Wednesday 30 January 2008

Without looking away

"So you see, long before the tragedies of our times, the modern age was preparing itself for life
without God. We were not the first generation to wonder, 'is there anyone there?'...
Religion, especially in America, is now a form of therapy - a revelation of what we need rather than of God and our real need of Him". Michael Horton - too good to be true.


I was searching around on i Tunes this week when I came across a song I first heard around twelve years ago.

The lyrics are worthy of serious thought:

"You've got this place you go, it's just a trip before the fall,
way past the fever pitch, but just a spit from the wrecking ball.

Said you woke up this morning, said you woke up under a curse,
I've heard the blues are bad, but this is something worse.

And the ambulance driver, well he tips his hat and stares,
and he asks you in a grave voice, can I take you anywhere.

yes the thing we cannot speak of, too painful to behold,
oh this blister soul, this blister soul!"


(Blister Soul by the Vigilantes of Love).

The song continues to describe the cost of our condition, the awful secret we all carry, and how there is a cost to such a horror unless we embrace the remedy.
As one reviewer put it, this harrowing yet triumphant track nails what we are, drawing it out of the darkness to the pain yet necessity of the light...It is the starting point of everyone's burden but equally the moment of introducing us to hope.

The light of the Gospel casts a dark shadow - the reality of the human condition, for only then can we see the necessity, the extraordinary need, we all share for the remedy.
When we gaze soberly into this revelation, then we will begin to see why Christ is the answer to the darkness.

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