Monday, December 01, 2008

broken hallelujah

Today my wife showed me this song via a you-tube link. And it appears to be included in a sound track song for a Shrek movie. And to have been out for years, already, but this was my first time to hear it.

I am old, and out of things, but I don't understand how "Praise the Lord-Jehovah" can be so accepted in the secular world, unless the world doesn't know what the Hebrew phrase means. With allusions to King David the psalmist and the adulterer, as well as to Samson's fall to Delilah, it appears the song's author was familiar with the Biblical record . . . , and well-acquainted with the passions of this life.

It sums up the Christian experience very well: Love is . . . a broken hallelujah. When we have done our very best, it has been so tainted with our sinfulness that it is, at best, a broken attempt to bring praise to God.

I am overcome by how true to life this song is, how much emotion is in both the lyrics and the melody. It haunts me. It makes me weep over my sin.

And it is a theme song for a cartoon ogre!?