Introduction (bulletin notes)
Restoration: A Song In Three Movements:
I
The first movement of Restoration picks up where we left mankind in Garden Lost. Thankfully God desires to rescue and restore mankind. But how will He do that, what will He require of us? The composer posits that if we know more about Him we will better understand the answers we are given to these questions.
So, the first movement begins with an exploration of certain of God's attributes. But often when we celebrate God's attributes, we often tend to explore one at a time, an approach that often leads to misunderstanding and imbalance in our theology. So in this movement, the composer seeks to appreciate God’s revealed attributes more holistically. And these attributes and the dynamics created among them raise interesting and difficult questions explored in the movement. For instance:
Given His nature of caring love, was there ever really a question about whether He would create others to care for?
If wanting real beings to care for, wouldn't they have to have free will to be real?
And if so, how would He in His perfect holiness or righteousness deal with their failures and sins? Could He forgive? Would righteousness require what His mercy wouldn't take or exact?
Which of course leads us to Christ and grace. But what are the conditions of grace? Can it be interpreted as something that can be turned into a license to sin? Is holiness and righteousness compromised by what was needed to provide mercy? The composer answers with an emphatic no and in the lyrics warns against cheap grace and introduces the too-often missed or ignored subject of spiritual development.
II
The second movement of Restoration explores certain elements of sanctification. The song starts out from a young believer’s perspective but with a focus on one of the graces that should be present and observable in our daily lives, which is the freedom from bondage to sin. The second movement of Restoration compels us to consider the reality of this freedom, to understand what freedom really means and what it requires of us.
The composer believes that American believers fully appreciating this freedom may well feel at odds with current culture in at least two ways: first, the Bible doesn’t contemplate this freedom being the gateway to a self-determined life. In fact this freedom would be in tension with the cultural lessons we have received from birth about individualism and self-determination, but for the fact that these cultural lessons have too often and too greatly affected our interpretation and understanding of the life of faith described in the Bible. Living in true freedom may well require more denial of self and obedience than our culturally affected interpretations.
And second, the message of the Bible relating to how we should relate to unbelievers, since they don’t have this freedom from bondage, should cause many believers to test themselves to see if they are walking in the Way: Are we living in love or are we judging, condemning and fighting over the ways they live? We may want to remember this question too when we get to the third movement where we talk about being the light of the world!
The lyrics also make it clear that freedom doesn’t mean ultimate escape. The song introduces a larger Christian life: We remain in the world, things that bring bondage still pressure or tempt us from the faith, stumbling blocks exist, and all the while we are in the active process of maturing, we must endure. We are in the refiner’s fire!
At the end, the lyrics move into implementation of this life: that what we look at, think about, focus on, can affect what’s going on in our heart – potentially helping our development or defiling us. This is a short piece of music when compared to the movements I and III, but it covers a lot of ground from the perspective of our faith.
III
The third movement of Restoration focuses on the Parable of the Vine and the branches. This takes our focus from exploring freedom from bondage and the process of sanctification, to our need for and the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
Christ is the true Vine and true believers are the branches. Being branches, we should bear good fruit, and the lyrics explore what good fruit is. The song also doesn’t shrink from the message that if we aren’t bearing good fruit, there may be bad consequences so we should examine our lives.
This picture raises important questions for us that we should explore, which the composer does in his accompanying notes: in what way are we branches? How does this picture fit in with how our culture teaches us to think about ourselves? As branches we are connected again to God, how does this work in us? Christ says a lot in this Parable about abiding in Him. What does it mean to abide in Him and His word? Are we really absorbing into our lives what the parable is saying or do we just see a pretty picture and move on?
Finally, the movement ends with the branches singing to the Father the words of the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer. Given the project’s theme, this prayer is an apt way to end the song, praying for the success of His mission to the earth, that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
(For lyrics and composer's additional notes on each movement, please click below)