JohnCalvinYoung.com

Under the cat­e­gory of things-that-don’t-agree-with-me-aesthetically-but-are-nonetheless-awesome, we have here an incred­i­ble, spine-tingling, heart-lifting video put together by Faith Church of Budapest Hungary: on Easter Sunday this year, 1300 young folks gath­ered in Heroes Square in down­town Budapest and very pub­licly put on a chore­o­graphed wor­ship dance to a Hungarian praise song.

The music doesn’t all appeal to me, nei­ther does the dance moves they chose for the video. But the very fact of their being there sends chills up and down my spine. You see, I’ve been there. I spent some time in Eastern Europe six years ago, and stood in this very square in front of the Millenium Memorial. It’s an old, pati­naed monument–this wasn’t erected at the turn of the mil­le­nium, but in honor of the thou­sandth year of Hungarian his­tory in 1898. And it sits in the mid­dle of a bleak square with an acre of paving stones around it in the heart of Budapest–a city still very much under the shadow of its years of Communism and repres­sion, when Christians were not allowed to prac­tice openly.

This church that started small in those dark days has grown to encom­pass a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the com­mu­nity, now hold­ing mul­ti­ple ser­vices of tens of thou­sands apiece on Sunday morn­ing. I’m not whole­heart­edly com­fort­able with the trend of megachurches in US main­line evan­gel­i­cal cir­cles, but the Lord appears to be doing a mighty work here. For even just six years ago I couldn’t have imag­ined so many of Budapest’s youth (and older folks, too) stand­ing joy­ful in one of the bleak­est spots in down­town Budapest and danc­ing and singing the good news. For the song they were singing was par­tic­u­larly mean­ing­ful to me, hav­ing seen the dam­age sta­tism and tyranny has done to their coun­try in the past century.

That day will be remem­bered as the great­est day in his­tory
The fate of the world changed in one glo­ri­ous moment
When Life tri­umphed on Resurrection Sunday

The hope of a peo­ple search­ing for life
The day will be brighter
The mes­sage of free­dom rings in the sky
Spreading the fire
The flag of a nation ready to fly
Taking them higher
The heart of a land that rises to fight
Full of desire
When noth­ing is as you want it to be
Look up to heaven
Freedom was paid for on Calvary
The chain is bro­ken
Making a way right to des­tiny
Borders are open
And Jesus has granted the vic­tory
That Sunday morning

Joy in this life time, utterly free
More than the world gives, beyond what you see
For nations its time to rise their hope is in Jesus Christ
If the giants come, just hold on, the advan­tage is now on your side
Jesus, will take the final fight

A light dawned that Sunday Morning
It broke through the bound­aries of time
Hearts start shin­ing, call­ing to all mankind
Lets cel­e­brate eter­nal life

When noth­ing is as you want it to be
Look up to heaven
Freedom was paid for on Calvary
The chain is bro­ken
Making a way right to des­tiny
Borders are open
And Jesus has granted the vic­tory
That Sunday morning

Joy in this life time, utterly free
More than the world gives, beyond what you see
For nations its time to rise their hope is in Jesus Christ
If the giants come, just hold on, the advan­tage is now on your side
Jesus, will take the final fight

Watch it. I can’t hear this with­out cry­ing. For a coun­try that’s been through so much, come through the fires and flames of sec­u­lar human­ism, it is time to rise, and their great­est hope is in Jesus Christ. Jesus will take the final fight!