Hello, 2025. Take a deep breath. The sun came up just like the Lord promised it would. Start this year with a clean slate. Leave behind all the trouble that consumed you in 2024. It’s time to sing a new song in 2025.
I count on God’s heart of grace toward us. Jeremiah speaks of God’s faithfulness. “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness” — Lamentations 3:22,23 (NJKV).
I’ve walked out of tune in the past. My heart was not right before God even though He was holding my hand. I repented and confessed my wrong. Call it a mistake, a sin or transgression, it doesn’t matter; I was out of step and I knew it. Life was miserable. It’s brutal and hard to live that way. I couldn’t run fast enough back to God. By God’s grace, He put the music back in my heart. He lifted me to a new song and created praise on my lips.
In a classic song, “Hallelujah,” written by Leonard Cohen, Cohen wrote about the rise and fall of beloved David the Psalmist. He was known as a man after God’s own heart. Yet, he sinned.
Cohen uses the musical term of the broken chord to describe David, in which the notes that compose a chord are sounded individually in a progressive rising or descending order.
Multiple psalms that David wrote could be characterized as broken chords or broken hallelujahs.
His psalms start by asking for help. He’s in hot water, some by his own making, some being pursued by his greatest enemy, Saul, or by doubting himself. His problem builds, he even complains, but at the end of the psalm, his heart swells in praise for God. He knows from where his answer comes. He confesses God’s faithfulness. He bends his knees. God rises and lifts him up. “The minor falls, the major lifts.”
David’s famous sin is still read 3,000 years later, and God’s mercies are still being seen through the eye of the reader. David fell when he saw Bathsheba bathing on the rooftop and took her as his own. At first, he covered his lust, not repenting nor confessing to God. This led to another sin, a bigger sin — murder. Having her husband killed, he took his problem into his own hands. He finally came to himself. He begged for God’s forgiveness.
Being the greatest leader of the nation of Israel, God forgave him but, because of his position in Israel, his sin became larger and his circle of confession became greater. He sinned against the people he ruled in his kingdom.
Cohen wrote the song over a five-year period of time and finished writing it in 1983, releasing it in 1984. Today, it has been covered by more than 300 artists in multiple languages.
It’s interesting that God led Cohen to write this song at 50 years old. Cohen described it as “rather joyous and said that it came from a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way, but with enthusiasm, with emotion.”
In his own words, Cohen conveys that hallelujah is to have many meanings and purposes.
“The song can be used in times of relief, grieving, celebration, or remorse,” he said.
It could show the struggle of faith inflicted upon the Jewish people. The song also tells of David’s love story — love found, love lost and the aftermath of those events.
The word hallelujah means “Praise Yah, God.” The song always stirs my heart and lifts my spirit into the heavens. Taking time to listen to the lyrics and ponder the words, for me this song is about my own soul who has praised God when I’ve fallen and when He has lifted me up out of the miry clay. His compassions are new every morning.
David played a secret chord. The “secret chord” is a mysterious reference often attributed to David. It could be a literal musical note or a metaphor for deeper spiritual harmony.
For me, the secret chord is how the music has been altered by my sin, even stopped. But God covers my sin when I repent and confess. It’s a secret place in my heart from where I cry at night when only God hears. He wipes my tears. My sin will draw the broken hallelujah from my lips, and a blaze of light in my words will cause me to know that He has satisfied my sin by His Holy Spirit and grace.
Final brushstroke: The lyrics God penned upon Cohen’s heart 40 years ago were words about David’s fall and rise. The lyrics say, “There’s a blaze of light in every word … The holy or the broken Hallelujah … I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.”
Readers’ comments
Send your comment to bettyslade.author@gmail.com.
“Dear Betty,
“I just finished reading your piece in today’s Preview. Your writing has inspired me once again.
“That piece exemplifies why a Christian writer should write. It is food for thought for people who have not yet been convicted to the point of making a change in their mind and direction in this life. I often feel insignificant in the ocean of media and convince myself there isn’t any point in adding yet another little wave. I get it . . . lots of little waves can amount to a tsunami especially when what is underneath it all is the one who created and can move Heaven and Earth.
“Thank you again, Paige Wiersma.”
Views expressed do not necessarily represent those of The SUN.
