An album by Andrew Peterson has been getting steady playing time lately.  It’s a Christmas album of his own songs, and it’s got a fantastic flow from start to finish as the songs really follow the flow of the Scriptures, right from the early Old Testament stories, through the Exodus, the prophets, and the birth of Jesus.  It’s very well done and puts the “Christmas story” into a big-picture context that’s pretty helpful.

My favourite song on the album has to be one sung by Derek Webb.  If you get a chance to hear it, go for it.  Lyrics are below…

Deliver Us

Our enemy, our captor is no Pharaoh on the Nile.
Our toil is neither mud nor brick nor sand.
Our ankles bear no callouses from chains,
Yet Lord, we’re bound.
Imprisoned here, we dwell in our own land.

Deliver us, deliver us.
Oh Yahweh, hear our cry,
And gather us beneath Your wings tonight.

Our sins,they are more numerous than all the lambs we slay.
These shackles, they were made with our own hands.
Our toil is our atonement and our freedom Yours to give.
So Yahweh, break Your silence if You can.

‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem
How often I have longed
To gather you beneath My gentle wings.’