If it be Your Will

If it be your will 
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing 

These words are from Leonard Cohen’s song Anthem. On his Live in London Album they are sung by the Webb Sisters — an absolutely beautiful piece of music.

This is a cry to God to seek the will of the Creator to speak the praises of the Holy. And what shall I cry? If it be God’s will that we should sing our from our places of brokenness what shall our praises look like?

We are just days away from Holy Week. In a few days we will celebrate Passion Sunday also known as Palm Sunday. We will sing our praises in the form of Hosannas!  We will lay down our robes, lay out our palm branches and we will welcome the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Yet just a few short days later we will we will stand atop another broken hill. In that place the praises that we sing echo of the violence of Crucify Him! In that place we long for an end to the long dark night that sometimes besets our souls and leaves us feeling less than complete and less than beloved. Another verse from this great piece of music:

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this nightIf it be your will 

Sadly we sit at times with our rags of light flashing as we are dressed to kill – kill all that which is good and all that which threatens us. Fear often motivates us to lash out at others and the consequences are dark. It is in those moments that what we sing is really ‘Crucify Him!’

But we can enter into that space with a sense of security as we know what follows our dark song. It is a New Song and it is a song of great redemption.  Another verse:

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoiceLet your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well 

Just a little over a week away we will embrace the song that is – ‘Praise God – Alleluia!’ It is a Song of hope that sings of the abundance of overflowing rivers of justice and peace. It is a river of great mercy and of overwhelming well-ness. It is a river that allows us to sing a song of great praise.

Lent really is that time that we ask that question, “if it be your will?” We seek to find the will of God in our lives and do what we can to live that out with a sense of purpose. I love this song of Leonard Cohen…then again — I love all of his music.