Sunday Bloody Sunday: One Man in the Name of Love

My good friend Doug Erickson, an American and sometime theologian and fly-fisher, shared the briefest of extracts from a wonderful song on Facebook the other day:

How long...
How long must we sing this song
How long, how long...
'cause tonight... we can be as one
Tonight...

The song, of course, is one of U2's finest. 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'. Written to describe the horror of observing The Troubles in Northern Ireland, it is the opening track of 'War', an album that needs to be heard more.

As the world staggers from violent story to violent story, from killing to senseless killing. From Orlando to Baghdad, from Dallas to a Shia Shrine in Iraq, in a multitude of countries across our broken yet beautiful humanity, bloody violence is perpetrated by fallen image bearers upon fallen image bearers.

I've been listening to quite a bit of music at work this week. Worship music, U2, and occasionally 'Kygo'. 

But the video for 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', shot years ago, strikes a chord with the violence in our world today: 

The lyrics bear being repeated:

I can't believe the news today
Oh, I can't close my eyes
And make it go away
How long...
How long must we sing this song
How long, how long...
'cause tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...

Broken bottles under children's feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end street
But I won't heed the battle call
It puts my back up
Puts my back up against the wall

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

How long...
How long must we sing this song
How long, how long...
'cause tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...tonight...

Every time I hear this song, militant drums and Bono's screech, I'm reminded of the truth of what U2 are singing about.

How many times have you wondered what on earth is going on?

I can't believe the news today. Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away.

The violence that swirls and cycles across our world is both utterly unfathomable, and entirely explainable. It is senselessly universal yet also pertinently person. How do we respond? How do people whose homes are blown up, their posessions scattered, their children shell-shocked, carry on?

Broken bottles under children's feet. Bodies strewn across the dead end street. But I won't heed the battle call. It puts my back up. Puts my back up against the wall.

I sniggered and smirked when the first memes with the collected heads of dead celebrities appeared in January. '2016, stop it already'. That sentiment, when set against the death toll across the world in all kinds of countries for all kinds of reasons, seems more real now. And yet so often our culture and our media value those celebrities more than the children and families straggling through Europe, the families reeling from deaths in America, those denied livelihood by climate change. When will it end?

And the battle's just begun. There's many lost, but tell me who has won. The trench is dug within our hearts. And mothers, children, brothers, sisters, Torn apart.

Reality isn't what we'd like it to be. The above verse from Sunday Bloody Sunday is one that sheds real light and truth into our dark and confused world. I wrote two years ago about the hard truth behind Gaza and Isis.

The trench is dug within our hearts.

Human nature is a battleground, a place where competing desires and doctrines war over something truly valuable: human life made in the Image of God.

I'm not that miserable though. I don't like this song because it reminds me of human nature, of original sin. I like this song because it is realistic, it sees the wound, and then it asks a hopeful question:

How long... How long must we sing this song, How long, how long... 'cause tonight... we can be as one, Tonight... tonight...

The song ends as all good sermons should. As news reports cannot truly. As a world without Jesus has to grasp. The song of mourning is not the end of the story. 

Wipe the tears from your eyes

Wipe your tears away

Oh, wipe your tears away

Oh, wipe your tears away

(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

Oh, wipe your blood shot eyes
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Sunday, Bloody Sunday (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Sunday, Bloody Sunday (Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

And it's true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die

(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On

Sunday Bloody Sunday
Sunday Bloody Sunday

There was another man executed. There was another man torn apart. There was another Son whose mother wept as he died, whose brief life illuminated the darkness of empire and challenged the status quo. I've written about him before. And most especially his death. A death that shocks us, like that man who jumped from the World Trade Centre on 9/11.

I'd echo again that beautiful passage from 1 Corinthians 15:21-24;

 "For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power"

And then I'd offer another song to you: 

What will you sing? And who to?

__________________________________________

Connect on Twitter // Facebook // Instagram

__________________________________________