For a Time Like This: O What Love

A music podcast with Gord Johnson

During this first week of Eastertide - an Eastertide from which the grey of Lent has not really quite lifted - we wanted to share this recording of the song “O What Love”, by Gord Johnson. This version also features Steve Bell and Larry Campbell, and was recorded for inclusion in our Good Friday audio-visual meditation in this year when we were unable to gather in the church building for that liturgy.

The text is based on Philippians 2: 7-8, verses which are part of a hymn that Paul has written - or perhaps is citing from another source - as he tries to draw the little Christian community in Philippi back to its original foundation in the self-giving love of Jesus.

He being known as one of us 

Humbled himself to obedient death

Even death on a cross

O what love

O what love

O what love

The full hymn text on which the song is based is found in Philippians 2:5-11:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
   and gave him the name
   that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
   every knee should bend,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
   that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father.

Another music podcast featuring one of Gord’s songs - “Before the Ending of the Day” - can be accessed by clicking here.