Crusader of Hopelessness

"I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep both Dracula AND Superman away."
- Jack Handey [Deep Thoughts]

What does the symbol of the cross conjure up in our minds? And what does it actually mean? Sacrifice, death, punishment, judgment, the wrath of God; payment, substitution, atonement...hope? Are we right to think of the cross as a symbol of hope? In the order of salvation, should the cross itself produce hope in us? Or should it produce death?

We are told in 1 Peter 2:24 that it was necessary for Christ to die on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; the point being that Christ's death on the cross made it so that we can consider ourselves dead to sin. The penalty for all the sin of the world was paid there. He goes on to say that it is by his wounds that we are healed, and that our salvation is accomplished through the resurrection of Christ (3:21). For us, the cross functions as a remembrance for what Christ actually did and also as a symbol of the death that we must die to our selves each day. It is an execution, and a starting point. As followers of Christ, we believe that Christ died on the cross, and in him, we have also died to ourselves. We are called daily to pick up our cross and carry it. But this is a picture of personal sacrifice, not the wrath of God poured out on us, or the separation from God that he experienced on the cross. Because Christ has gone before us we do not endure divine wrath and separation from God. We are to carry with us what ultimately is behind us: sin and death.

The cross is not something that we cling to for future hope, but boldly proclaim as past reality. We proclaim that we are right with God through the work of Christ on the cross. And while his sacrificial death on the cross was essential in the program of redemption, it was not its completion. What happened on the cross was not sufficient in itself to redeem us. Every last one of us is still faced with the certainty of pain and death. The cross does not save us from pain and death, and does not impart life. Whether the death is substituting or atoning it is still death in its very essence. It cannot give a sufficient answer to the problem of our impending death. The cross should not give us hope, but should leave us in anticipation of hope for what comes next.

The death of Christ on the cross showed us the severity of our separation from God. It also showed us the medium through which redemption must occur. At the cross, a life was swallowed up whole by death, the enemy. And there were three days that separated Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. It seems that because of this tension, death and hope are meant to have an interval of space between them.

However, some say that the cross is the only hope for salvation. In his song, "I cling to the Cross," the popular contemporary Christian worship artist, Paul Baloche, does the opposite of beholding this tension as he merges death and hope by proclaiming that the cross is "the only hope for saving me." In doing so, he is portraying the cross as a symbol of hope. The second verse of the song does proclaim Christ's resurrection, but the emphasis of the song is clinging to the cross for hope. At the end of the song he adds a repeated final verse from the classic hymn I have decided to follow Jesus, repeating over and over, "the cross before me, the world behind me."



There is so much truth and conviction in the decision to leave worldly desires behind and to turn one's affection toward Christ. But is this the correct language? While preparing for a sermon a few months back it occurred to me that we can also proclaim the opposite: "The cross behind me, the world before me." In consideration of Christ's resurrection, I'm beginning to think that this may be a more accurate statement of what it means to follow Jesus. To loosely quote a friend of great influence, "Jesus has moved on from the cross, and if we want to follow Jesus, we need to move on as well."

A historical sacrificial death is found at the cross, not a future hope. As Eugene Peterson says,

"Something is wrong here, dreadfully wrong. We feel it in our bones. The most conspicuous event in history that arouses within us this spontaneous sense of violation, of outrageous sacrilege, is the suffering and death of Jesus, a suffering and death in which eventually we will all find ourselves involved whether we like it or not.(Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 134)"

If thinking of the cross produces hope in us, it should only be because it is rightly connected in our minds to Christ's resurrection from the dead. Otherwise, the cross by itself is a symbol of the penalty of sin and lost hope. If this is the end, then we also die alongside of Christ. And if the cross is our crown of hope (i.e. the extent to which we hope in) then we become marionettes of lost hope. Nothing good ends in death.

"For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." (1 Corinthians 15:16-19)

When the death of Christ is preached as the culmination of our hope, we create a culture of hopelessness that ends at our death and personal sacrifice.

From their 1996 release Songs to Fan the Flames of Discontent, the definitive hardcore punkrock band of the 90s, Refused, expresses an outsider's perspective of a gospel that devotes itself to the cross alone.



Crusader of Hopelessness
Stretch out in your Christ pose
Marionette of lost hope
Your sadness at expense of the world
You're dying to be this
You're living to be this

Energy wasted
Feeling sorry for ourselves
We didn't deserve it
We didn't deserve it

Using a thousand apologies
As a thousand excuses for
Making the same mistakes

Crusader of hopelessness
Crucified by yourself
What do you know about suffering?

So full of reasons not to see
The possibilities to change
This suffocation, turn it into focus
'Cause we don't need this
'Cause we don't need this

Using a thousand apologies
As a thousand excuses for
Making the same mistakes

Forget about your self-pity
Forget about your petty problems
Forget about your small world

Forget about your self-pity
Forget about your petty problems
Forget about your small world

Forget about your self-pity
Forget about your petty problems
Forget about your small world

Using a thousand apologies
As a thousand excuses for
Making the same mistakes, Yeah!



Should the work of Christ make us feel sorry for ourselves? If we are focusing on the cross alone, then it certainly will. It is necessary to behold the cross, but death offers no comfort; and if we remain at the cross we will be a people who find comfort only in our sorrows. But if we consider his resurrection from the dead, and future hope that we have, true sorrow is met with true hope. We must see the cross for what it represents: death; and we must see the resurrection for what it represents: life.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials." (1 Peter 1:3-6)

So I ask this question again. Are we able to to behold the vastness and sorrow, and still hope? I think this question is answered in the resurrection of Christ.

Behold the Vastness and Sorrow

A new mestizo of Black Metal is conceived out of the forests, streams, and fields of the Pacific Northwest. Wolves in the Throne Room are here to buzz, roar, swirl; vibrate, revolve, and scream the demonstrative sound of a true requiem. This is a requiem for humanity in the modern world.

The band has produced two full length albums: Diadem for Twelve Stars (2006) and Two Hunters (2007). Each have been received by renowned critical praise and adoration as being the categorical re-birth for Black Metal in the US.

In their biography found on the band website (http://www.wittr.com/), the Wolves provide an evaluation of Black Metal today and their own distinct characterization of it's sorrowful cry. What they seek to endorse is Black Metal's pure emotional expression of deep rage and sorrow that comes from humanity's personal aberration, lostness, and obscurity in a modern world:

"Black Metal was a localized eruption of emotion that was profound and powerful in its time and place, but has now lapsed into self-reference and banality. Satanism and obsession with gruesome and morbid imagery is not important to us. The important thing about black metal is that it expressed a pure cry for the utter destruction of the modern world – it is a cry of sorrow, hopelessness and pain. It is not a call for a specific political program; it does not provide a map out of the darkness; in black metal, the depth of sadness is boundless and infinite. Listening to true black metal, we are touched by this uncompromising and extreme expression, for it puts a name to the deep rage and sadness that is a part of our soul."

"I Will Lay Down My Bones Among the Rocks and Roots" - Live at the Hawthorne Theater in Portland, OR October 2007

In a 2006 interview with Nocturnal Cult Magazine the Wolves provided a backdrop to their impetus of a desolate cry:

"The world around us has failed to sustain our humanity, our spirituality. The deep woe inside black metal is about fear that we can never return to the mythic, pastoral world that we crave on a deep subconscious level. Black Metal is also about self loathing, for modernity has transformed us, our minds, bodies and spirit, into an alien life form; one not suited to life on earth without the mediating forces of technology, culture and organized religion. We are weak and pitiful in our strength over the earth in conquering, we have destroyed ourselves. Black Metal expresses disgust with humanity and revels in the misery that one finds when the falseness of our lives is revealed. "

For the Wolves, this is an ecological cry against the disunity that exists between the earth and humanity; for the dissociated relationship of man to his own home. This is also a cry for the horror of spiritual lostness experienced collectively in humans; a cry of sorrow and despair for personal spiritual impotence.

In their online biography they express their own personal beliefs in ancient European heathenism as a way of connecting back to their lost humanity.

"Our souls are moved by the traditions and the energies of European heathenism. Wolves in the Throne Room seeks to reawaken ancient ways of understanding the world around us. We must re-enchant the earth and to reconnect to tradition, for our modern culture has replaced the fine craftsmanship, the myths and lore and the life-ways of times past in favor of that which is foolish, ugly and unwise..."

"Wolves in the Throne Room believe that we must transform ourselves. We must look to the past for guidance while forging a new path. We play Evolutionary Black Metal – it is animated by an occult vision of spiritual growth and transformation. We need not desperately grasp for meaning in a dusky and forgotten past, for the voice of eternal wisdom is clear and strong."

In a previously posted "Artist Statement" on their website it reads:


"Our Black Metal is highly local and personal – not beholden to the expectations and demands of any scene. Our music is rooted in the traditions of Black Metal, but we subvert the aesthetic and ideology to remain true to our personal manifestation. To us, Black Metal might be understood as the Death card in the Tarot or the number 13, which represents not an end to life, but the shedding of an old and outmoded way of being: death and rebirth, transformation and enlightenment. Our music is perhaps what happens after the initial, necessary, hateful burst; after the psychic explosion that is Black Metal wipes away that which came before: the sick and twisted "truths" of our modern condition. For in Black Metal, we see great truth, transcendence and power. Black Metal is the cleansing fire that frees us from the bondage of rationality, science, morality, religion, leaving us free to choose our own path. "

I believe an important point should not be missed here. Here they speak of death, rebirth, transformation, enlightenment, and redemption....but the Wolves understand one thing clearly: Death is the prolepsis for rebirth. There must be an undoing. Destruction, sorrow, and death must come before the rebirth.

If one is to proceed in the new life that has been established in Jesus Christ, it is necessary to behold the vastness and sorrow while it remains. To ignore the sorrow of your own fallen state and the sorrow of the world around you is to eschew what Christ has accomplished, is accomplishing, and will finally accomplish. We do not walk in bliss, rather, we daily struggle from darkness into light. We are empowered by the resurrection of Christ and his Holy Spirit. And his conquering over death and the grave has already been established as the "firstfruits" for those of us who are dead and dying. What we hope in, is the consummation of the new birth, where we will live on the renewed earth in new and resurrected bodies for eternity with our redeemer. But until that day comes the cycle of life and death continues, and there is vastness and sorrow among us that we must acknowledge.



BEHOLD THE VASTNESS AND SORROW


Behold the vastness and sorrow of this empty land
A dark and Fell Rider clad in garments of shadow Is the lord of this place
A cruel and wonton king, A priest of a black religion is he


The hoof beat of the rider's steed pound a mournful drumbeat upon the dry cracked earth
To this rhythm the world moves


The sun blasts down upon the earth
Until the soil turns to powder and blows away


Lifeless chaos is the order for the rider has mastered the seasons
Ancient kings Cairn now have been defiled

The gates of strongholds long breached left swinging lifelessly in the fetid wind
The pillars of holy places lie dead

He rides day and night
The relentless Hoof beats echoes



Are we willing to behold the vastness and sorrow...and still hope?

in time the trees die and light will fade...and that's not okay

"In time the trees die and light will fade. But I hope for a new breath a new life to take me away..."

I came across a band called The Lonley Forest a couple weeks ago. They're a young band based out of Anacortes, Wa. And they seem to be gaining quite a bit of popularity within the explosive indie music scene of the great(er) northwest. The song We Sing in Time from their forthcoming release "We Sing the Body Electric" sings of hope in a "new breath" and a "new life." In the song, time seems to be the enemy that eventually deteriorates the gift of life. But it's not only time. The song also mentions the horrors we create in our own personal lives through drug use and throughout our world in decisions to make war. All of these working to make the light of life fade into darkness.

But the song writing will not allow this to be the final word. The fading is immediately met with a call to hope in life being made new. Life made new...being sung within time. So the song title "We Sing in Time" is appropriate because we should all be singing the song of hope amidst the destructive pattern of time.

This is a universal cry. And we have a universal God who is in the process of answering that cry.

Rev 21:5 - And he who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

This will serve as my introductory blog entry, and as a template for what will be discussed here. We, the Christian community, need to be reminded of our hope so that we will continue to hope. Without hope we will fade in time with everything else. But we need to sing in time. We need to hope until the day that hope is no longer needed, when only love remains. We need to hope in what Christ is making new. Yes, we need to hope in everything.

Check the song out here as well as others from their new album:
http://www.myspace.com/thelonelyforest