“Before Your Face” (2003)
This is a song I wrote in October 2003. Take a look at the lead sheet (Acrobat Reader required). I completed a new-Broadway-style arrangement of it for six instruments in March 2004:
Listen to a live performance (
hi-fi or lo-fi) from a service at our church in 2005.
You’re always welcome to contact me with comments or questions.
About the song
This song germinated after we rented The Prince of Egypt and watched it with the kids. What caught my attention was the paradox of the burning bush—the astonishing fact that both the bush and Moses remained unharmed in the presence of the white-hot glory of God. I highly recommend the movie.
| 1. |
Before Your face, we tremble and we bow before Your face. |
(2Co 3:18; cf. Ex 33:11; 34:34f.) |
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Your presence is an all-consuming fire, |
(Heb 12:29) | |
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But You preserved the bush and Moses in that hallowed place. |
(Ex 3:1–6) | |
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We praise You that Your kindness tempers ire |
(Ps 103:8–11) | |
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Or we would be destroyed without a trace before Your face. |
(Ex 33:20; Isa 6:5) | |
| 2. |
Before Your throne, no mortal stands to boast before Your throne, |
(Ro 3:27; 4:2; 1Co 1:28f.; Eph 2:8f.) |
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For all our crowns and castles are as dust. |
(Ecc 2:4–11) | |
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Your mercy pardons all that we have done and left undone. |
(cf. Ro 7:19; cf. The Book of Common Prayer) | |
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We need no other advocate to trust; |
(Jn 6:68f.; 1Jn 2:1) | |
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Our Savior intercedes—He stands alone before Your throne. |
(1Ti 2:5; Heb 7:25) | |
| 3. |
Before Your love we’d tasted only fear. Before Your love, |
(Ge 3:8–10 (cf. Heb 10:31) |
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Our fears are swept away, our sins removed. |
(Ps 103:11f.; 1Jn 4:16–18) | |
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Your Spirit testifies that our rebirth is from above. |
(Ro 8:16; cf. Jn 3:5f.) | |
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The width and height and depth with which You loved! |
(Eph 3:17–19) | |
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We lift our hearts, our gratitude to prove, before Your love. |
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