I came across this video on You Tube of Andrea Bocelli singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, with his daughter Virginia. There are few performances that compare to this one-which is the reason I am posting it here. It did not make national or international news when it was released…but maybe it should have. I think we could all use this much beauty in our lives right now.
The song Hallelujah is one I never really cared for. Yes the tune is amazing, but at first listen, it struck me as odd that the writer combines the brokenness of man and the human experience with God’s holiness within the lyrics. I wasn’t sure if this song honored God or if it dishonored God. But only a few weeks ago, I listed to the song and the line “It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah” hit me hard. It finally occurred to me that regardless of God’s holiness or His attributes, anything that man, we, offer to God as far as praise is just that, cold and broken. Isaiah 64:6 provides more on that. However, the entirety of the human experience, along with our nature, means that for us there is a lot of brokenness (Genesis 3). We come to God with all of that, and although He gets us through it all, teaching us and growing us up, each one individually, the brokenness of this life means when we do come to Him for help and guidance we often come with a tired or exhausted Hallelujah. This is what we bring.
No matter how much you have had to carry this past year, or in your life, God is there, still, waiting for you to come to Him with all of that (John 6:35,37,39; Matthew 11:28-30, etc.). It is all broken, but He is happy for you to bring it to Him. With God there is hope, for each day. He provides that to us, because He just loves us that much.
For more about that hope, please see https://wordpicturesbydlink.wordpress.com/jesus/
Hallelujah can be found on Andrea Bocelli’s cd Believe released in 2020.
-Word- pictures by DLink 