The Dialogue is the newsletter of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Joseph, MO. Oftentimes, I'll post here on the blog my columns for the weekly newsletter. I mention it just so that folks who read the snail-mail version can skip this post if they've already read it.One love, one blood, one life... One life with each other: sisters, brothers.
One life, but we're not the same. We get to carry each other, carry each other.
One, one.
I’ve confessed before that U2 is my favorite band and that I find great meaning in their songs. The lyrics quoted above are the chorus from the song “One,” and hearing these words sung in an arena full of 60,000 fans during one of their concerts was a truly spiritual experience for me—one that rivals what I have experienced in church.
The interesting thing about the song “One” is that the lyrics in the verses are very dark. They speak of separation and estrangement. Yet, when the chorus begins and the music rises, the song becomes optimistic to the point of ethereality. It confidently asserts the connections we share with one another as human beings and perhaps even with the divine.
When the lead singer and lyricist of the band, Bono, was interviewed about the popularity of the song, he expressed his surprise that people connected with it considering the rather dark lyrics. He guessed it was because of the chorus. Somehow it spoke to people’s desire for connection and belonging at a very basic and essential level.
I believe he’s right, because that is certainly how I feel about the song. I’ve been to five U2 concerts and sang my guts out when this song came around right along with the strangers on every side of me. In that moment, the connection we shared was electric.
I’m thinking about the song “One” this second week of Advent and what I believe it says about the human condition—and for that matter, what it says about the divine condition. Christians have spoken of God in terms of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit so often and so successfully that we often forget as believers that according to the doctrine of the Trinity, they are all different aspects or persons of the same God. As we celebrate Christmas, we can get lost in the metaphor of “Son of God” and forget the deeper mystery: the child born in Bethlehem was not God’s offspring but God in full. That newborn child was God coming to be ONE with us.
The miracle of Christmas is that God loves us enough to experience everything we experience from birth to death. Surely God could have already conceived of what it would be like to be human, but conception—even by God—is still an abstraction and therefore not the same as reality. God really wanted to be ONE with us. God loves us that much.
We might be able to conceive of what it would be like to live in a developing country where the luxuries we take for granted in America do not exist, but imagining such a thing is far different from actually living it. I’ve known a number of people who have chosen to go live in such places right alongside the people they have come to serve. Living in that kind of “ONE-ness” takes a considerable amount of love. Such cases are perhaps the clearest examples of God’s love I know.
We experience glimpses of this kind of love during worship at church. As we share our joys and concerns with each other, we are known to one another and we experience God through one another. It is a blessing to be known by others who care for you.
This Christmas season, let’s “carry each other” just as God carries us. May Christmas remind us that we are “ONE.”
Grace and Peace,
The interesting thing about the song “One” is that the lyrics in the verses are very dark. They speak of separation and estrangement. Yet, when the chorus begins and the music rises, the song becomes optimistic to the point of ethereality. It confidently asserts the connections we share with one another as human beings and perhaps even with the divine.
When the lead singer and lyricist of the band, Bono, was interviewed about the popularity of the song, he expressed his surprise that people connected with it considering the rather dark lyrics. He guessed it was because of the chorus. Somehow it spoke to people’s desire for connection and belonging at a very basic and essential level.
I believe he’s right, because that is certainly how I feel about the song. I’ve been to five U2 concerts and sang my guts out when this song came around right along with the strangers on every side of me. In that moment, the connection we shared was electric.
I’m thinking about the song “One” this second week of Advent and what I believe it says about the human condition—and for that matter, what it says about the divine condition. Christians have spoken of God in terms of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit so often and so successfully that we often forget as believers that according to the doctrine of the Trinity, they are all different aspects or persons of the same God. As we celebrate Christmas, we can get lost in the metaphor of “Son of God” and forget the deeper mystery: the child born in Bethlehem was not God’s offspring but God in full. That newborn child was God coming to be ONE with us.
The miracle of Christmas is that God loves us enough to experience everything we experience from birth to death. Surely God could have already conceived of what it would be like to be human, but conception—even by God—is still an abstraction and therefore not the same as reality. God really wanted to be ONE with us. God loves us that much.
We might be able to conceive of what it would be like to live in a developing country where the luxuries we take for granted in America do not exist, but imagining such a thing is far different from actually living it. I’ve known a number of people who have chosen to go live in such places right alongside the people they have come to serve. Living in that kind of “ONE-ness” takes a considerable amount of love. Such cases are perhaps the clearest examples of God’s love I know.
We experience glimpses of this kind of love during worship at church. As we share our joys and concerns with each other, we are known to one another and we experience God through one another. It is a blessing to be known by others who care for you.
This Christmas season, let’s “carry each other” just as God carries us. May Christmas remind us that we are “ONE.”
Grace and Peace,
Chase
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