Bring On Your Wrecking Ball
Hold tight to your anger, and don’t fall to your fears. ~ Bruce Springsteen, “Wrecking Ball”
This Sunday night, Bruce Springsteen kicks off a brand new world tour in Atlanta, GA. I am lucky enough to have tickets to this monumental occasion. When I first saw The Boss in concert three years ago, I savored the opportunity because I did not know if it would be my last.
Bruce is only 63 years young. Artists like Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney are touring well into their 70s and aren’t slowing down. But once an artist crosses into senior citizen territory, you can never be too sure of when their last hoorah is going to be. Everything has to come to an end at some point. There’s no escaping it.
As fate would have it, that concert in 2009 would not be my last chance to see Bruce, but it would be my last chance to see the “Big Man” Clarence Clemons play saxophone for the E Street Band. Clarence has always been the soul of Bruce Springsteen’s band, and when he died last summer many were unsure of how Bruce or the band would be able to move on.
As Bruce has said in interviews since Clarence’s death, losing Clarence was like “losing the rain.” Bruce and Clarence have always leaned on each other to form the sound of the E Street Band (figuratively and literally). How do you move on from the loss of something so integral and ingrained in your life?
We can indeed make our sorrows, just as much as our joys, a part of our celebration of life in the deep realization that life and death are not opponents but do, in fact, kiss each other at every moment of our existence. ~ Henri Nouwen, Creative Ministry
The key to moving forward from death is in understanding the connection between life and death. In the creation of something new there is always the destruction of something old. In the destruction of something old there is always the creation of something new.
When hard times come and go and come again, we have a choice: we can let the hard times conquer us and stay down for the count, or we can rise up and begin to rebuild.
If you look back through the Springsteen songbook, it becomes clear that The Boss probably never thought twice about what he would do without The Big Man. Springsteen’s music, especially in the past decade, has always carried a theme of hope in the midst of despair. Bruce sings consistently of rising up, typically through the coming together of a community. If ever there was a time for Springsteen to gather his band back together again it was now. The E Street Band could not go quiet from the loss of one of their own. It’s not in their nature. It’s also not in the nature of Christ.
The life of Christ cannot be separated from the death of Christ. And the death of Christ cannot be separated from the resurrection of Christ. The power of new life in Christ comes not only from His death, and it comes not only from His rising. These two events kiss, to paraphrase Nouwen, and are intimately connected. If Jesus only died for us, or only lived for us, then He would not have won the victory over this world for us.
We must face death in every aspect of our life. Not only do we face the death of the people we love, we often face the death of beloved institutions.
The future of The Hill Baptist Church is uncertain. There’s no ignoring that. Even though it’s been around for over 80 years, there are no promises that it will exist for 80 more. One day the doors on this church building will close though, and it could be sooner than later.
Should we then sit back and accept defeat because the future is not clear before us? Or do we press on to spread the gospel of Christ in the community in the time that we have? That is the choice our church must make, because that gospel message will not die – no matter how many buildings fall.
Struggles, doubts, and disputes will try to bring the wrecking ball against the church prematurely, but as a community of believers we must stand together and not fall to our fears. Our job is to proclaim the love of Christ to the world for the time that we have, and not worry about how long that time may be. What lies ahead is not for us to know. All we can do is have faith and keep fighting.
We can’t back down in uncertain times. We must press on. We must place our hands in one another’s and pray. We must hold tight to righteous anger when the enemy tries to impede our mission. We must let the sting of the fight inspire us to keep moving forward. We must refuse to give in to the fear of the unknown. We must keep shining the light of God in the darkness of the world whether our building stands tall or whether we are rising from the rubble onto a new journey together. We must celebrate life, and we must celebrate death, for they are intimately intertwined.
We must gather the church together and say to the world, “Bring on your wrecking ball. Take your best shot. You may bring down our buildings, but you will never crack our foundation.”
Of Magazines And Shiny Things
Why do we wrap presents? Do we cover them in glossy foil to enhance the element of surprise? Is it to reinforce that a gift is particularly special? Could it be that the act of wrapping and, even more so, the act of unwrapping is just simply fun?
For that matter, why do we give presents in the first place? The politically correct answer that comes to mind is that we give because we want to show people we care. Really though, we’re usually just trying to buy someone’s love. The thought is that the bigger the gift or the more gifts then the more we care about the person. (Think about it, which present intrigues you more on Christmas morning – the one in the big box or the one in the tiny one? Yes, you might like the tiny one better because it has money or jewelry in it, but I know I’m always more excited to open the big box since I don’t know what’s inside of it!)
Maybe that’s why I felt so bad one infamous Mother’s Day many years back. I was in one of the early grades of elementary school, first or second I think. With Mother’s Day coming up, my Dad took me out to look for a present for my mom. If memory serves me right, we went to Kroger. Not high end shopping, certainly, but I think we were looking for some perfume there.
Anyway, instead of picking out something for my mom, I saw something that I wanted: (more…)
A Change Is Gonna Come
The Coca Cola Freestyle machine is much cooler than it looks in the slightly boring video above. Coke has revolutionized the fountain drink machine. Instead of just offering the typical six or eight drinks at your local fast food restaurant, the new machine gives you the choice of a mind-boggling 140 flavors of Coke, Sprite, Vault, Powerade, Fanta, Dasani, and just about every other Coke brand you can imagine.
The Freestyle machine is a jaw-droppingly awesome invention, but I don’t think of it as one that people were really clamoring for. I mean, I never really saw a problem with the fountain drink machine the way it was. It never occurred to me that it could be any better. Someone at Coke, however, saw an opportunity for change. Someone far smarter than me was brave enough to see that just because something has been done successfully the way it has for years does not mean that it can’t be improved. The people at Coke have proven that they are not afraid of change. My parents on the other hand are not as brave.
