From Darkness til Dawn

U2 - JESUS CHRIST

Woody Guthrie's ode to the revolutionary Jesus can perhaps sometimes feel out of sinc with the Jesus modelled in our Churches but perhaps as in other times in history and in other forms of art the artist is the prophet bringing us back to the honest and authentic truth. When anyone says anything on screen or in novel or in song about Jesus I as one who holds Him and His name in highest respect have to ask whether the Bible agrees or disagrees with what I am seeing, reading or hearing. When it comes to Woody Guthrie's thoughts I do find it all right there in the Gospels. It was the hungry and the poor and the lame that Jesus spent his time with - lepers, tax collectors and prostitutes. He did say revolutionary things to the rich and their complicity in the poor being poor enraged him. He did tell someone who wanted to follow him to give all his money to the poor. Indeed it was these very things that got Jesus Christ put in his grave to quote Guthrie's poetry. There was no chance that Jesus could have avoided the cross. He was destined for it not because God had some worked out contrived plan to get him there. God didn't need to. The only thing that made God certain His Son would end up on the cross was the life that he lived.

When Jesus told his disciples that they must take up their cross to follow him he knew what he was saying. If you dare live like I do then you are going to get crucified. Jesus just had to be born to have death squads hunting him down as he and his parents escaped as refugees to Egypt. They wanted him dead in Bethlehem for the same reason that they wanted him dead at Calvary. Jesus disturbed the status quo. He challenged the way the world was and dreamed of the different way it could be. When he prayed that God's Kingdom would come and His will be done on earth as in heaven Jesus was asking for it. For this to happen those in power whether religious, political and economic knew that this was an attack on their status.

When he got involved with a Roman Centurion symbol of the oppression that was putting Jews on crosses to signify their place as the oppressed and dared to say that he had never seen such faith in all of Israel. Nailed right there. When he healed on the Sabbath and told the religious leaders that Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. Nailed. When he called the religious elite white washed tombs and broods of vipers. Nailed. When he overthrew the profit obsessed money lenders tables in the temple. Nailed. When he told a story where the Samaritan was a better neighbour than the Levite. Nailed! When he told us to follow him and we dared to. We'd get nailed too...

At the core of all this was Jesus theological centre. Grace. It makes the last first and the first last. Indeed on that first Good Friday he who was first in the Universe became last so that we could be become first. But it wasn't to send us to heaven though gloriously that is an eternal side affect. No... no one is called to heaven when they encounter Jesus. They are always called to serve. Jesus life and death and resurrection is not for our self indulgence but so that we can give our lives for others, not because they deserve it but because we are now living Jesus grace too... Grace...it removes the stain... it carries the shame... it's a name to change for a girl... a thought that can change the world... grace it lives outside of karma, thank God... grace it sees goodness in everything... it makes beauty out of Ugly things...

U2 - GRACE

As well as doubling up as a political activist Bono from U2 has trebled up and become an articulate theologian. With his poetic nature he can open up doctrines with the enhancing power of poetry. He speaks a lot about interruptions of grace. Grace that interrupts the "our reap what you sow karma" to give us a transcendent God-given forgiveness and new start like Paul talked about in Philippians when he said he'd discovered a righteousness that was not be the law but by God. Grace that interrupts our relationships when they have broken down with the possibility of reconciliation. Grace that interrupts in divided South Africa to bring a nation a new beginning as indeed we know about here in N. Ireland. Grace interrupts a world where some live in their summer houses and expensive furniture at the cost of others having to live in abject poverty as a result and seeks different trade laws to give the world another chance. Grace is a thought that can change the world.

This is Woody Guthrie's revolutionary Jesus. These are the things that laid him in his grave. Living by Jesus law of grace is a dangerous way to live. But it is God's way to live. It is the only hope that the world has. It leads to a repentance that is not about giving up bad personal habits but is about reversing history and turning the world on its head. Upside down. Inside out.

So how do we change the world? How does grace kick in? What are the steps to implement a reversal of history? Well, Jesus spelled it out - deny self, take up your cross daily... follow me. It is in giving up our lives for God and others... as Jesus modelled that very first Easter that we find what it is that humanity is made for and how we can make all the bad news good.

U2 - YAHWEH

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