Come, behold the wondrous mystery

I. Origins

“Come, behold the wondrous mystery,” a modern hymn written in a popular/contemporary worship style, was a collaborative effort between Matt Boswell, Michael Bleecker, and Matt Papa. The idea for the song came in November 2012 to Matt Boswell, who at the time was Director of Ministries and Worship at Providence Church, Frisco, Texas.

I was in Louisville, Kentucky, sitting at a piano, when I first thought of that phrase, “Come, behold the wondrous mystery.” We had come to town to record The Gospel Coalition project Songs for the Book of Luke, and I believe I was doing the vocals on one or two songs for that. Matt Papa and I had written two hymns for that, and Don Carson and I wrote one. Mike Cosper [founding pastor of Sojourn Church, Louisville] was producing it. All the guys were there in the studio. I don’t love recording studios. I’m happy for about an hour, and then I get bored being inside of a recording studio. So I went out into this home, and there was a piano, and I sat down and wrote that melody within five minutes, around that phrase, “Come, behold the wondrous mystery.” I remember showing it to Mike Cosper later that afternoon. I was a little unsure about the melody because it starts on a 3. I said, “Is this good?” He said, “Yeah, I think I like it.” I said, “I don’t think so,” but I warmed up to it.

Riding back on the same plane was Michael Bleecker [worship leader at The Village Church, Flower Mound, Texas]—Bleecker and I both live in Texas, only about 30–45 minutes from each other, but we don’t get to see each other very often—so I said, “I wrote this melody earlier today, and we’ve got a two-hour of flight with nothing to do; do you want to work on a song?” Across the aisle there, we worked on the song. We worked on some of those verses. A lot of it got down the road.

I had started working with Matt Papa [worship leader at The Summit Church, Raleigh, North Carolina] quite a bit by that point—I’d been working with him for four or five years by then—and I felt like it needed his influence and his voice in it. So I ended up sending it to Papa to get us across the finish line.[1]

Matt Papa explained his approach to finishing the song:

When the song was sent to me, it was pretty late in the process. I remember trying to give the song a different melody, because I thought the melody was kind of boring, but it turned out; we went with the same melody the guys had because it had sort of a simple, folky charm to it. Lyrically, I think the verse that was unfinished was number four. I did a little bit in one and two, I did a line or two in verse three, and I wrote the first four lines of verse four. I was glad to help be a part of it.[2]

According to Michael Bleecker, Matt Papa’s changes were reviewed and accepted by the group on New Year’s Day, 2013. At the time, Matt Boswell was under contract as a songwriter for LifeWay (the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention), so the song was first offered to them; his rights for the song are managed through LifeWay’s label, McKinney Music Inc. Later in January of 2013, Bleecker wrote a chorus for the song (“Lift your eyes, lift up your voices,” etc.), but Boswell and Papa had already started the process of recording their versions, so they set it aside; nonetheless, Bleecker opted to use it for his own purposes at Village Church.[3]

Songs for the Book of Luke was released 26 March 2013 in conjunction with The Gospel Coalition conference.

II. Audio Recordings

The hymn has been recorded multiple times by all three of the writers, sometimes separately and sometimes together. The first recorded version was made by Matt Papa for his album Look & Live, released 17 September 2013 through The Summit Church, with an additional audio commentary album, released 26 November 2013. Papa issued his first live version of the song on Live at the Lincoln Theater [Raleigh, N.C.] released 15 January 2015 via 2 Cities Music. On Papa’s recordings, he repeats the last two lines of the song as a coda.

Matt Boswell’s first recording was released as a single via his label, Doxology & Theology, 27 December 2013. His single was repeated on his EP album Messenger Hymns, Vol. II, released 15 April 2015. Boswell’s performance of the melody differs slightly from Papa’s; see section IV below for more on how this is reflected in the song’s publication history. On this recording, Boswell sings “as will we be,” and he repeated the first two lines of the last stanza, thus placing the emphasis solely on the risen Christ (ending on “He is alive”) rather than on the risen believer. These approaches to the end of the song have not carried over into subsequent recordings.

Michael Bleecker first recorded the song as a single via The Village Church, released 10 November 2017. In this recording, Bleecker introduced his own modifications to the melody, thus giving each composer his own individualized stamp on the hymn. The recording has a strong electronic component, with more intensity than the recorded versions by Boswell and Papa. Like Papa, Bleecker repeated the last two lines as a coda. Bleecker recalled the process behind crafting a new sound for the song:

I had led it at The Village since 2013, so I wanted to breathe new life into it. I brought it to Chad Copelin and James McAlister at Blackwatch Studios in Norman, Oklahoma, for ideas and recording. They created the 2017 single.[4]

Recordings of the song in association with the Gettys include Matt Boswell’s performance on Sing! Live at the Getty Music Worship Conference, recorded in September 2017 and released 1 December 2017; a joint recording by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa on His Mercy is More, released 16 August 2019, with Kristyn Getty supplying guest vocals; and a live performance by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa for the Getty Music Sing! conference, recorded August 2019 and released 29 November 2019 on Sing! The Life of Christ Quintology: Incarnation.

III. Video Recordings

Another major avenue for promotion and distribution of the song has been through YouTube. The first video recording of the song was released by Matt Papa, featuring a small group of musicians in an acoustic (“unplugged”) arrangement, posted 4 February 2014.

The earliest video featuring Matt Boswell is from a worship service on 25 February 2014, recorded during the Empower Conference, an event for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, held at Sagemont Church, Houston, Texas. Other videos featuring Matt Boswell include a specially recorded performance made in Frisco, Texas, with a visiting choir from Boyce College (Louisville, KY), posted to YouTube on 2 October 2017 [no longer available on YouTube but archived at SBTS] and released on an EP, Messenger Hymns Live, 6 October 2017. Boswell performed the song at the inaugural Getty Music Sing! conference (Nashville, TN) in September 2017, and a he led a joint performance with Matt Papa at the Sing! conference in August 2019.

The earliest video led by Michael Bleecker features him with a small group of musicians in an intimate acoustic performance, recorded at The Mill Street House in Lewisville, Texas, posted 6 September 2016, featuring superimposed lyrics. He also appeared in a video recorded during a worship service at The Village Church, posted 15 June 2017, using an arrangement in the same style as his studio recording, but bookended by the refrain he had written in January 2013:

Lift your eyes, lift up your voices; celebrate the coming King.
He will split the skies in power; yes, He reigns victoriously.

IV. Publication

The appearance of the song in print has been driven largely by the audio recordings listed in section II above. In spite of the song originally being contributed under contract to LifeWay in 2013, scored versions were first made available through other channels.

An arrangement in four-part congregational harmony was included in the program booklet for Together for the Gospel (T4G), a conference held in Louisville, Kentucky, 8–10 April 2014. This version was scored and arranged by Bob Kauflin,[5] and it represents Matt Boswell’s recorded version of the melody.

The first publicly accessible score was an orchestration by Dan Kreider made for Grace Immanuel Bible Church (Jupiter, Florida), published online in January 2015 via the Grace Music website (gracemusic.us | Fig. 1) with the permission of Matt Papa. Kreider used Papa’s recording of the song from Look & Live as the basis for the score, and this is reflected in the shape of the melody (see especially “In our longing, in our darkness . . . life has come”). In 2017, Matt Papa purchased the rights to this orchestration.[6]

LifeWay’s score followed shortly thereafter, in April 2015, sold through their LifeWay Worship website (lifewayworship.com). Like Kreider, LifeWay used Matt Papa’s recording as the basis for their initial score (Fig. 2), and this is reflected in the shape of the melody. LifeWay would later add other variant scores in August 2016 (“mainly based on Papa’s version, but the melody was tweaked in spots to mimic more of Boswell’s melody from his Messenger Hymns album”[7]) and in April 2020 (based on the recording from His Mercy is More).

Matt Boswell’s version of the melody was first published through the PraiseCharts.com (Fig. 3) on 3 July 2015, based on the recording from Messenger Hymns Vol. II.[8] By November 2020, PraiseCharts had added eight additional arrangements of the song, some based on the recordings listed in section II above, and some based on cover versions, especially recordings by Shane & Shane.

This hymn’s first appearance in a hymnal was in Hymns of Grace, released December 2015 (Fig. 4), using Boswell’s version of the melody as in Fig. 3, arranged in four-part choral harmony. The harmonization here is similar to the one from T4G 2014, but lightly revised by music arranger Mark Rice for improved voice leading. The collection was edited and published on behalf of The Master’s Seminary (Los Angeles, California).

Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI), which facilitates licenses and royalties between churches and writers/publishers, added the song to their registry on 16 July 2014 (#7026028) and offered a score through their SongSelect service in August of 2016 (Fig. 5).[9] CCLI’s score, like Figs. 1 and 2 above, is based on Matt Papa’s recording from Look & Live.

V. Analysis

According to Matt Boswell, the hymn was deeply influenced by the previous songwriting work of Matt Papa and the British/Irish team of Stuart Townend and Keith Getty. In particular, the hymn was modeled after “In Christ alone my hope is found.”

I met Matt Papa through our publishing companies. . . . He had written these EPs called Scripture Songs & Hymns, and I was really interested in what he was doing. I had been influenced by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty and was very interested in what they were doing in modern hymnody. Of course, now we all work together, so it’s strange how that has all come to be. As Matt and I started writing together, we felt like that was probably a good template for us to work from. Of course, what they were doing was British/Irish hymnody, so [we wanted to] do some kind of American version of what they were doing.

It’s built on a similar template to “In Christ alone”—four verses in a modern idiom. To have no chorus was a bit of a novelty still, back when we wrote it. There weren’t a lot of songs (at least that would do well) in churches . . . without a chorus. I think that’s still true, but we were pretty convinced it didn’t need one. We tried to do a whole lot with the story of Christ: the incarnation to the life of Christ, the passion account, and of course the resurrection. It covers a lot of ground.[10]

Whereas “In Christ alone” begins and ends with statements of confidence in the person and work of Christ in stanzas 1 and 4, with the narrative arc of that work in 2 and 3, “Come, behold the wondrous mystery” begins with the narrative, set up like a good storyteller, beckoning listeners to hear something fantastic. Each stanza begins with the same five-word summons.

In the first stanza, the writers established the duality of the heavenly King who was “robed in frail humanity,” as in Philippians 2:5–7. Also embedded in the text are the ideas of light (John 1:9) and a preview of the purpose behind this journey: to pay a ransom (Mark 10:45). The second stanza speaks more about the person of Christ, using his name “Son of Man” (Dan. 7:13, Mk. 10:45), describing him as sinless (Heb. 4:15), as the second Adam (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:21–22,45–49), and as the fulfillment of the law (Matt. 5:17). The third stanza deals more directly with the crucifixion, describing a substitutionary atonement (“in the stead of ruined sinners,” Gal. 3:13), a sacrificial Lamb (Jn. 1:29, Rev. 5:12), offering a grace without measure (John 1:16). The final stanza transitions from the cross to the resurrection, beginning with another poetic duality (“slain by death, the God of life”). The “foretaste of deliverance” is likely in reference to the more complete deliverance promised to come (for example, Rev. 21:1–8). The unwavering hope is a nice connection to the song’s hymnic predecessor. Lastly, the song describes a resurrection of believers at the Second Coming (Jn. 5:25–29, Rom. 6:5, 1 Cor. 15).

Richness of Scripture is consistent with the work of all three writers. In an interview a few months after this song was written, Michael Bleecker explained his deep commitment to scriptural ministry:

On each of my charts I have a few Scriptures typed in at the top so I’m able to reference them while I’m singing, playing, or praying. I also add Scriptures to the bottom of the slides so the church is able to reference them while they are singing as well. If we’re singing “here I raise my Ebenezer,” 1 Samuel 7:12 will be at the bottom of that slide. If we’re singing “my name is graven on His hands,” Isaiah 49:16 will be at the bottom of that slide. The slides aren’t as clean as they were before, but it’s a great trade for informed worshipers. . . . I want everything I do to be saturated with Scripture, knowing that it will not return void.[11]

Musically, as with the repeated text at the beginning of each stanza, the melody is tied together by repetition. When broken into two-bar phrases, the song follows a pattern of ab–ac–de–ac, which aides in its quick adoption among worshipers. The melody has a distinctive series of suspended notes on strong beats. As a matter of performance practice, the sense of the text in stanza 2 is best served if the leader sings “Christ, the sure and great fulfillment of the law,” breaking at the textual comma, then adding “in him we stand.”

VI. Legacy

Although the much of the song’s legacy is yet to be told, it has already become known to millions, sung, performed, and recorded in ways too many to count. Matt Boswell credited the song’s rapid adoption in part to its usage in large conferences, including the advocacy given to it by the Gettys, who had helped develop and popularize this songwriting style in the first place:

I remember early on I lead it at conferences; I led it at The Gospel Coalition, I led it at the first Cross Conference [December 2013], Bob Kauflin did a version of it [Together for the Gospel Live III, released 21 Oct. 2016]. Those things helped get the word out about it. I recorded it as a single right before the first Cross Conference, and then put it on the Messenger Hymns EP, and it has appeared on a number of albums since then. Getty Music has definitely helped propel that hymn further than I could have ever done on my own. Keith and Kristyn started playing it all over the world.[12]

For Matt Boswell, the song has been part of a larger overall journey as a songwriter, a skill he continues to develop through his connections to Matt Papa and others:

Papa and I, our skill sets are so complementary, and remain so to this day. I found in Matt a writing partner who would really push me to grow and strengthen me in areas where I was weaker. I think we’ve both grown as writers over the last decade. I would not have grown at nearly the pace without writing with him. It’s been a wonderful friendship and partnership in writing. . . . In God’s kindness, [“Come, behold the wondrous mystery”] turned out to be a hymn that has served the church and one that I know both of us are proud of.[13]

Matt Papa has expressed how the song has become much bigger than the single work of three songwriters:

I read once in a book on art, that one mark of a great song or a great work of art is that the song or work becomes “the people’s.” As time passes it begins to belong to the community, more than it does the writers/artists, . . . to be associated with the community more than the writers. I feel that way about this song. “Come, behold the wondrous mystery” is not mine or Matt Boswell’s or Michael Bleecker’s song. It’s the Church’s song. And I praise God for that.[14]

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
5 November 2020
rev. 1 December 2020

Footnotes:

1. Interview with Matt Boswell, 28 October 2020.

2. Correspondence with Matt Papa, 28 October 2020.

3. Correspondence with Michael Bleecker, 30 November 2020.

4. Correspondence with Michael Bleecker, 30 November 2020.

5. Correspondence with Bob Kauflin, via assistant Bekah Heid, 10 November 2020.

6. Correspondence with Dan Kreider, 2 November 2020.

7. Correspondence with Charlene Witt, Copyright & Production Manager, PraiseCharts Publishing Inc., 2 November 2020.

8. Correspondence with Scott Dotta, LifeWay Worship, 3 November 2020.

9. Correspondence with Marc Straup, Intellectual Property Manager, CCLI, 3 November 2020.

10. Interview with Matt Boswell, 28 October 2020.

11. Trevin Wax, “The gospel-centered worship leader: A conversation with Matt Boswell and Michael Bleecker,” The Gospel Coalition (9 May 2013): https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/the-gospel-centered-worship-leader-a-conversation-with-matt-boswell-and-michael-bleecker/

12. Interview with Matt Boswell, 28 October 2020.

13. Interview with Matt Boswell, 28 October 2020.

14. Matt Papa, “Come, behold the wondrous mystery”: https://www.mattpapa.com/come-behold-the-wondrous-mystery

Related Resources:

CCLI: https://us.ccli.com

Doxology & Theology [Matt Boswell]: https://www.doxologyandtheology.com

Getty Music: https://www.gettymusic.com

Grace Music: https://gracemusic.us

LifeWay Worship: https://worship.lifeway.com

Matt Papa: https://www.mattpapa.com

Michael Bleecker: https://citizenschurch.com

PraiseCharts: https://www.praisecharts.com

Trevin Wax, “The gospel-centered worship leader: A conversation with Matt Boswell and Michael Bleecker,” The Gospel Coalition (9 May 2013): https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/the-gospel-centered-worship-leader-a-conversation-with-matt-boswell-and-michael-bleecker/