A Resurrection Weekend Playlist

The songs that are rocking my house on Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

I cannot write without music.

Now that I think about it, I don’t know that there’s much of anything I can do without music.

In any case, while I’m writing a book, I almost always compile a playlist to accompany the book.

As many of you know, Crossway Books and The Gospel Coalition recently released my new book Did the Resurrection Really Happen? The playlist that I compiled for Did the Resurrection Really Happen? is what my family is spinning on our digital turntables this week, and I thought some of you might enjoy listening along with us.

You can download the playlist on Amazon Music by clicking here: Did the Resurrection Really Happen? by Timothy Paul Jones. Or you can assemble the playlist on your own, using the track list below. Enjoy!

Did the Resurrection Really Happen? Playlist

The Darkness

“Cross” by Crosses

In the opening pages of Did the Resurrection Really Happen?, I describe the vulgar horror of crucifixion in the ancient world. This dark ambient piece of music from Deftones singer Chino Moreno paints an aural image that perfectly parallels what I attempt to describe in prose.

“Jesus Christ” by U2

The first question I pose in the book is, “What’s so different about Jesus?” My conclusion is that nothing is truly different about Jesus unless he was raised from the dead—which runs counter to this song by Woody Guthrie which extols Jesus as a champion of the working-class poor but leaves Jesus in the grave (much like Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Queen’s far more bombastic tune “Jesus”). Still, U2’s rockabilly rendition of “Jesus Christ” remains an outstanding song that should prod Christians with the question, “If Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, is Christianity worth believing at all?” (#SpoilerAlert: According to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:17, it isn’t.)

“Losing My Religion” by R.E.M.

I spend a few pages early in Did the Resurrection Really Happen? recounting my struggles to trust the truth of Christianity during my first year of college. At the peak of my doubts, R.E.M. released this song, and ”Losing My Religion”—along with U2’s “God Part II” and “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips—became the dueling soundtracks of my rising skepticism. At my desk in the corner of a library, I consumed book after book that multiplied my doubts (“That's me in the corner”) while simultaneously playing guitar in a Christian metal band (“That's me in the spotlight”) as I felt my faith swirling down the drain (“losing my religion”).

“Hold On” by Wilson Phillips

By the early 1990s, every mixtape cassette that I played in my boombox was packed with hard rock and alternative rock—except this one song that was so catchy it somehow ended up peacefully coexisting with U2, King’s X, and Extreme. I was looking for a way to break free from the fundamentalism of my childhood while holding on to some semblance of faith, and “Hold On” captured much of what I felt. I wanted to “break free, break from the chains” I’d felt in fundamentalist churches, but I didn’t yet know how.

The Hope

“Window in the Skies” by U2

The writings of C.S. Lewis threw open the windows to new possibilities for me. First, it was Surprised by Joy, then it was God in the Dock. With this discovery of a more faithful and intellectually satisfying way to follow Jesus, hope began to dawn. This different way of being Christian—new to me, but in actuality very old—was grounded in the resurrection of Jesus, that event wherein “the stone it has been moved; the grave is now a groove.”

“Higher” by Creed

In the book Did the Resurrection Really Happen?, I focus on the origins of the creed that Paul recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:3–7. And so, a song by the band Creed is a perfect fit. Two decades after Creed first dominated the rock charts, this is the only one of their hits that still lifts my spirits and compels me to crank up the volume in the car. This is Scott Stapp when he is most hopeful, most anthemic, and least annoying—and the chorus of this song still soars.

“marjorie” by Taylor Swift

“It is altogether impossible for a life to be genuinely happy unless it is immortal,” Augustine of Hippo mused in his tractate on the Trinity (De Trinitate, 13). Every human being hopes for resurrection, and a vague sense of post-mortem presence can never be enough to satisfy our yearnings to be reunited with those we love. Those unsatisfied yearnings are on full display in this delicate and elegant elegy from Taylor Swift, written in memory of her grandmother.

“Back to Life” by Soul II Soul

“Back to Life” hit the charts a year or so before my struggles with faith began in my first year of college, but the song captures the buoyant joy I felt about the present and future when the struggles began to fade. I found that I believed anew that Jesus was alive, and I knew that I had been raised to life with him. For me, it was “back to life, back to reality, back to the here and now.”

The Future

“Made Straight” by Propaganda

“And we are not those without hope or hoping in hope alone/Resurrection shows that this land is not our home,” says Propaganda. Resurrection hope is not only for the present moment, but it’s also for the future when God makes all things right and new. “The already but not yet,… we look for it with joy and anticipation/For when the time keeper comes soon and make the crooked way straight.”

“Meant to Live” by Switchfoot

“Everything inside screams for second life.” In January 2003, I desperately needed “second life.” It was one of the darkest times of my life up to that point. My wife and I had been informed in 2002 that we could not have biological children. Then, we lost three children in a row in adoptions that didn’t work out. Two of these children, we lost in November and December 2002. My wife and I did not celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas in 2002; we stayed home and grieved alone. There was too much pain to endure celebration or to be present with others. Three albums became the soundtrack of my first steps toward healing in 2003 and 2004: The Beautiful Letdown by Switchfoot, All that You Can’t Leave Behind by U2, and A Love Supreme by John Coltrane. When 2003 began, I had no plans to make it to the end of the year alive; in fact, every inclination and expectation in me was directed in the opposite direction. By the end of 2003, God had brought new habits, new friends, and an unexpected adoption into my life that began a process of healing; that healing is still not complete—and I suspect it may never be complete in this life—but there is progress. For me in the early months of 2003, “Dare You to Move” and “Meant to Live” were anthems of future hope.

“End of the World” by Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors

A buoyant, rollicking look at the truth that the lives of those who are united with Christ will long outlast their deaths—or at least that’s what I hear in the song. “Sometimes I am afraid to die, my flesh and bones won't testify./My enemies and friends share the same residence./But don't eulogize on my behalf,/I'm a long way from my epitaph,” Drew Holcomb declares, and it makes me hopeful for the future every time he does.

“After the Last Tear Falls” by Andrew Peterson

“And in the end, the end is oceans and oceans of love and love again./We'll see how the tears that have fallen/were caught in the palms of the Giver of love and the Lover of all./And we'll look back on these tears as old tales.” That is what the death and resurrection of Jesus has guaranteed for every believer, and this song of yearning points me toward that reality.

If you want to download the entire playlist, click here: Did the Resurrection Really Happen? by Timothy Paul Jones.

What songs are on your resurrection weekend playlist?