Last week we looked at John Lennon’s Imagine and John the Apostle’s Revelation, examining the differences in these two works that image the end of history as we know it. This week we move on to where our two Johns overlap.

Similarities

The Grotto of the Apocalypse at Patmos, surrounding the entrance to the cave where John is believed to have received the visions of Revelation.

Before we just merely use Lennon as a foil for Scripture (which is really just the easy way out) we need to ask what kind of similarities exist between the two. Both are highly religious and theological: Imagine by not naming God, Revelation by naming Him. Though one is a secular utopia and the other is the new heavens and earth, both have in mind a perfect society and they both have a hope for humanity. Both are honest with the present world not fulfilling all our needs, affirming that the world as it is now is lacking something. Both have a teleological thrust: there is an end goal to this thing called life, some kind of movement forward.

Both also have a sense of immediacy, that “now” matters and see their end goal on this earth. Imagine sings “Imagine all the people living for today” and Revelation teaches us that our actions now have eternal consequences. Also, in Revelation 21:2, we see that Jerusalem “comes down,” we don’t fly up to it or use our hope as an excuse to remove ourselves from this present world. In both works, the concept of eternity lures us into living in the present.

What Lennon can teach us
Lennon’s imagination was large and looming, and not just in music. Though faulty and incomplete, he imagined a better world than the one he was in. His imagination was large, but not large enough. But the question for us is this: are our imaginations as large as Lennon’s? We actually have (and supposedly believe) the story of Revelation. Does Lennon—who professed atheism and did not have the grace of believing Revelation to be true—does he put Christians to shame? Are we known for our large and looming imaginations, taking this world that is and reflecting the one that ought to be?

Listening to the song Imagine, the music and lyrics are wed to a feeling of longing. The music itself is not completely comforting, it wants to go somewhere. We, above all people, should be a part of this movement forward, not happy and not comfortable in the broken world that is. But for most of us Christianity is a means to the American dream: everyone is cool, calm and collected, completely happy with how everything is. Being a Christian is a calling to have your heart broken. To ache for others (like Lennon), to see the product of sin upon fellow human beings, to care enough to be broken. This is what taking our cross looks like. Christ was not satisfied while here, He prayed that the heavens and earth would be one (Mt 6:10).

To be a Christian also means to hope in something larger than ourselves. Though it was the wrong object of his faith, Lennon did hope in humanity. And possibly his hope was stronger than many Christians’ hope in the proper object of our faith. To hope for something larger than ourselves is to hope in Christ. It’s not up to us to redeem this world, He is in the process of “making all things new.”

A better imagination
Thankfully, human beings can never totally erase their human-ness. No matter how horrible, there is always humanity to be found. If we believe that Genesis 1 and 2 is true, that everyone is created in the image of God, there must be echoes of the Divine in all people. We just need to love others enough to look.

And surely speaking of the differences between worldviews and ways of living is important, but if we don’t spend time looking and investigating, how can we know these differences to begin with? Christians are already stereotyped as not willing to get involved with people different from them (probably rightly so), and it is easy to live this way. But God calls our minds to grapple with our present world and calls our hearts to be the engine that moves us out of our own lives and into the lives of others.

If we have the longing and hope that Revelation points to, we should be showing others what it looks like to imagine a better world. We should be known to people as dreamers, not as contentious people looking for the faults of the world. Lennon’s imagination was large, but not as large as the potential found in God’s people on His mission called to reflect the world that is to come.

At first glance one wouldn’t think John Lennon and John the Apostle would have very much in common. One, a self-proclaimed atheist and pop star, the other, one of the twelve disciples and author of more than a few New Testament documents. Though there are obvious differences, there exist some similarities. We’re going to quickly look at John Lennon’s Imagine and the John the Apostle’s Revelation and see what there is to be gained from both.

Differences
Okay, it’s obvious, but let’s state it. There are wild differences between these people and their work. This is the easy part to see and understand and doesn’t require much from us. Imagine puts forth the possibility of a utopia on earth through erasing the things that so often divide us as humans: religion, nations, class differences, etc.:

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too…

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can…

In the book of Revelation, John writes about a utopia on earth, too, but describes it differently, as in Rev 7:9:

“…behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands…”

Like Imagine, palm branches symbolize peace, but there are differences in people. Tribes, peoples, languages— the things that normally divide us are still present and are being brought together.

There is a difference in how this utopia looks, but also in its purpose. Lennon’s image is of world peace, sharing in our unity:

Imagine all the people living life in peace…
And the world will be as one…
Imagine all the people sharing all the world…
And the world will live as one

John’s image is one that includes this human-to-human peace, but also incorporates a larger goal:

“All nations will come and worship you [the Lord], for your righteous acts have been revealed.”  (Rev 15:4)

There is not only a difference between the purpose and vision, but also in how these two perfect places come into being. Revelation teaches that this world will not be enacted through what we do, but through what He will do, and is doing:

…and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Rev 21:4, 5)

In our worship of our Creator/Recreator God, we find the product of His mission an actual utopia here on earth, renamed as the new heaves and earth. If we think our national or economic differences are the ultimate roots of a lack of unity, the answer would be to remove those differences. Imagine tries to remove all of our differences and substitute a new religion, a form of secular humanism. But if we’re all the same, is that unity or merely a shallow sameness?

Revelation affirms the existence of some differences (race, national boundaries, etc.), but draws upon one ultimate difference: those who worship God and those who worship something else. Differences in humanity are more than accepted, indeed, cultural differences are celebrated, but only in the light that comes from the glory of God (Rev 21:23; 22:5).

For Imagine, this responsibility lies completely on our shoulders. It is entirely up to us to bring about world peace. Not an easy task (impossible, even?). Revelation affirms our responsibility and actions, but also teaches that ultimately God is solely responsible for bringing about His peace. This doesn’t relieve Christians of doing work, in fact quite the opposite. The comforting design of God’s sovereignty over all things gives us freedom to be human, to work and to live.

Lennon says we need to remove our idea of God for peace, the Revelator says we need to submit to the real God for peace.

Next week we’ll look at the similarities between the two works and see what Lennon can teach us.

We believe that empty spaces are wastes of spaces. Like all good Americans we place a high value on efficiency, and how can a vacant moment be accomplishing anything? This is why we have such a hard time with waiting. And this is also why we create all sorts of diversions to make sure we never feel the weight of an ounce of boredom. But things do happen when nothing happens. In fact, the silence of a moment is often when we are confronted with ourselves and with God. And that’s why we want to run away from it.

I’m currently reading through Chuck DeGroat’s book, Leaving Egypt: Finding God in the Wilderness Places, and came across this quote from Thomas Merton:

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.

As a musician this makes sense to me. Most people think music is made up of the notes we choose to play, and of course that’s true, but music is also fundamentally about the notes we choose not to play. The rhythms and melodies leave space in the right places. How annoying would it be to have a guitarist play an incredible ripping guitar solo full of a million notes going a million miles per hour on an acoustic ballad? Or how annoying would it be to have a drummer constantly play a drum solo, slamming his sticks into every piece of equipment imaginable in the middle of a singer’s melody? The melody would get lost in the notes.

If all notes and rhythms were being played at once, it would sound like a horrible cacophony. And one interesting point: we can’t even do that if we wanted! No human being on any instrument (that I know of, non-electronic at least) can play every note all the time simultaneously. That should be a good anaology for us.

We submit ourselves to violence every time we try and cram two tons into a 16 oz. container. And then we feel guilty that we couldn’t fit it all in. Knowing what goes in that container requires us to trust and rely on God to tell us: to tell us more of who He is, more of who we are, more of what our world is about. We’d much rather make those decisions ourselves, but we’re not made for that, we can’t do it.

What are the melodies that might be getting lost in your noise of notes? How are we not honoring the empty spaces that God has designed us to live within? When a day doesn’t work as planned, are we completely wrecked? When we don’t cross everything off that to-do list, are we unloving toward others? When a building takes much longer than anticipated, are we unduly frustrated?

We all tend to orient our lives around removing these “empty” spaces, where God is asking us to seek Him in them.

O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.

This particular hymn focuses in on on the good news of our God coming in our flesh to save us from our problems, and bring us into the cosmic plan of redemption of the heavens and earth. This is one of the practical implications for Christ’s Incarnation, and one reason why I look forward to celebrating Advent each year.

The video above is from a version I recorded of this piece this past week. You can also download a higher quality mp3. Enjoy!

And speaking of free music, I have an album of hymns set to new music for free. You can snag it here.

Old & New album cover

At the risk of sounding like a shameless plug, this past week I released an album you can download for free. It’s the first volume in what will probably be a three volume set.

There are some songs that will be familiar to OGC, some that we sing corporately and some that have been used as offertories in the past. All of the songs are taken from or inspired by older hymn texts, metrical psalms and poems, spanning from the 13th to 19th centuries. I think these words should be kept in our hearts and minds and I have tried to breathe new life into them through setting them to newer music (hence the name of the album, Old & New).

Our very own Matt Antolick does a great job playing drums on two of the tracks.

So if you want to take advantage of some free music, you can listen or download it below. And thanks for listening!

Official Store
Facebook Page
Official Website

So here’s a peek into some of the more noteworthy books I’ve been reading the past couple months (with Amazon links in case you want to check them out, too):

Practical Theology:
SoulTalk – One of the books I read (and am reading again) to help along our relationships with one another. I’ll be teaching an Equipping Hour class on this starting in a couple weeks.
How People Change – Read this for the upcoming Growth Group focus for our church. Reads more like a handbook.
Sticky Church – The leadership is reading this, trying to learn how to become better at getting people involved in the life of the body.

Theology Proper:
Shop Class as Soulcraft – Currently reading this half-scholarly look into the value of work and human dignity.
Walton’s Genesis Commentary – One of the commentaries I’m reading for our Young Adult series on Genesis.
An Old Testament Theology – a huge and hugely important book for understanding the Old Testament, especially the literary perspectives.

Novels, Biographies, etc.:
New York Trilogy – Paul Auster’s three post-modern writing life novels, in the detective genre. Kinda hard to explain. Yes, they’re weird. Weird and good.
The Red Pony – One of Steinbeck’s shorter novels. Steinbeck is so good at writing about deeply shared human experiences. This wasn’t one of my favs from him, but still good.
Ian McEwan novels – I’ve probably read four or five over the past couple of months. The majority of his writing is deeply disturbing, mostly because he presents darkness in such a banal way. He really gets to the idea of evil residing in every person.
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy – another beast of a book (over 600 pages), but so incredibly exciting to read. Metaxas blends biography with a novel-like form. All that plus the spiritual significance of reading about such an inspirational person.
To Kill A Mockingbird – For whatever reason, I missed reading this classic while in school. So I remedied that problem last month.

Swanson – Great Catch

A couple of weeks ago I played an instrumental guitar piece that I wrote reflecting on Jeremiah 3:17:
“At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart.”

We also projected an image from John August Swanson, seen on the right. It was the conversation between the Old Testament prophet and the New Testament Gospel writer that really gave me pause for reflection. What does God’s mission in the world look like? What would it sound like? I definitely don’t think I’ve answered that question (is there only one answer?), but engaging with these questions on deep levels is what we get to do as sons and daughters of this nation-gathering God.

If you’re interested, I recorded a version of this piece. You can listen to it or download it from my website, here.

unfinished heelblocks

Over 2009′s Christmas break I was able to finish making an ashtray I started a while ago. It actually started as a guitar when I was a junior at UF. Myself and Steve, my roommate, were planning on making a guitar. I had access to the College of Art’s wood shop, so we had all sorts of cool tools at our disposal. Then we found out that making a guitar is really hard. And it takes a lot of time. So that ended up on the back burner for a bunch of years, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw away the fine pieces of wood that we bought in anticipation of our guitar masterpiece. One of those pieces that I’ve been carting around was a mahogany heel block, like the one in the pic. It’s basically a block of wood that you would finish and attach where the neck joins the body. It was a beautiful piece of wood, so I had to use it to do something. Not being a master wood worker and only having access to a Dremel tool, I chose something simple and functional: a cigar ashtray.

the finished ashtray

I routed out the tray (which took forever with a Dremel) and made a few spots to hold some stogies, sanded it smooth and sealed it. The finished product doesn’t look too bad.

There was one thing that kept hitting me, though. I was always having to struggle with the material to get it to do what I wanted to do. This is a similar idea found in a book edited by Jeremy Begbie, Beholding the Glory: Incarnation through the Arts. The chapter on the use of sculpture is written by Lynn Aldrich, a sculptor living in L.A. (here’s some of her work). My material was just a block of wood and it was using every ounce of inertia to stay that block of wood. I feel like the process really spoke to me about the universal idea of struggle or frustration. I had an end in sight and it took hours of struggle to see that end. This is not what life was meant to be. Life was never meant to be a series of struggles where in the end everyone dies anyway. But I have become so accustomed to struggle and frustration that I don’t often give it a second thought.

…cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”

(Gen 3:17b-19)

Maybe we should all get more frustrated or annoyed at the curse of the fall. We probably just accept it more often than not, and that might be a simple coping mechanism so that we don’t all end up in despair. But despair can be a good thing at times. It points to the great divide of where we are and where we want to be. A despairing person is definitely not alright with the way things are.

But we aren’t just left with despair, we do have a hope, a light that shines ever so faintly at the end of our dark tunnel. This is faith—believing that light does exist beyond our current circumstance.

Can a person be in despair and hope at the same time? I guess that’s the Christian walk, figuring out how to live in both of those worlds.

Part 1: Church without Christ, the tortured caricature of southern culture’s Christianity

Part 2: From Christ-Haunted to Christ-Fearing, fear and the south’s counterfeit hospitality

Part 3: From Christ-Haunted to Christ-Beloved, true morality versus a pretense of morality

(This image comes from The Atlantic’s In Focus photojournalism blog. It’s an incredible series, but not without some disturbing images of the protests.)

Amidst the barrage of water cannons, the protestor seems to be standing firm, holding the peace sign in both of his hands, speaking into the chaos.

Why does this image speak so much to us?
Surely it is an interesting picture, composed in such a way, but it is more than mere aesthetics that draws us to it. And it definitely is a moving image of human grit and determination. But I wonder if this particular image hits on another level, especially for those who have experienced the power of Christ in their lives.

Like the protestor standing for his country, Christ stands for His people, who would never be able to stand for themselves. He took the barrage of brokenness, of our idols and addictions. He took on our empty systems that we go to find meaning in this world, our structures of false power. He stood for us until every last drop of our sin was poured out upon Him. And he is found still holding out His arms, crying out into the darkness, “Peace!”