This Precious Hour

The Gospel on Good Friday

Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash

That line comes from a song I listened to relentlessly through Advent called “The World to Come.” It’s not a Christian song, except that the writer unwittingly (I think) said a lot of the things I, as a Christian, am often saying to myself about God and the world. I was surprised to like the song, and that phrase—“this precious hour”—so much, because I don’t usually like the word “precious.” It has been ruined, almost completely, by adding the word “moments” to it. It has been taken and used to mean some kind of cloying, silly, stupid sentimentality.

But given its first (at least in the dictionary listing) meaning—“commanding a large price”—I feel like it’s time to reclaim it from the dregs of twee kitsch. Think of it as an act of redemption, or worse, atonement—which the pastor of a church in Nashville called, ironically enough, GracePoint, says he doesn’t believe in.