This morning I have listened to my favorite “resurrection song” several times: U2’s ‘Window in the Skies’ which includes this powerful opening verse:
The shackles are undone
The bullet’s quit the gun
The heat that’s in the sun
Will keep us when theres none
The rule has been disproved
The stone it has been moved
The GRAVE is now a groove
All debts are removed
The song moves to the repeating over and over, “Oh can’t you see what love has done? Oh can’t you see what love has done? Oh can’t you see what love has done?”
In the next verse U2 provides their own Christus Victor wherein love dupes death:
Love makes strange enemies
Makes love where love may please
The soul and its striptease
Hate brought to its knees
The sky over our head
We can reach it from our bed
You let me in your heart
And out of my head
At the end of the song there is a mixture of confession and invitation:
I know I hurt you and I made you cry
Did everything but murder you and I
But love left a window in the skies
And to love I rhapsodize
Oh can’t you see what love has done
To every broken heart
Oh can’t you see what love has done
For every heart that cries
Love left a window in the skies
And to love I rhapsodize
Oh can’t you see
And that is what we celebrate in part. On Resurrection Sunday the Love of God in Christ has provided a window into the heavens. In the midst of all the death and hate we see that in Christ there is a window into heaven. The rule of the empire has been disproven. The stone at the tomb has been moved. The grave is an empty groove. All our debts have been removed.
Amen.
He is not here, for He is risen!
What good news!
(Praise the redeemer, the Holy One of Israel)
Happy Easter, all.
One resurrection song I enjoy is “Treasure of the Broken Land” by Mark Heard, a brilliant Christian songwriter who never got the recognition he deserved. It’s especially poignant because it’s the last song on his last album before he died of a heart attack a few months later.
Joel
Thank you for sharing. I have not heard the song. I will need to try to find it.