I just finished recording and uploading O Come O Come Emmanuel/Hope is Born. This song pairs the ancient prayers of O Come O Come Emmanuel with words I penned in 2012.

You can listen here

O Come O Come Emmanuel/Hope is born

O come O come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Is - rael
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice rejoice Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel

Shine into this darkened corner
With the light from Eden’s morn
You who are the world’s former
By your touch a hope is born

O come Thou Dayspring come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight

Rejoice rejoice Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel

Interrupt the mindless chatter
Of a world that turned from you
Speak the only Word that matters
Word made flesh, the Word that’s true

O come Thou Wisdom from on high
And order all things far and nigh
To us the path of knowledge show
And cause us in her ways to go

Rejoice rejoice Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel

Break into my moment’s sadness
Solitary, lonely, then
Suddenly angelic gladness
Peace on earth! Good will to men!

O come Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of hell thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave

Rejoice rejoice Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel

Hallelujah! I will join them
Praising Father, praising Son
Let us hurry then to see him
Jesus is the promised one

Rejoice rejoice Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel
John Mason Neale | Thomas Helmore Public Domain
© 2012 Willing Captive Mark Stenson CCLI License Number 105784

Relaunching recording projects

I was looking at folders of songs that I wrote some time ago, and I encountered songs I had forgotten about. Worse yet, I don’t have them recorded. I had started recording years ago using my desktop computer running Windows 95 (so you can guess how long ago that was!) When the computer was retired, the recording project was also put on hold. Running across the folders of forgotten music made me realize I needed to get back to recording. I needed a solution for recording. I decided to try the Tascam dp-008ex. I have recorded the first project, and I’m pretty happy with the results. So now onward!

The Voice of the Lord

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over many waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.
The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.
The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forests bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

- from Psalm 29

What does the voice of the Lord sound like to you? Does God's voice thunder? Is his voice loud and clear? Or does his voice sound muffled? Do you wonder if what you heard was him speaking or whether it was just some other background noise?

Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord clearly in the garden. They heard his voice until they started to listen to the whispers of the serpent. Then they began to question the voice that used to be so familiar and unmistakable. The voice of the Lord grew dim, muffled, frightening, unintelligible.

As years passed Adam and Eve's children and grandchildren, if they perceived the voice of the Lord at all, failed to hear God's voice loudly and clearly.

Occasionally there would be one, a prophet, who would hear the voice of the Lord like a rumbling in the distance, or a whispered voice while waking from sleep. And they shared what they could hear. But the voice of God was garbled to most of the people.

The Father longed for his children to hear his voice loud and clear, to know his heart of love. So he  sent Jesus, the Word made flesh, to speak again with a voice that could be heard.

On the cross, as Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "It is finished", the veil was torn in two. The voice of the Lord thundered. The voice of the Lord shook the tombs open.

May the voice of the Lord still all other voices. May the voice of the Lord be loud and clear in our ears. May we too cry, "Glory!"