Hillsong

HONEY IN THE ROCK – Brooke Ligertwood, Brandon Lake

/ Jason Henry / 1 Comment

Image by Tim Mossholder from Unsplash

I’m not gonna lie; this song weirded me out at first. I thought to myself, “God made water come from the rock, not honey.” It turns out I was mistaken! This rich image does come from Scripture and it’s been used in church music for a long time. (Watch this video for another artist’s musical take on this idea. You’ll thank me later. Or hate me. šŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļø) The more I listen to “Honey in the Rock,” the more it grows on me, so before I go ahead and add it to Planning Center, let’s slow down a minute and ask ourselves, “Is it biblical? Will it worship?”

Focus

This song focuses on the sufficiency and provision of God. He is all that we need. A secondary and related theme is the singer’s need for him. “Honey in the Rock” is personal and vertical, using “I” language and addressing God as “You.” We also address Jesus by name and mention the Spirit.

Lyric Analysis

CHORUS 1
We come right out of the gate with the unusual title: “There’s Honey in the Rock.” What in the world does that mean? I find the idea in 2 places in Scripture: Deuteronomy 32:13 and Psalm 81:16. Let’s get a little context from Deuteronomy 32. Here’s an excerpt:

“The Lord alone guided him,
    no foreign god was with him.
He suckled him with honey out of the rock,
    and oil out of the flinty rock.
Curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,
    with fat of lambs,
But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked;
    you grew fat, stout, and sleek;
then he forsook God who made him
    and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods;
    with abominations they provoked him to anger.
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you,
    and you forgot the God who gave you birth.”

So the honey, water (Ex. 17:1-7), and manna (Exodus 16) in the chorus represent God’s provision for Israel in the wilderness. By extension, they represent God’s provision for us, and in declaring that there is honey in the rock, we are saying that we trust God to provide for us even when it seems impossible. This applies to our physical needs, but more importantly to our spiritual needs. The passage from Deuteronomy also uses the image of the rock to describe God. He is the steady, unshakable source of our life and salvation.

It’s also worth noting that in both places where the Bible mentions honey coming from the rock, it is in the context of Israel’s unfaithfulness. This is especially so in Psalm 81 where God longs to satisfy his people with honey and wheat, but they won’t turn to him. This song combats the natural tendency of our hearts to seek satisfaction and sustenance from sources other than our Maker.

VERSE 1
This verse describes a state of longing and need. The line “praying for a miracle” can be easily applied to any situation any singer of the song is facing. I appreciate that the song doesn’t promise that we’ll get the exact miracle we ask for, it just acknowledges our need for God’s intervention in the situation.

We also acknowledge our thirst for the Living Well. This comes from John 4:7-26, where Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well and describes himself as the Living Water. He tells her, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.” It’s interesting that this passage immediately turns to a discussion of worship, as if John wants us to understand that worshiping God in spirit and truth is how we enjoy the living water Jesus offers, but that’s just speculation on my part! Only God can satisfy our spiritual hunger and thirst (Isa. 55:2).

VERSE 2
The mercy seat is also called the atonement cover, and it’s the portion of the Ark of the Covenant where the high priest would sprinkle a bull’s blood, symbolically coming between God and the law tablets that represented the people’s sins (Lev. 16:11-14). In the context of the song, it can represent both forgiveness and God’s presence. Tasting and seeing that the Lord is good comes from Psalm 34:8.

VAMP
We repeat “there’s honey in the rock” a few more times. Hopefully the congregation will take this opportunity to meditate on what the words mean.

VERSE 3
Paul tells us that there is freedom where the Spirit of the Lord is (2 Cor. 3:17). As we discussed in the first chorus, the heart of this song is God’s ability to provide bounty for us in the wilderness. This is both literal in referring to Israel and metaphorical in describing God’s provision for us spiritually.

CHORUS 2
We repeat the words from chorus 1 and add a few more. This is the part of the song where we really identify God’s provision of honey in the rock for the Israelites with Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross. The purpose in God’s plan is to unite all things in heaven and on earth forever in Jesus through his death and resurrection (Eph. 1:9-10). “Power in the Blood” is the title of a classic hymn by Lewis E. Jones. For more on the power in Jesus’ blood, see my review of “Thank You Jesus for the Blood” by Charity Gayle. Jesus healed with the literal laying on of his hands (Luke 4:40), and the power to heal still belongs to God today. I love the line “everything you did’s enough,” because it declares the truth that we are saved by Jesus’ grace, not our own works (Eph. 2:8-9, Heb. 10:10).

The only line that gives me pause is “started flowing when You said it is done.” I take “it is done” to refer to Jesus’ statement “it is finished” on the cross (John 19:30). And the honey was made to flow in the wilderness roughly 1,200 years earlier, so that seems chronologically confused to me. If we take the honey as a metaphor for the sweetness of knowing and trusting God, this line still doesn’t make sense, because that sweetness has always been available to God’s people. As we mentioned earlier, Psalm 34 talks about tasting that the Lord is good. For this line to make sense, we have to see that the authors are drawing a specific parallel between the honey from the rock and the salvation we have through Jesus’ death. Jesus specifically calls himself the bread from heaven (John 6:51) and the source of living water (John 4:10), so it’s not much of a stretch to also see him as the honey from the rock. So, specifically, the sweetness of our saving relationship with him is what started flowing at the cross when he said “it is finished.”

BRIDGE
This looking and finding sounds like the wholehearted seeking that God celebrates in Jeremiah 29:13-14. (…and you thought 29:11 was the only good verse in Jeremiah!) We’ve already talked about God’s provision, which includes him giving, providing, and proving that he is all we need. God often moves in response to prayer (Exodus 32:10-14, James 5:16). I love that the bridge really clearly states what the rest of the song has alluded to. We sing to God “You are all that I need.”

ENDING
The ending sums up and encapsulates the whole song. It is so sweet to be able to trust in Jesus! I don’t think we need a chapter and verse for this one.

Accessibility

Accessibility is a big concern for this song. I’m a pastor and I didn’t even know that the Bible talked about honey coming from a rock. How embarrassing! Further, it took a great deal of analysis to discover that the whole point of this song is that Jesus is the rock and trusting him for provision and salvation is the honey. I am very skeptical that most members of the congregation will be able to make the connections needed to understand this song’s meaning without help. I wouldn’t feel comfortable leading this song on Sunday morning without some serious exposition beforehand.

Having said that, I don’t see much potential for any harmful misunderstandings of the lyrics. I suppose we could misapply the ideas of healing and provision, but I don’t see a big concern here.

Regarding congregational singing, the verse rhythms are a little tricky, but the chorus is eminently singable. The bridge is easy to pick up after a repetition or two.

Music

“Honey in the Rock” is a medium-length, country-gospel song. We start with a stripped-down piano-organ-acoustic chorus at the beginning. I think I might detect a hint of steel guitar in there too, maybe? I love the way this song starts because it gives the congregation an opportunity to learn the chorus before really diving into the song. I also love the breathy choir in the background. We build as we go, adding bass and drums. When we come back to the chorus throughout the song, it finds an infectious groove that you can’t not bob your head to. We do a quiet bridge that builds into another big chorus, and then we end with a quiet ending consisting of new lyrics. All in all, this song follows pretty standard worship song form, but that form is standard for a reason, and the dynamic arc works well here to create a peaceful atmosphere of joyful trust.

Conclusions

Will it worship? Yes, but…

“Honey in the Rock” is catchy and very congregational. Its lyrics forge a beautiful link between Old Testament imagery of God’s provision and salvation and the work Jesus did on the cross and the relationship of trust that we have with him as a result. I’m just worried that that link will go over many people’s heads. I almost feel like I would have to read and explain the section of Deuteronomy 32 that I quoted above every time we sing the song in church, and that’s a lot of explaining. This song would be easier to employ on a worship night or during a week of camp, when Sunday morning time constraints aren’t an issue and time could be devoted to teaching what it means.

Will we sing it at church? It’s still very possible, I just need to see if I can trim this 1,700-word blog post down into a 60 second song intro!

Scripture quotations are from the ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

RESURRENDER – Hillsong Worship, Brooke Ligertwood

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

Image by Milada Vigerova from Unsplash

“Resurrender,” written by Brooke Ligertwood and Chris Davenport, is from Hillsong Worship’s 2021 release These Same Skies. This song caught my attention by emphasizing that we belong to God as his children, his temple, his church. It feels very much like a Hillsong Worship song, but there’s also something about the lyrics that feels like a fresh, corporate expression of repentance and dedication. Let’s take a look!

Focus

The main theme of “Resurrender” is belonging to God, and the song explores several biblical images of the Church as God’s people and his dwelling place. As a consequence of this identity and relationship, the singer asks God to help the Church “resurrender” to him.

There is no “I” or “me” in this song, only “we” (the Church) and “You” (God).

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
There is some complex temple symbolism here in verse 1, and I love it! First, we see Jesus turning over tables and clearing out the temple in Jerusalem (John 2:13-16, Luke 19:45-48, Mark. 11:15-19, Matt. 21:12-17). In the story, he tells the money-changers and merchants selling things in the temple, “It is written, ā€˜My house shall be called a house of prayer,ā€™ but you make it a den of robbers.” (Matt. 21:13) So instead of honoring the temple as a space for people to meet with God, they were using it for personal gain. By referencing this event in the present tense, the authors of “Resurrender” are saying that this event is still going on. We are the temple now, and Jesus continues to clean out the dirt of our selfishness to make room for prayer, turning us into the kind of temple where people can encounter his love and holiness.

Calling us God’s territory is an extension of this idea; we are his possession, the place where he dwells and has authority. (Of course, the whole universe is God’s territory, but the Church is especially so.)

Returning to our “lives upon the altar” refers to Romans 12:1-2, where Paul instructs us to offer our bodies (read: our whole lives) as living sacrifices to God. The Spirit renews and transforms us, making that sacrifice holy and acceptable to God. The “things we did at first” come from Revelation 2:4-5, where Jesus is rebuking the church in Ephesus for abandoning the love they had for him and his people when they first believed. They have lost their passion, enduring suffering patiently, but not living lives of joyful service to God and others. The authors of “Resurrender” are seeking a return to that passionate love and service that filled them when they first believed.

CHORUS
“We are Your people // You are our God // We are your temple // Make us holy like You are”

The chorus sums up the heart of this song in three statements and a request. The first two echo God’s words in Jeremiah 32:38, a promise to Israel that is fulfilled in the Church:

“And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.”

Belonging to God, being his people, means honoring and obeying him, trusting his good intentions towards us and his power to provide for us. There is so much security and peace to be found in the fact that God has made an everlasting covenant of goodness and love with us, his people.

Asking God to make us holy like him is in line with Peter’s words in 1 Peter 1:15-16, where we are commanded to be holy because the God who called us is holy. If we are the covenant people of God, his representatives and his dwelling place, it is right and fitting to ask him to make us holy, or in other words to make us better representatives of his character and his will. (For a fuller exploration of what it means to be holy, check out 1 Peter 1:13-25.)

When we return to the chorus later in “Resurrender,” it gets a couple extra lines. Now we identify as God’s children (Heb. 12:7, Rom. 8:17), not just his people. The familial language adds an extra dimension of closeness. God sets us apartā€”the most literal meaning of the word “holy”ā€”for his glory (Eph. 1:11-12, 1 Pet. 2:9).

VERSE 2

The Church is called holy and chosen in 1 Peter 2:9 and the sheep of God’s pasture in Psalm 100:3. Consecrate means to make something holy, or set it apart for God’s use. God’s people are commanded to pray throughout Scripture, notably in Matthew 6:9-13 and 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.

When we ask God to help us to please him “where only You can see,” we’re echoing Galatians 1:10. Part of holiness is making choices in faith (Heb. 11:6) to worship God and serve others (Heb. 13:15-16) because it pleases God, not to win the approval of other people.

I’m not sure if the line “every moment matters in eternity” comes from a specific place in Scripture, but I think it’s an extension of two biblical ideas. The first is that even in seemingly small things, we have an opportunity to bring glory to God (1 Cor. 10:31). The second is that God knows and cares about even the smallest details of our lives (Luke 12:6-7).

BRIDGE 1

The first bridge is full of expressions of trust and prayers of devotion. First, we ask that God would mark us with his presence. A mark is something visible to the outside, so this lyric is asking that those outside the Church would know us as God’s people because they can see his presence in us. Jesus says the world will know us as his disciples by the way we love one another (John 13:34-35), and God is love (1 John 4:16), so this doesn’t seem like much of a stretch.

Again, we are God’s temple, or dwelling place. God delights in his people in Zephaniah 3:17 (my favorite Bible verse in case you were wondering).

The next three lines focus on trusting God’s discipline. We praise his love for being firm (Heb. 12:6) and tender (Eph. 4:32). We express our desire to heed his correction, a major theme of the book of Proverbs (10:17, 12:1, and many others). I also like the placement of God’s title as our Shepherd in between these two mentions of discipline. The Psalmist expresses comfort at God’s use of his rod and staff, not terror (Ps. 23:4). Even when God uses his staff on us, we know it’s to pull us back from a cliff edge or a venomous snake, not to cause us misery.

God does all things well (Mk. 7:37), and his laws and judgments are always perfect and true (Ps. 119:66, 142).

And now, without further ado, we arrive at the song title: “Resurrender!” I was surprised to learn that “resurrender” is a real word! (Albeit an obscure one that my browser keeps underlining in red as I write this.) Merriam-Webster says it means “to yield anew.” I think the authors must made this same discovery, since “yield anew” are the last two words of the bridge. This part of the song entrusts everything that we have, all that we are to God, believing that he will respond to our sacrifice by renewing and restoring us, not leaving us empty. In the New Song Cafe session of “Resurrender”, Brooke Ligertwood explains this line a little more, saying, “It’s very hard for the Lord to restore what we’re holding onto and trying to fix ourselves.” I think she’s right, not that it’s hard on the Lord to restore us when we’re being stubborn, but that it’s hard on us.

This section of the song reminds me of Joel 2. In this passage, God’s people have persisted in disobedience, and he is promising a very painful season of discipline and even destruction. In verse 13, the prophet says, “Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” And then in verse 25, God promises “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…my great army which I sent among you.” So when we endure hard discipline under the Lord’s hand, we can trust that when we return our hearts to Him, he will restore us, and even replace that which he has taken from us with something better. In Joel, this means a restoration of Israel’s food supply, but more importantly, the clear and evident presence of God in their midst. We just need to be careful of a simplistic understanding of this sort of promise. (e.g. I surrendered my car to God, so now he has to give me a new, better car.)

BRIDGE 2

“If You’re calling, we’re coming // We’re not walking, we’re running”

And now we arrive at the super-repetitive modern worship bridge! Not a lot of new content here, just a succinct statement of the song’s theme in prayer form. We are eagerly pursuing God’s call, dedicating and surrendering ourselves to him yet again. And again. And again. (x6)

I poke fun, but I don’t think this kind of repetition is necessarily a bad thing. These words are simple, and out of context they might not mean a whole lot, but the rest of the song has fully explained what it means to belong to God and surrender to him, so the bridge provides ample opportunity for the congregation to own and internalize this prayer. I also think that the

Accessibility

In my opinion, this song has a higher barrier to entry than most contemporary worship songs. The scriptural language is rich with meaning, but that meaning will not be immediately apparent to unchurched guests, or even many of the worshipers. The chorus is fairly straightforward, if you know what it means to be God’s temple and to be made holy. Bridge 1 is detailed and self-explanatory, except for the easily misunderstood line “You will restore what we return to You.” Bridge 2 is simple and repetitive. So this song does have some accessibility concerns, but they are mostly caused by the depth of the lyrics, and the song is so unified in its theme that it kind of explains itself as it goes.

Music

Simple piano chords at the beginning and unison vocals. Gradual introduction of strings starting in the first chorus. Percussion and guitars come in subtly in verse 2, followed by some harmony. In the second chorus, we settle into a chill tom groove, though it quickly vanishes as we return to piano and unison for the bridge. Dramatic step up in dynamics for repeat bridge that builds into a standard chorus groove with the full kit, followed by a big instrumental. We drop down again for the heartfelt bridge 2, which builds back up into another big chorus. Then it ends on a nearly a capella bridge 2. You could cut all the bridge 2s if you wanted to shorten it by a couple minutes, but you would lose the meditative/transformative nature of the second part of the song.

There are several different melodies, since there are several different sections. There are some tricky skips in the verses and bridge 1, but each melody is repetitive enough that it can be (mostly) learned on the first hearing. The vocal range stays within an octave 98% of the time, which is helpful for congregational singing. The most distinctive feature of the chord pattern is the C/E in the verses and bridge, which gently pushes the song forward and keeps it from getting stale.

TLDR: it’s in standard worship song form except that it has two different bridges and each gets its own subito piano and sustained crescendo, which works well but makes for a long song. It’s also fairly easy to play and sing.

Conclusions

In the same interview I referenced earlier, author Chris Davenport describes this song as “a returning, but not a retreating,” in the face of adversity, particularly the Covid-19 Pandemic. It is a reminder that we belong to God, and we need to daily surrender to his purpose, discipline, and provision. I’ve seen many worship songs that speak to the individual’s identity in Christ, but this is the first song I’ve seen in a long time that speaks so clearly to the whole Church’s identity.

Will it worship? Definitely. Looking forward to singing it in church, with the Church.

Scripture quotations are from the ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.