His name is the highest, his name is the greatest, his name stands above them all. To which the angels and those of us who have awoken to the perfect reality of who he is and why he came, cry Holy, Holy, Holy.

He is my Lord. He is Diane’s Lord. He is the Lord of hundreds of people I know and of countless millions across our country and around the globe. And, yes, the concept of Lordship will probably seem anachronistic to “enlightened” moderns many of whom are largely atheists or agnostics who call themselves “spiritual” but not religious. It implies hierarchy and that doesn’t quite mesh with this vague claim that we are all “equal.”

Sure, in the sense we are all children of God, who views each of us as deserving of limitless love, we are equal. But we are not equal with God. He is wholly Other. The author of our creation, the author of our salvation.

To which, for those of us who really, really believe this, we are left with nothing other than to cry Holy, Holy, Holy, invited into an eternity of beauty and joy. An eternity in resurrected bodies, to live in the full renewal of all of creation.

So, while I did not hear words when I sang with angels, perhaps it was because I would not understand them at that time. But I did know music and I did know that I could make beautiful music come from a wooden instrument.

The millions and I could just as clearly have been singing Holy, Holy, Holy.

Amen.

For some reason, WordPress and YouTube are not allowing me to embed the link. All you have to do in YouTube is search for

Kari Jobe Forever Live

It’s a recording from 11 years ago with 80 million views.

Or you can find it on Spotify easily.

There are other renditions by other artists on YouTube and Spotify. But I’m choosing to link this one because it was the one that touched me on Sunday and, again, last night.

I urge you to listen.

Blessings,

Brad