Remember when I wanted to make a Christian music podcast?

Below is the entire script of a podcast episode I wrote in Jan 2021. I meant to narrate it, with snippets of the song playing in the background at the appropriate times. I was inspired then by John Green's terrific podcast, The Anthropocene Reviewed, and I wanted a platform to ruminate on how various Christian songs I encountered related to the facets of my life. I never recorded anything of course. All I had for the podcast was a name (I wanted to call it Notes From a Broken Record) and scripts for two and a half episodes sitting on a digital notepad. I doubt I would ever do a podcast like this now, not just because I think I would make a terrible narrator. But I am simply not as excited about that medium as I was four years ago. Still, I look back fondly at what I have written and thought to share them here in written form. I hope all of you enjoy it :)

This script has been edited for the written form in 2024.

Notes From a Broken Record - Episode. 2 Beautiful Saviour

There is something about chaos theory that fascinates me. It’s a theory I was briefly introduced to in my architecture studies. Broadly, chaos theory stipulates that, within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, repetition, and fractals. It presents a view that complex systems and actions can be guided by simple and even predictable factors. That simple actions, even the smallest of activities, can produce something inexplicably complex.

I’m drawn to this because it explains so much, yet also explains so little. So what does this have to do with the song “Beautiful Saviour”?

Beautiful Saviour, by Planetshakers, has just 2 verses. The whole song is simple. 2 Verses. 1 Pre-chorus. 1 Chorus. 1 Bridge. Only in a Christian song would one see so many of these nouns, verbs, and adjectives causally strung together. King. Blessed. Holy. Righteous. Redeemer. Star. Saviour. Majesty. Lamb. God. These have become Christian lingo, where thousands of years of unfamiliar heritage have become “familiar” to us.

But give these lyrics a couple of seconds to linger and they quickly become foreign. King? Majesty? We no longer know what it is like to live under a King. Saviour? Redeemer? The country I live in does not need any physical salvation. We are far removed from the oppressive rule of Babylon or Rome in the Bible. Nor do we know the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt that made them cry for rescue.

Growing up as a Christian teenager, I have never considered these words to have any weight beyond what is written. I thought I knew about what “beautiful saviour” meant, what ‘bright morning star’ meant. This song was just a song pleasing to the ears and easy to sing. Simply put - a ‘nice’ song.

But as I learnt more about Jewish history, as I started to realise that these words were never used in my everyday talk besides in church, I found the lyrics to be increasingly complex. I struggle to reconcile my actual living conditions to the weight of those words. Even then, however, the song’s lyrics meant something to me. I did not physically go through the trauma of the Bible’s characters, but in my own simple, adjacent way, I strangely felt the same.

I may not have experienced the oppressive occupational regime of the Babylons that the Jews faced in 600 BC, but I see the pain in a society that suppresses those who do not conform to societal standards. Through a glimpse of a society that exploits the poor and vulnerable for money, I understand suffering. Through political systems designed to discriminate and to keep a particular race at bay, I started to see a need for rescue.

I cannot even come close to truly understanding the complexity of being in captivity for 430 years, waiting and crying out to be delivered for generations as the Israelites did in the book of Exodus. Yet in my simple way, I know what it means to be saved. To be in danger only for someone or something to prevent me from it. To feel neglected and alone only for friends and family to save me from my mental cages. To be hopelessly trapped in sin leading to death only for someone to take that place to bring me back to life.

The first time I was conscious of singing this song was when I was around 14 years old. The song, with its soothing verses and evocative chord progressions leading up to its chorus, captured me. But when the song went into the bridge, something shifted. It wasn’t just that the instruments had quietened down and faded away. It wasn’t just the soft, contrite voice of the vocalist.

It was the phrase “Jesus, I love you”.

Something about that phrase shook me. I cried. Growing up, I never realised one could say that.

Perhaps, I did not understand the act of loving someone at that age. I may have scribbled “I love you” during my birthday cards to my parents when I was a child, or softly and embarrassedly whispered back in response when my parents said them to me. But did I understand what I was saying? I defintely could not comprehend that one could love God.

God was complex to me. A being invisible yet real. An entity so set apart yet equally muddled with the fallibility of human pathos. Someone I went to for help but also seemed to punish me when I did the wrong things. Someone I could pray to and find comfort in, yet also feel so alone and ignored. God is still equally complex, for much more nuanced reasons. Increasingly difficult to comprehend, even as my intellect seemed to be concurrently increasing.

Yet, the act of saying “Jesus, I love you” was so simple. A human response so raw out of the raw love that God has for humans. There was something so primitive about that raw instinct of love. That “I cannot help but blurt it out or show it” love. The “this may be dumb, but I’ll still do it” actions of love. That natural magnetism towards someone, the inability to rationalise that love, yet it made the most sense. We are walking, talking, oxymorons of love.

All complexity, the idea of God, the images of God, the power of God, the names of God, all condensed into a simple word: love. All complexity leads to a response so simple, raw, and inexplicably impossible to truly understand.

When I was 21, I went on a trip to West Kalimantan, a province in Indonesia. It was a trip to visit a village for neglected children called Living Waters organised by a bible school I was attending then. They had worship every morning, in a sheltered hall, where singers sang with rickety microphones and speakers. For one of the days, while I was visiting, I was tasked to be one of those singers and to prepare a few songs. The song I chose?

Beautiful Saviour.

I cannot precisely explain why I chose it. Maybe it was because I just liked it. Or that it was simple enough. Or that it was one of those songs the children there might be familiar with. But there I was, up on stage with two other singers and a keyboard player, singing this song. I was singing in English, my primary language, while most of them were much more familiar with Bahasa Indonesia, the native language of that village.

I was afraid they wouldn’t understand a word I was saying. I was afraid that such singing lacked meaning. I was afraid of whether I could even sing properly, given that I had never actually led a song before. My mind struggled with the complexity of it all.

Yet, there was something simple about singing that day. The children slowly joined in, in their language or attempting to follow the English subtitles projected behind me. As I sang, I was no longer concerned about how well I was singing or the sequence of the song. It was simply a large diverse group of people of different ages, languages, cultures, and backgrounds coming together, singing praise in one voice. And I was awed by the simplicity of that. That such a complex combination can produce such a pure response.

God is complex. Yet, He is simple. He is wonderful. Beautiful. Exalted High. I don’t have a theory to back myself up. Chaos theory falls flat.

But even as I struggle with my complexity and the complexity of the world, I hope I will never lose this simple thing: to be loved, and to love.