Getty Music + Chris Tomlin - O Church Arise (Arise, Shine) Lyrics
Lyrics
O Church, arise, and put your armor on;
Hear the call of Christ our captain.
For now the weak can say that they are strong
In the strength that God has given.
With shield of faith and belt of truth,
We’ll stand against the devil’s lies.
An army bold, whose battle cry is Love,
Reaching out to those in darkness.
Our call to war, to love the captive soul,
But to rage against the captor;
And with the sword that makes the wounded whole,
We will fight with faith and valor.
When faced with trials on every side,
We know the outcome is secure.
And Christ will have the prize for which He died:
An inheritance of nations.
Chorus:
Arise, shine for your light has come
Arise, shine for the Risen Son
Lift your eyes, we are His radiant bride
Arise, o church arise!
Come, see the cross, where love and mercy meet,
As the Son of God is stricken;
Then see His foes lie crushed beneath His feet,
For the Conqueror has risen!
And as the stone is rolled away,
And Christ emerges from the grave,
This victory march continues till the day
Ev’ry eye and heart shall see Him.
So Spirit, come, put strength in every stride;
Give grace for every hurdle,
That we may run with faith to win the prize
Of a servant good and faithful.
As saints of old, still line the way,
Retelling triumphs of His grace,
We hear their calls, and hunger for the day
When with Christ we stand in Glory.
Video
Keith & Kristyn Getty - O Church Arise (Arise, Shine) ft. Chris Tomlin (Live)
Meaning & Inspiration
I’ve spent a lot of evenings sitting in the quiet, watching the dust motes dance in the late afternoon sun, listening to the Getty and Tomlin rendition of "O Church Arise." My hands have gotten papery and thin over the years, and the skin doesn’t pull back the way it used to, but they still know the weight of a hymnbook. When you’ve been walking this path for four decades, you stop looking for the high of the music and start looking for something that can actually hold you up when the knees give out.
There is a line in this piece that catches me every single time: "For now the weak can say that they are strong / In the strength that God has given."
It is a difficult truth. When you are young, "strength" feels like something you possess—a muscle you flex, a conviction you hold onto. But after you have stood by gravesides and felt the absolute paralysis of your own limitations, you realize that any strength you claim is borrowed. It isn't yours. Like Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, the power is made perfect in weakness. It’s an uncomfortable paradox. I find myself wondering: if I stop "saying" I am strong, does the strength evaporate? Or is the declaration itself the act of surrender, admitting that the vitality coming into my tired frame isn't from me at all?
Then there is the image of the sword that "makes the wounded whole." That is a strange thing to say about a weapon. Usually, swords open things up; they divide and carve. But this is the Sword of the Spirit, the Word that cuts through the lies we tell ourselves in the dark. In my house, the edges of my Bible are soft, the pages thinned by decades of thumbing through the promises when the house was too quiet and the fears were too loud. That Book has broken me open more times than I can count, but it is exactly that breaking that let the light back in. It is a violent mercy, being unmade by the truth so that you can be put back together again, not as you were, but as you were meant to be.
I don’t know if this is just music for a morning service or a anthem for the trenches. Some days, the call to "arise" feels like a taunt to a body that wants to rest. But then I remember that the finish line isn't about my stride; it’s about the fact that the stone was rolled away. If the Grave couldn't hold Him, then my own exhaustion is just a temporary state. I don't know if I have the valor they sing about, but I have the memory of His faithfulness. And sometimes, in the evening, when the lights are low, that is enough.