In Peace Through The Valley

“Singing through this program in concert has been a moving experience for us as a choir, at times even deeply unsettling and uncomfortable. Against the exclamations of joy and praise that open the program, later songs confront us with the very cries of pain we try to avoid. As a choir, we have tried to honestly enter into those places of brokenness depicted in the music, giving voice to our own pain and that of others.

Yet there is more. As with any great story, the story of humanity is more than brokenness. We should not forget our beginnings! Our first parents entered this world as noble and whole creatures, made in the image of God, walking with their Creator. Our sin made us exiles from the God who gave us life; we stumbled from the Garden bent, wandering east of Eden. But through Christ and through his cross, that
body-breaking instrument of death, we return to God. In the shadow of the cross, looking upon that Victim torn and bleeding, we find that God has joined us in our grief. He has come near, he has brought us to himself.

The final songs of this program remind us that as we walk with our Shepherd, he will bring us to the other side. We walk with bright hope through the dark valley. For finally, when the King returns, even our brightest hopes will fade into the splendor of a yet brighter reality. Thanks be to God!

-Wendell Nisly