Andrew Gardner
As we continue through this Lenten season, I find myself becoming more and more overwhelmed with work. When I gaze at everything that needs to be done, however, it amounts to nothing more than usual. With winter waning and spring approaching, perhaps the time of year has something to do with it.
In the midst of this Lenten journey, there is a song from Bruce Springsteen’s 2012 album Wrecking Ball with an opening line that helps put things into perspective. “We are Alive” begins with the quick phrase:
There’s a cross up yonder on Calvary Hill.
Indeed, as I look at the calendar, there is a cross up yonder on Calvary Hill.
The song contains the usual instruments but also includes a banjo and a mariachi horn section. After listening to the song numerous times, this continues to remain an interesting combination to say the least.
It is a song of reconciliation.
The lectionary passage this week (2 Cor. 5:16-21) is likewise one of reconciliation. It is about old things — old things becoming new things. It is about the unrighteous being made righteous. It is about humanity’s reconciliation to God.
For Paul, this transformation takes place not only because of but also through Christ. Springsteen’s “We are Alive” in a similar fashion sets this transformation beneath the shadow of the cross.
In this song, Springsteen gives voice to three individuals. The listener hears a railroad worker from the 1877 strike in Maryland. The voice of one of the victims of the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing can also be heard. Lastly, Springsteen gives voice to a child who died trying to cross the southern desert into the United States from Central America.
This trio of a white railroad worker, a black girl from Birmingham and a young undocumented immigrant cries out together. It is hard to imagine such a grouping of people especially when factoring in each individual’s historical context, yet Springsteen pairs them with one another. Together they sing the refrain of the song:
We are alive.
Oh, and though we lie alone here in the dark
Our souls will rise to carry the fire and light the spark
To fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart
Bodies are passing away and souls are rising to the newness of a reconciled reality. We hear an amalgamation of instruments and see an amalgamation of people coming together to create something new — something beautiful.
What makes this image all the more powerful is that Springsteen sets this song up beneath the reality of the cross. The barriers of death and the barriers of history cannot constrain Christ’s power of reconciliation, nor can they constrain humanity’s ability to come together.
Yes, newness is coming. And yes, newness has come. Sometimes I have trouble seeing it in a world that seems so backward, but I guess we must keeping looking for glimpses of the reality of the cross. We must keep looking for opportunities to fall in line — shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart.